News

New York Wants to Make Nature Part of Its Infrastructure

The new 2025 Biodiversity Plan marks a historic shift in how cities approach the environment.

New York has just taken a bold step toward a new urban model — one in which nature is no longer decoration but treated as essential infrastructure, alongside housing, transportation, and energy.

The report “Oaks, Our City, and Us”, released in October 2025, is the city’s first official document proposing a coordinated biodiversity policy. The initiative seeks to correct a long-standing imbalance: despite being one of the densest metropolises on Earth, New York is also a major ecological hotspot, home to coastal ecosystems, migratory birds, and native species that survive among skyscrapers.

Biodiversity as Infrastructure and Justice

The plan’s main innovation is to reclassify biodiversity — no longer as a luxury or “green embellishment”, but as vital urban infrastructure.

This change in perspective is built on two key pillars:

• Infrastructure: Urban nature must be planned, funded, and managed like other essential public service.

• Justice: Access to nature must be equitable. Every neighborhood — regardless of income — should have contact with green spaces and areas that foster biodiversity.

This vision combines technical and social arguments: investing in nature not only for its beauty but for its power to improve public health, mitigate floods, reduce heat islands, and promote well-being and equity.

The 2% Proposal: Putting Nature at the Heart of the Budget

One of the plan’s most ambitious goals is to allocate 2% of the city’s budget to parks and urban green areas.

Currently, the Parks Department receives less than 1%, which, for decades, has limited maintenance and expansion of the city’s green spaces. The idea is to institutionalize investment, turning care for nature into a permanent obligation rather than an annual political dispute over funding.

The report also proposes the creation of a Biodiversity Office — a new governance body that would coordinate ecological data and actions across city agencies.

A Global Movement of Cities for Nature

New York’s plan doesn’t exist in isolation. It draws inspiration from leading cities such as:

• San Francisco, which integrates biodiversity into its climate action plan;

• London, which requires “net biodiversity gain” in new developments;

• Singapore, which has set measurable targets like planting one million trees by 2030;

• Paris, which converts old infrastructure into ecological corridors.

With “Oaks, Our City, and Us”, New York seeks to join this movement and take subnational leadership, especially in a context where the U.S. has yet to ratify the UN Convention on Biological Diversity.

The Challenge Ahead Is Political

More than a technical document, the plan represents a test of political will.

The question hanging over the city is simple yet powerful:

Is New York truly ready to give nature the same level of priority as housing and transportation?

If the answer is yes, the impact could extend far beyond the city’s borders — serving as a global model for urban ecological governance and proving that even in the world’s largest metropolises, there is room (and a need) for life to thrive.

Conclusion

New York’s example reinforces a global trend: urban sustainability isn’t just about planting trees — it’s about redefining the role of nature within city infrastructure.

As countries around the world seek to balance urban growth with environmental preservation, one question remains universal: How can our cities — from São Paulo to Singapore, from New York to Nairobi — treat biodiversity not as an accessory, but as an essential right of urban life?

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Video

São Paulo: A City Built Above the Law?

São Paulo didn’t grow like a tree. It is shaped — or rather, produced — by political and economic foces that don’t always play by the rules.

Behind every avenue, luxury building, and “urban void”, there’s a powerful machine driven by profit and influence. Developers, banks, and public officials form what some experts call an urban growth machine — a structure that, instead of meeting the needs of the people, serves the interests of a few.

This logic runs deep. From the coffee boom to the present day — through industrialization, the military regime, and countless master plans — the city has been designed o keep power concentrated in the hands of those who control the land and know how to bend the law to their advantage.

Meanwhile, the impact falls on those living at the margins:

• Inadequate housing;

• Long commuting hours;

• Urban heat islands;

• Lack of green spaces;

• A growing mental health crisis.

All of this is directly connected to how we choose to use urban land — and even more importantly, who gets to decide how it’s used.

The question remains: are we building cities for people or for capital?

What can Change?

A fairer, more sustainable, and healthier São Paulo doesn’t depend only on new construction, but on new urban planning principles — based on the social use of land, building retrofits, environmental regeneration, and transparency in property ownership.

More than concrete, we need purpose

Want to Dive Deeper?

Interested in learning more about how São Paulo was built?

Watch our full video on this topic now!

⚠️ Note: The video is in Portuguese (PT-BR), but AI-powered simultaneous translation and subtitles are available in multiple languages.