Newly Released: The Ethics of Cities by Timothy Beatley

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Author: Timothy Beatley
April 2024
The University of North Carolina Press

The Ethics of Cities: Shaping Policy for a Sustainable and Just Future addresses the ethical dilemmas and value conflicts that affect cities globally. Urban leaders and citizens often avoid confronting these conflicts directly and instead view the governance of cities as primarily an administrative task or, even worse, a merely political one. In this title, Timothy Beatley, the School of Architecture's Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities, challenges readers to consider the issues in our cities not simply as legal or economic problems but as moral ones, asking readers:

How can a city become more ethical?

Beatley unearths, exposes, and explores the many ethical questions cities face today and touches on many topics, from privacy and crime to racism and the ethics of public space. Drawing from recent policy debates and using extensive examples to consider complex ethical dilemmas, Beatley argues that cities must expand the definition of the moral community to include all their citizens.

Cities must take profound steps to address social injustice and plan for climate change—both moral obligations—and this approachable and readable introduction to moral philosophy, urban planning, and social justice will help new generations to grapple with these global issues.

Beatley deftly tackles a wide range of 
contemporary issues, like privacy and
 technology, and perennial issues, such as
 equity and democratic processes, with
 compelling detail. In this timely and
 impressive book, he goes a long way
 toward rectifying the short supply
 of scholarship on the topic
of ethics and cities.
 

Nikhil Kaza, Professor of City and Regional Planning, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill

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Author

Timothy Beatley is the founder and executive director of Biophilic Cities, which coordinates a global network of partner cities working collectively to conserve and celebrate nature in urban spaces. He is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia’s School of Architecture and is the author of several books, including Ethical Land Use: Principles of Policy and Planning.