Pope Francis calls for "morally driven" city design in his climate-change encyclical

2015-06-19T15:07:00-04:00

Collectively, the encyclical affirms how important it is to make the moral case for city design. Too often, developers, urban planners and city leaders seem to think that it is obvious or implied why the decisions they make are in the best interest of the public. But there is no shortcut to articulating why our planning choices speak to the fundamental human dignity of the communities we’re working in.

"Given the interrelationship between living space and human behaviour, those who design buildings, neighbourhoods, public spaces and cities, ought to draw on the various disciplines which help us to understand people’s thought processes, symbolic language and ways of acting. It is not enough to seek the beauty of design. More precious still is the service we offer to another kind of beauty: people’s quality of life, their adaptation to the environment, encounter and mutual assistance. Here too, we see how important it is that urban planning always take into consideration the views of those who will live in these areas."

Pope Francis tells it like it is in his latest 184-page encyclical, in response to humanity's "principal challenge" of global climate change.

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Pope Francis calls for "morally driven" city design in his climate-change encyclical