Landscape Journal - Summer 2020: Bringing nature into the city

Page 18

BRIEFING

Bernie Foulkes

We have only 30 minutes to save the world A bit dramatic? It’s meant to be. Like some latter-day fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, COVID-19 rode into view behind climate emergency, the fourth Industrial Revolution and Brexit and it is this one that could change the way we think about the world around us in the most fundamental way. Lockdown has made our world shrink, with everything you might need to survive and to thrive within 30 minutes of your doorstep, on foot or by bike. It has made us find out more about our neighbours and our neighbourhoods, the healing power of nature and the spaces we share. Our powers of observation have become more acute, which makes our environment feel richer and more meaningful. We have often wondered if it will ever be this quiet again. We need to use what we have learned. We must not forget what we have realised we love and value, nor the emotions and the feelings we have shared. This new world has revealed the shocking inequality all around us. Those of us lucky enough to own private gardens experienced lockdown differently to the family living on the 15th floor with no private space: the same people who were demonised

in the press for using crowded public parks in the middle of our crowded cities. It has become clear that space is not equally shared. So, tipping it on its head, this is the chance to plan our world around us in a different way. Imagine a placemaking plan focused on delivering most of the things we need within 30 minutes of our doorstep, both for places that only exist in the future and for existing places we retrofit. Abandon the outdated plans for a bypass, give us all superfast broadband instead. We need more trees, more cycleways, less tarmac, a pocket park instead of a car park, locally grown food instead of berries from South America – the list will be long. Let’s map that 30-minute circle, marking the things that you came to realise matter most and the things that don’t. Plot the things that are missing and imagine, if they were there, where they might be. What’s outside the circle that you want inside? And what could you live without? Is this the moment to rethink densities? Crowding people into undersized apartments in tall residential buildings around transport hubs might make sense if you think of people as a commodity in a flow

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diagram, but we know now how it comes at the expense of their health and their sanity. This would never happen in a 30-minute place. People need better housing space standards and access to green space. Is there any good reason why nurses or teachers or cleaners should not be able to afford to live within 30 minutes of their workplace? Fundamentally, this is about making an equitable and resilient place, built around the health and wellbeing of people and the health of the planet. We need to get together and draw this plan now. There’s not a moment to lose. Bernie Foulkes is a master planner, urban designer and landscape architect at LDA Design.

Sarah Gaventa

Protecting parks saves lives too You know we are living in extraordinary times when banana cake recipes are trending, the new voice of reason on Twitter is Piers Morgan and a housing minister is talking about how important parks are. The history of parks in Britain has always exposed an interesting and fraught relationship between the 18

state and the public. Whether they were transformed from hunting parks, created by philanthropist and councils, by subscription to keep the riff raff out, only open to the poor for free for two days a week (Regent’s Park), they all helped to keep civil order by giving the underprivileged (but not the ‘verminous’) a chance to cough up the dirt from factories and the smog from

our cities. Many were created due to the determined petitioning by the public who demanded them as their right, reflecting how social justice and our parks have always been intertwined. But we have rarely valued them at a government level (certainly not since WWII) nor have ever defined them as a statutory service, which has always left them exposed and a local authority

1. The 30 Minute Place is vibrant, well connected and mixed use. © Bernie Foulkes


Articles inside

Jane Findlay article cover image

Jane Findlay

10min
pages 61-64
Adam White article cover image

Adam White

6min
pages 58-60
Climate change resources – nature in the city article cover image

Climate change resources – nature in the city

4min
pages 56-57
Can COP26 cope with climate and COVID-19? article cover image

Can COP26 cope with climate and COVID-19?

5min
pages 54-55
Designing the urban microbiome article cover image

Designing the urban microbiome

6min
pages 51-53
Bringing nature into school grounds article cover image

Bringing nature into school grounds

6min
pages 48-50
Hedging our bets: greening the grey in towns and cities article cover image

Hedging our bets: greening the grey in towns and cities

5min
pages 46-47
Bringing nature into the twentieth-century city article cover image

Bringing nature into the twentieth-century city

6min
pages 43-45
Balcony rights and wrongs article cover image

Balcony rights and wrongs

10min
pages 39-42
Hamburg – home of the Green Network article cover image

Hamburg – home of the Green Network

6min
pages 36-38
The Catalyst Cube: thinking outside the box article cover image

The Catalyst Cube: thinking outside the box

4min
pages 34-35
The transformation of Medellín article cover image

The transformation of Medellín

8min
pages 31-33
Manifesto for future relations of landscapes article cover image

Manifesto for future relations of landscapes

6min
pages 28-30
Bath City Farm – farming for life article cover image

Bath City Farm – farming for life

9min
pages 22-25
Valuing London’s urban green space in a time of crisis – and in everyday life article cover image

Valuing London’s urban green space in a time of crisis – and in everyday life

5min
pages 20-21
Protecting parks saves lives too article cover image

Protecting parks saves lives too

5min
pages 18-19
We have only 30 minutes to save the world article cover image

We have only 30 minutes to save the world

2min
page 18
Reclaiming, reimagining and redefining our streets article cover image

Reclaiming, reimagining and redefining our streets

2min
page 16
Creating street space out of adversity article cover image

Creating street space out of adversity

3min
page 15
Not all key workers wear scrubs article cover image

Not all key workers wear scrubs

3min
page 14
Reality check article cover image

Reality check

2min
page 13
Landscape for health and wellbeing article cover image

Landscape for health and wellbeing

2min
pages 11-12
Landscape architecture studio keeps pace during COVID-19 article cover image

Landscape architecture studio keeps pace during COVID-19

2min
pages 10-11
Connecting with nature in British Columbia article cover image

Connecting with nature in British Columbia

2min
page 9
The challenges of urban open space in the post-pandemic global south article cover image

The challenges of urban open space in the post-pandemic global south

3min
pages 6-8