Timothy Beatley
Professor of Sustainable Communities
University of Virginia
Timothy Beatley is the Teresa Heinz Professor of Sustainable Communities in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning, School of Architecture at the University of Virginia, where he has taught for the last 24 years.
Much of Dr. Beatley’s work focuses on the subject of sustainable communities and creative strategies by which cities and towns can fundamentally reduce their ecological footprints, while at the same time becoming more livable and equitable places. Dr. Beatley believes that sustainable and resilient cities represent our best hope for addressing today’s environmental challenges.
Dr. Beatley is the author or co-author of more than fifteen books on these subjects, including Green Urbanism: Learning from European Cities, and Native to Nowhere: Sustaining Home and Community in a Global Age. He recently co-authored two new books with Australian planner Peter Newman: Resilient Cities and Green Urbanism Down Under: Learning From Sustainable Australian Communities.
His most recent book is Biophilic Cities: Integrating Nature into Urban Design and Planning, which argues that cities can and must be designed to permit daily contact with the natural world. It identifies a variety of means for doing this, from green walls and rooftops to urban forests and sidewalk gardens.
Dr. Beatley recently collaborated on a documentary film about green cities and urban nature, entitled The Nature of Cities, which has been shown on PBS stations all over the U.S. He also writes a regular column for Planning Magazine, called Ever Green, about environmental and sustainability matters. His research has been funded by a variety of agencies and organizations, including the National Science Foundation, Virginia Sea Grant, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, among others.
Dr. Beatley holds a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a Master’s in Urban Planning from the University of Oregon, and a Bachelor’s in City Planning from the University of Virginia.
"I see my role as one of imparting the absolute essentials of citizenship in the twenty-first century, where diminishing oil and natural resources, and the challenges of global climate change, as well as a host of other social and economic problems, come together to require new forms of leadership and new kinds of citizenship in the world."