Between Bios and Philia: inside the politics of life-loving cities

This paper explores the work of a group of urban wildlife organizations (UWOs) involved in responding to human-wildlife encounters a Canadian city. Using Timothy Beatley's proposal for the biophilic city as an interpretive lens, I focus on the ways in which these organizations view the complications of living in close proximity with urban wildlife. In particular, I attend to the organizational labor that is associated with expressions of affection for wild animals and with the unintended consequences of green planning initiatives. UWO's interventionist niche complicates the ostensible simplicity of "connection to nature" and brings into sharper resolution the questions of who benefits from cities designed to attract nonhuman life, and at whose expense. Drawing on the evolving body academic work on the more-than-human city, I ask how a life-loving city might be re-imagined in the spirit of our complex emotional relations with other animals, and what role this interventionist infrastructure could play.