Dwellbeing E-Book

Claire Bradbury

• Herausgeber: Flint
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Seitenzahl: 407

Beschreibung

In recent times, we have all questioned whether we feel truly nurtured by where we live. With 68 per cent of the world's population predicted to live in cities by 2050, Dwellbeing is a call to stand firm on the seven pillars we cherish and so desperately need from our city homes: wilderness, nourishment, movement, connection, dwelling, imagination and love. Claire Bradbury is the ultimate urban nomad: born in the South African bush, she has spent her life working and living in cities across the globe. As an environmentalist, sustainability expert and wellbeing advocate, she explores how we can change the story of our city homes to be about dwelling, rootedness and joy, rather than a relentless rat race. She has spoken to everyone from city dwellers, street artists and planners to chefs, DJs and architects around the world to unearth the everyday actions that have the power to enhance our lives. Dwellbeing celebrates the leaders, creators and urban heroes who are rewriting the script on urban living, helping us to make the shift from 'smart' to 'lovable' cities. This beautiful book shows that, when it comes to reimagining our urban futures, everyone has a voice.

Leseprobe

For Mum and Dad, tireless adventurers.

First published 2021

FLINT is an imprint of The History Press

97 St George’s Place, Cheltenham,

Gloucestershire, GL50 3QB

www.flintbooks.co.uk

© Claire Bradbury, 2021

Cover illustration © Melissa Turland, 2021

The right of Claire Bradbury to be identified as the Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing from the Publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 7509 9912 0

Typesetting and origination by The History Press

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ Books Limited, Padstow, Cornwall.

eBook converted by Geethik Technologies

CONTENTS

Foreword

Love and Loathing in the City

1 Wilderness

2 Nourishment

3 Movement

4 Connection

5 Dwelling

6 Imagination

7 Love

Sources and Further Reading

Acknowledgements

FOREWORD

In 2007, and for the first time in human history, half of the world’s then nearly 7 billion people lived in towns and cities. Until that point, and for millennia before, we lived in more natural or rural settings, as hunter-gatherers and then in agricultural landscapes.

The rise of urban areas was driven by economic opportunity, convenience, security and, of course, our highly sociable nature. Urbanisation continues and it is expected that by 2050 about 68 per cent of all people will be living in cities, and by then our population is projected to rise to around 9.5 billion people.

The twenty-first century is thus an urban story, with a process that began in its modern form during the Industrial Revolution now having taken on the dimensions of a fundamental and on going global shift, with massive ramifications for all aspects of how we live.

As we look at the nexus of multiple social and environmental challenges that face us today, from the decline of wild species to the rise of chronic illness, it is clear that if we are to resolve these issues then in large part it will be in cities that we will succeed.

In the pages that follow Claire Bradbury takes us on a journey of discovery into the places most of us live where, during our collective Covid-19 trauma, hyper-local living forced many into a kind of familiarity with their urban environments that had not been experienced before. She draws on personal experience, as well as a vast body of evidence and learning, to seize this moment and to paint a vivid picture of how cities can nurture amazing lives for people, if only we draw on collective insight and muster the will to achieve just that.

While some have recently fled the cities in favour of more rural environments, this book is a reminder of why it is vitally important that we fall back in love with our cities, as habitats and hubs for the regenerative future we must create, for if we don’t create that in cities, we won’t create it at all. This will require us to revisit how we move, eat, interact, play, live and work in our ever-expanding urban areas, and how in that context we can create the green and blue environments that a vast body of evidence now reveals are not only vital in tackling global change, but are so important for people’s health and wellbeing.

But what might be good for one city may not be the best for another, so Dwellbeing is less of a blueprint and more an engaging fresh perspective on what have become deeply entrenched challenges. It debunks the myth that cities are necessarily frenetic, hostile and rootless places, and reveals instead how the big questions are indelibly linked to why so many of us choose to live in them in the first place.

This highly readable book presents answers, and I am sure will be a major contribution toward securing amazing and sustainable urban futures during the decades ahead.

Tony Juniper CBE

Environmentalist and Chair, Natural England

July 2021

LOVE AND LOATHING IN THE CITY

What is the city but the people?

William Shakespeare, Coriolanus (1623)

THE QUESTION I’M most often asked is, ‘Where are you from?’ While I’m comfortable with home being a fluid concept, this doesn’t always satisfy human curiosity. It’s usually safe, as a migrant, to anticipate the follow-up question – ‘but where are you actually from?’ It can continue like this, quite maddeningly, until you’re presented with some kind of ultimatum scenario like, ‘If the world was ending tomorrow, where would you call home?’

In a way, the world did end – at least as we knew it – in 2020, and for most of us the notion of home was suddenly pushed to the front of our minds.

I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, to a British–Austrian father and Irish mother. My parents met in Gauteng where they were united by a sense of adventure, a love of Africa and a life on the move. When the tension of apartheid made spiralling violence an ugly part of everyday life, we made the heartbreaking decision to leave. Over the next few decades, life stretched between England, Australia, France, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Tanzania and Scotland until, more recently, I returned to England and put down roots in London.

My early life was split between mining towns in the Highveld coal belt, the wild coast of Kwa-Zulu Natal, and deep in the wilderness of South Africa’s iconic national parks. I had an idyllic and peaceful upbringing in the bush, where I was the only white kid in my school, life was outdoors, immersion in nature was regular and I slotted in amongst a menagerie of animals. My parents travelled far and wide, and I went with them. As far as I was concerned, this was all entirely normal. It was only when I began the process of making and remaking my home that fielding questions and assumptions about my heritage and sense of belonging became the norm.

I suppose my memories of being a young South African migrant still lurk beneath the surface. Coming from a long line of stoic adventurers, my response to constant moving was just to get on with it. The chance to make and remake myself again with each change in home is simultaneously empowering, disruptive and addictive. Being a chameleon becomes a lifestyle choice, and it’s only recently that I’ve paused to reflect on the enormity of life on the move. As adaptable as I am, I also know only too well the deep ache that comes from displacement, the yearning to be in several places at once and the desire to take a small piece of each home and stitch those pieces together to make a perfect whole. The sunny side of this is that having a multitude of homes is entirely possible, each existing in different pockets of time and place, each special in their own way. As I travelled further and further from my roots in the African bush, I learned that belonging can be a portable concept. Nowhere have I felt it more than in the city. What is it, then, about the seductive warmth of cities that encourages us to find home within them?

Like many things in 2020, writing this book didn’t go according to plan. The year certainly got off to a promising start, beginning, for me, on the banks of the Mississippi River in New Orleans – a bewitching, spirited city whose history, music, people, weather, food and art combine to form a complex and soulful mix of urban life.

A few months later, my dad, uncle and I climbed Mount Kenya with our friend and climbing partner Raphael, who had travelled across from Tanzania. We now know, with the benefit of hindsight, that there were huge amounts of luck on our side to be able to complete this trip. At that stage, the true extent of Covid-19 was uncertain but global travel was certainly dwindling. When we summited at sunrise one frosty but calm morning, we were the only ones on the mountain. On the roof of Africa, we felt as we so often feel on the peaks: unstoppable. Little did I know that this wouldn’t be the only or even the biggest obstacle to overcome that year. Spending the following week in Kenya’s Meru region, I also had no idea that this would be my last dose of wild, untamed nature for a while. It wasn’t until later that it became clear we had escaped with only modest disruption to our travel. Across the world, borders were tightening. Raphael, having left us in Nairobi and returned to a remote mine site in Mbeya, became stranded for the next seven months, unable to get back to his wife and family in Johannesburg.

Back in the city, we were lucky enough to have a few last hurrahs; the panic, though settling in, was still sporadic. I went to the ballet and the Banff Mountain Film Festival in packed-out theatres, and my spin classes were fully booked, but cafes, shops and trains were eerily empty. My neighbours and I went to a local supper club, followed by cocktails in the basement bar of a laptop repair shop. What started off as a civilised evening ended up, as most good nights do, in our local and much-beloved pub. This was our last, hallowed night out before we went into the first lockdown, and we still talk about it today.

The deviations of 2020 and 2021 brought some challenges when it came to researching and writing this book. My infinitely patient and becalming editor, Jo, with me every step of the way, witnessed my erratic shuffling across the spectrum of love and loathing for the city. Three months into the first lockdown and I was already grounded in one place for longer than I had ever been in my life, sparking a monumental exercise in self-reflection.

This is a book about living deeply and joyfully in cities, and the fact that the solutions for many of our challenges begin in our neighbourhoods – in our homes and on our streets. My intention is to uplift and inspire, rather than dampen and blame. In researching this book, I’ve drawn on my travels, my homes and my workplaces – all of which have involved getting under the skin of urban living. I’ve interviewed experts and city dwellers alike. All the many conversations I’ve had in the course of living an urban life have been woven into this book: anecdotes, gripes, quips, drunken rants, and stories of heartbreak and hope.

I’ve decided to dial down the noise surrounding our institutions because we hear enough from them. It’s time for some new voices and stories – those that reflect the real, everyday, lived experience of life in cities.

The seven pillars that follow – wilderness, nourishment, movement, connection, dwelling, imagination and love – are what I believe the city (wherever it may be in the world) is built upon. These pillars frame the explorations in this book as they are indelibly bound up in our urban experience. They are what contribute to the resilience, diversity, charisma, creativity, humour, beauty, contrast and magnetism of our city homes. No one understands the city better than the city dweller, and this might yet be the greatest power we have.

1

WILDERNESS

There is a love of wild nature in everybody, an ancient mother-love showing itself, whether recognized or not, and however covered by cares and duties.

John Muir

I’M AN URBAN blow-in. Like millions of others, I’ve adopted the city as home. In my truest form, I belong in the wild. My soul and deepest sense of place is grounded in the African bush. So, I’ve often found myself asking: how on earth have I fallen head over heels for the city again and again? The answer isn’t so much to do with me as it is to do with being human. As a species, we’re remarkably adaptable and it’s this ability to remake ourselves that helps us make sense of – and even relish – life in cities despite them being a far cry from our primal origins. Each one offers a unique, vibrant footprint for community or shared existence that keeps us coming back for more.

There’s one thing that humans, rural or urban, can’t live without, though: the wilderness. Visible or not, it dictates our quality of life. Our traditional model of city living belies the depth and complexity of the lives they support – humans and wildlife alike. As our nature blind spot has got bigger, we’ve been playing with fire in pushing our habitats to their limits. As Marco Lambertini cautioned in the World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF) Living Planet Report 2020, our current circumstances are ‘a clear manifestation of our broken relationship with nature’.

Our intense focus on high-volume, high-speed commerce has cultivated an environment that has conveniently kept nature from view. When we concentrate on buildings and economic capital over the experience of those who live in the city, we create a greyscale version of life.

Cities can be magnificent but, in their current form, they are leaving us depleted. Retreating behind walls, both literally and figuratively, has eroded our environmental wisdom – our innate faculty to observe, understand and live tunefully within nature. When this wisdom disappears, we’re left feeling out of kilter, restless and yearning for something ‘other’ than our urban landscapes. This gives us some indication that the underlying conditions may not have been the most nurturing. The idea of cities as nothing more than relentless centres of commerce is rooted in the shifts brought about by the industrial revolution that have framed city life as the ‘daily grind’, ‘hamster wheel’ or ‘rat race’. These terms conjure ideas of suffering and lack of autonomy, where life is a matter of surviving rather than thriving. As nature has been forced to retreat, how can we revitalise our connections with the outdoors?

We need wilderness in all forms – parks and median strips, canals and rivers, harbour foreshores and beaches, allotments and guerrilla gardens, street planters and rooftop farms, as the calm yin to the frenetic yang of city life. When we dilute our high-octane lifestyles with a dose of the outdoors, great or small, we are reminded that we belong in nature and not as its master.

We should see this as a positive: when we loosen the grip on the reins we have less to do and can enjoy ourselves more. We seek solace from urban stress because the city can feel like a daily assault course. We might, for instance, spend hours squeezed in a dala dala to travel a few kilometres in Dar es Salaam, wait on a steamy New York platform to shoehorn ourselves into the L train, or breathe dangerous air pollution on the way to and from school in Kampala. With many versions of this scenario playing out for city dwellers daily, it’s hardly surprising that we want to dive into the nearest patch of wilderness we can find. When the Covid-19 pandemic hit, our world contracted and our urban greenspaces were the first places we turned to for solace.

There are few silver linings to the turmoil we’ve all faced in the past year or so, but Covid-19 has shown that we do not always need to travel far for respite from the city grind. Our traditional notion of what holidays should be and how they should look was turned on its head in 2020. We were reminded of how much we had to appreciate at home.

The pandemic has also highlighted the beauty of simpler and more connected ways of living. In the UK, the first lockdown in March 2020 coincided with the sunniest spring on record, and people headed to their local parks or waterways to give themselves a much-needed boost of vitamin D and endorphins. Places that were usually empty and forgotten – like cemeteries or tiny outcrops of parched grass in the middle of the city – became the high points around which our days were anchored. Londoners began noticing common garden birds whose warbling was no longer drowned out by the din of traffic. Taking advantage of the lull, families emerged into uncluttered streets where children played; would-be cyclists became bona fide cyclists, relishing the chance to navigate their city without running the risk of being squashed or verbally abused; and the intrinsic value of natural, open spaces went up.

Wilderness is vital to humanity. Beyond survival, it helps shape our identity, connects us to our instincts, supports our wellbeing and underpins quality of life. When we understand the transformative role of the urban wild on our quality of life, we can think about how our daily behaviours can, do and should breathe life into nature. When it becomes entwined in our daily routines, we will fight to protect it.

OUR NATURAL IDENTITY

Anyone who has lived, worked in, or visited a city can identify with the break in intensity that comes from stepping into a leafy park or taking a moment in a city farm. This is because our systems are pre-programmed to decompress in natural places. We are already seeking them out because we are hardwired to do so.

Yet, somewhere along the line, ‘the city’ as an institution closed the door on nature. As our pathways to the wilderness have become blocked and our sprawling cities are creating an ecological cul-de-sac, the grey, crowded and built-up worlds we have created leave us thirsty for something that exists beyond the city limits. Whatever we call it: nature, wilderness, greenspace, bluespace, recreation space, gardens, allotments, freedom to roam – it’s a must-have. This does not change from season to season, it will not be in vogue and out again. The natural world is our moral, psychological and physical compass so it is no surprise that, without it, we find ourselves floundering. When this happens, it usually doesn’t take much digging to find that the web of urban pressures – urbanisation, extreme gentrification, resource shortages and competition for land – have caused our urban wilds to ebb away.

Life in cities can be depleting and unrelenting. They’re often unequal, expensive, noisy, dangerous, dirty, crowded and intense. Whether we’re conscious of it or not, it takes tremendous amounts of energy to live, work and socialise in these conditions. When we lose time in the wilderness, the symptoms of city fatigue become compounded. What’s scary about this is how insipid nature deficit is – it really is a case of use it or lose it. While we’re holed up inside forgetting the beauty or calm of our outdoor spaces, they are under existential threat. This is a problem because we spend a considerable portion of our lives indoors. Some cities have a better track record of getting their people outdoors whatever the weather, but globally it’s not been a good picture for outdoor lifestyles, although the Covid-19 pandemic has given us the nudge we needed to get outside.

The reality of wilderness in densely built-up urban areas is that it is often found in tiny pockets, and this can make it hard to see the full picture. Because these spaces have traditionally fallen into the camp of ‘too small to matter’, we tend to think of nature as something ‘out there’ rather than central to the identity of our urban environments. Big nature, wild and untamed, can feel remote and difficult to tap into. But when we do, it has a way of reaching straight into our hearts to remind us where we come from and grounds us in the present.

I have a penchant for mountains and have been making my way up, down and between summits across Africa and Europe with my dad over the past decade or so. Plans often go awry – our expeditions have seen us stranded in a tin boat in an electrical storm on Lake Victoria, DRC; dangled off the side of Mount Elbrus, Russia; lodged in crevices in the Rwenzori Mountains in Uganda; and charged by wildlife, to name a few. But even the most hair-raising moments in the wilderness are precious. It’s here we learn what we’re about, testing the depths of our stamina and our ability to read nature’s cues. We don’t quite need to replicate life or death experiences in cities (let’s face it, there’s already enough to be stressed about), but we do need nature to expand our horizons, nurture our minds and bodies, and disrupt the ‘grey normal’ we’ve come to accept. Wilder cities will be more playful, reflective and enjoyable to be in. They’ll also be healthier and more prosperous. It’s a win-win and city dwellers are already on board. The shadows of nature – Table Mountain in Cape Town, New Mexico’s forests or Vancouver’s creeks and inlets – are helpful, visual reminders that nature is right here with us.

When it comes to balancing the nature deficit, most of us are in the red. Acclaimed writer, psychologist and wilderness guide Dr Ian McCallum, speaking at a Power of Resilience event run by ROAR AFRICA in 2020, lamented the physiological and psychological adaptations and stressors that occur when we do not have access to nature. The deficiencies we start to experience when we lose this connection are real and I’m yet to meet a city dweller who doesn’t identify with the feeling of disconnection from nature. The question, then, is: how do we rebalance this shortfall?

ESCAPE TO THE CITY

Time in the wilderness does something profound to us, whether we take the active outdoorsy route or prefer to stop and smell the roses. Immersed in it, we find it easier to unplug from our digital lives, breathe deeper and sleep better. This is because getting out into the wild reacquaints us with the natural cadence of the day, connecting us back to our circadian rhythms such as the sleep–wake cycle. These moments are precious kindling for the soul and help us feel able to keep going, to resume the grit and intensity that might await us back home.

Words like ‘escape’ and ‘retreat’ have become part of the narrative of city life because we’re often living in an environment that feels worth running from. When we leave our urban spaces for time in the country or by the sea, we commonly take with us emptied tanks, frayed nerves and shorter fuses. But what would it be like if city dwellers were already surrounded by nature, so that when we choose to leave the city, we do so already feeling nourished? It would be a truly wonderful thing to get to a point where we don’t need to travel into wild nature to resuscitate us, but we start with a fuller tank. To do this, we need to look at how we can create this nurturing experience in our neighbourhoods on a regular basis so that we aren’t leaping across the spectrum from frazzled to restored and back again, but instead reaching equilibrium in our urban homes. If connection with the natural world is intrinsic to city life, we are more likely to feel that we belong as part of it. This might mean we make different decisions about where we go, how we spend our time and why.

In the years following the Covid-19 pandemic, travel will be more restricted, and we will be looking closer to home for respite and fun. The periods of lockdown across the world saw us all leaning on our urban wilds for support, kick-starting renewed appreciation for their value and thinking carefully about where we spend our leisure time. Inadvertently, mercifully, we may have spawned the era of conscious travel where now, if we are going to move beyond our cities, we will seek to do so wisely and well.

As nature has become the province of those who can afford to travel, an empathetic city should be asking what happens to those who remain, whether out of love, loyalty or obligation. When Covid-19 hit, for example, the affluent city dwellers and second-homers fled, from New York City to the Hamptons, London to the Home Counties, Johannesburg to the Hibiscus Coast, and so the story went on across the world. But it doesn’t need to be this way.

When travel escapes us, there are many ways we can connect with bigger nature from within our cities and sometimes from within the comfort of our own homes. Film festivals like the Banff Mountain Film Festival and Ocean Film Festival transport us to the lives of modern-day adventurers – the people ‘living big’ out there in the wild – even when we cannot adventure ourselves. On the less adrenaline-fuelled end of the spectrum, we can spend a quiet few hours taking in a photography exhibition like the Wildlife Photographer of the Year, which offers powerful, resonating imagery from some of the further reaches of the planet. At home on our screens, we are lucky enough to have the charisma and dedication of the king of natural history, Sir David Attenborough, bringing nature into our homes, as well as many others.

This is especially important when we consider city dwellers who don’t have access to nature that might lie further afield. As we recover from life in lockdown, we need to pay careful attention to how we enable equality of access to nature in cities as it really does feel a luxury to be able to escape. The prescription to ‘spend more time outdoors’ doesn’t go far enough. It’s not as simple as just getting outside more; the quality of our natural places, time to enjoy them and their accessibility is critical too. Being aware of some of the visible and invisible obstacles to our urban wilds can help us make them more welcoming. Gender, ethnicity, mobility and socio-economic status, to name a few, can cause city dwellers to shy away from wilderness areas. Beth Collier, of Wild in the City, champions Black leadership and representation in nature because she recognises that Black and minority ethnic groups have not always felt welcome. This is true too of the rural wilderness. The University of Leicester’s 2011 Rural Racism report looked specifically at how ethnic minorities were made to feel out of place in Britain’s countryside. A sense of belonging is not the only issue – it can often be coupled with fear. All too often, the wilderness that exists outside the city boundaries can also seem off limits, the preserve of genuine country dwellers, or a playground for those who are privileged enough to afford to work hard in the city and party hard in the country.

NURTURING OUR INNER WILD THINGS

If urban landscapes are where we spend most of our time because of relationships, work, education, services and social structures, we need to learn how they can nurture us. To be able to enjoy the full advantage of urban wilderness, it helps to major on their recreational value and this means seeing them as less municipal and more playful. By valuing them for their fun and inclusivity, we can make everybody a champion for the wild, regardless of circumstances.

It’s rare that time in the wilderness isn’t about fun. From playground monkey bars to field sports, it taps into one of our deepest human needs: playfulness. Stuart Brown, managing director of the National Institute for Play, describes play as a ‘deep instinctive fundamental need’ that is intrinsic to our heritage. Dr Brown points to our similarities with other animals but, despite the fact we get immense pleasure from watching the antics of our children and pets, grown-ups seem to do a lot less playing, perhaps because we are more self-conscious and strapped for time. This might be one of the reasons why we enjoy taking dogs to the park so much – we’re almost living vicariously and experiencing joy through them. But as soon as we shed these shackles, we’re in for a treat. In my outdoor bootcamps, I always make sure we play a game or two in the session just to break up the intensity and give us the chance to be silly. It could be something as simple as tag, a wheelbarrow race or a riff on duck-duck-goose, but it is guaranteed to spark joy. My clients, ranging in age from their early twenties to late sixties, are soon in fits of infectious laughter and not a weekend goes by without a passer-by sidling up and asking how they can get involved in the fun. I’m sure that the dose of silliness, developing those social bonds and the chance to roll around in the grass are all as beneficial as the workout itself.

One evening in 2020, finding myself in Belfast for work, I ran around the city’s Titanic Quarter and happened upon the industrial play park at the river’s edge. My first response was an inward moan about the absence of green. But what it lacked in vegetation, it made up for with water, and there was something so captivating about this expanse of hard-standing ground in the middle of a port. Surrounded by freight containers and in the shadow of Samson and Goliath – the iconic shipyard cranes – the former Harland & Wolff shipyard is something of an amphitheatre to the hubbub of port life. As the sun faded and was replaced by the twinkling city lights, the shipyard became a magnet for people. It was a large open space and well lit, which meant that even on a long winter’s evening there were families, youngsters and the elderly enjoying the safe openness of the space while a colony of seals snoozed at the water’s edge. Being relatively flat and paved, it was also a paradise for skaters, cyclists and roller bladers. Something about the combination of the port activity, which awakened in me a sense of familiarity with the cities of Sydney and Cape Town, and the visibility of people using a post-industrial space as their playground reminded me of the alternative forms of beauty we can find in our built environment and city infrastructure. At its best, it is enhanced by greenspace or bluespace.

Some cities have been innovative in changing the story of their existing natural assets. The Paris Plage project has done just that by transforming the Seine into an aquatic playground. Each year, since 2002, the banks of the Parc Rives de Seine and Canal de l’Ourcq switch from functional and pretty-enough towpaths into a seaside-inspired playground. Against the backdrop of Paris’ iconic architecture are beach huts, sunbeds, planted areas and terraces, which encourage visitors to linger. In the Quai de Loire, a network of swimming pools becomes part of the everyday flow, including pools to suit children and those with reduced mobility. Revellers can also canoe, ride a zipline, learn first aid, take an art class or kick back with a book available from a satellite library. Perhaps being grounded over a particularly scorching European summer reminded us all of the need – not to mention the pleasure – of being outside. Paris is greenspace and garden light, as is typical of many European cities, so the Paris Plage isn’t just a gimmick – it has also provided essential outdoor space and a forum for residents of all ages to connect, blow off some steam and have a little fun outside of the usual four walls. This example shows the raft of creative possibilities to enjoy the city’s natural and artificial public spaces. Blue or green, they should be inviting and safe for us all to play in.

Examples like the Paris Plage also spark collective curiosity about forgotten places – those that may have been relegated to the purely municipal or industrial. This is especially true of waterways, and London Waterkeeper’s campaign for a Thames ‘Fit to Swim’ shows that the health and wellbeing benefits of a river that is fit to swim in could be transformational for Londoners. Not only would attitudes towards the river change if it is viewed as a public amenity rather than an industrial artery, but the possibility for increasing physical activity is huge. Swimming and all manner of water sports would also increase if people felt able to venture into the water without fear of getting sick. Rivers that are healthy for people are also healthy for wildlife. Generally, we want to be in places that support fish, birds, amphibians, insects and mammals because they are fundamentally lovelier and far more interesting to be in and around. We also know that they can protect our cities from the effects of our rapidly changing climate.

A LANDSCAPE OF LEARNING

As we move along the spectrum from concrete jungle to the real jungle, we experience a sharpening of the senses. This is because natural landscapes were the nucleus of human activity before we adapted to the urban environment. The primal role of nature is what brings us that sense of internal quietness, letting us tune into our surrounds and soften the internal dialogue of ‘what if’ and ‘what next’. Deborah Calmeyer, of inspirational travel company ROAR AFRICA, speaks beautifully of the wilderness as ‘the cathedral for our souls’. When I spoke to her in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 – Deborah in New York and me in Belfast – we both lamented our absence from Africa, especially at a time when going outside was off the cards. Perhaps it was unfair to pass judgement on the city then – barely anyone was enjoying life! But she observed that it’s only when we stepped away from the noise that we realised how much our traditional city lives were dulling our senses. Wild places, Deborah says, feel profound and transformative because they are. They renew our sense of place in the world, give perspective and down-regulate our nervous systems. They also help us process new ideas and tap into new ways of interacting with our urban worlds.

To understand the impact of the wilderness on our souls, we can draw on our experiences in deep nature. Time in the wilderness is often as much about the psychological journey as the physical. Climbing in the mountains, for instance, is a surefire way to re-energise and restore my mental energy. The empowerment and courage I felt after reaching my first summit of over 5,000m returned with me to the city and fundamentally changed my approach to my career and the workplace from then on. Where things like office politics, bureaucracy and power play might once have taken up considerable energy, returning from playing in the mountains sharpened my problem-solving, sense of perspective and ability to quell panic. The mountains are also a crash course in gratitude and humbleness, as we learn to appreciate being at the mercy of a force we cannot control. Some of the lessons are hard – poor weather, gear failure, sickness and loss of nerve can mean that summit attempts are canned at the last minute. But, up there, above the clouds and gulping thin air, we become grateful for every life that we share the trail with. The mountains are, I recognise, an extreme example; not everyone relishes the thought of using precious holiday time to chase difficult summits, live under canvas and have the occasional brush with death. More importantly, not everyone is able to do so either. The appeal of the wilderness is highly dependent on character, experience, mobility and socio-economic status, but whatever shape they take, visits to wild places plant the seeds for the next generation of environmental champions. So, in order to inculcate a sense of protectorship over the city wilderness, we have to adapt these experiences to the urban context. After all, we can’t expect our city dwellers to protect what they can’t see or feel.

Our psychological and physical distance from the wilderness poses a real challenge to stemming the collapse of global biodiversity. The vulnerable wild places that we hear about can feel very far from us and become even more removed when we can’t relate to a local proxy for wild places on our doorstep. Without this proxy, it can be hard to connect with the plight of our critically endangered species, many of which live a world away from the city. But all is not lost. As we become more curious and learn more about what nature can do for us, we’re more likely to invite it into our lives, becoming attuned to how everyday actions can have an impact beyond our immediate field of vision. The growing number of city dwellers aligning their values to consumption choices and patterns (like reducing plastic, opting for high-welfare meat and campaigning for climate action) can often be dismissed as the furthering of an elitist lifestyle but, in reality, the campaign for regenerative, natural cities is one that can improve the urban lived experience for all of us.

Not everyone has the means or inclination to immerse themselves in the wildest of places, but those who do can have a lasting impact on the everyday spaces they inhabit once they return from their adventures. In tapping into the immense generosity and philanthropic psyche of her guests, Deborah has created a model where clients, having made the connection with nature, will continue to invest in and protect it long after their journeys to Africa have ended. Learning from the wilderness and taking its lessons home to the city is not something we can mandate but, Deborah muses, it’s often inevitable. If we feel like a nudge is helpful, we can ‘sew it into the experience so that people feel it in their own way’. One of the questions she often asks her clients is what luxury means to them; the answers are perhaps unsurprising but poignant: hearing the sounds of the bush, sleeping well, being able to see green and experience natural light. They are all a pretty damning reflection of the acuteness of our nature deficit. No wonder we often return from time in the wilderness and reflect that our lives have been changed. But if we need deep pockets just to see the sky or sleep well, something has gone seriously awry.

The world over, there are huge inequalities of access to these transformative experiences, particularly for children and young people. In the wake of the second wave of Covid-19, funding was reduced or withdrawn from outdoor centres across the UK. In an article in the Cambrian News in October 2020, Sara Jones, who runs an outdoor centre in North Wales, reflected that for some inner-city children, school trips to the centre may be the only chance they get to leave the city and experience nature first-hand. Time in nature connects us to our sense of wonder, awakening our curiosity and the desire to explore that is so woven into our heritage as a species. This is why we should be doing everything we possibly can to make high-quality natural places available and accessible in our cities. Where they aren’t on our doorstep, we need to recognise what the barriers look like, especially for under-represented groups. Los Angeles-based Community Nature Connection has observed that lack of transportation to Los Angeles’ incredible natural spaces is one of the biggest obstacles to access. Their Transit to Trails programme runs free trips, led by naturalists, from the heart of urban communities to the parks, mountains and oceans fringing Los Angeles.

Our hunch that nature is important for learning is correct, and compelling evidence supports the power of nature-based learning. In 2019, the Frontier Psychology Journal reviewed the robust body of studies on this score, all showing that hands-on learning in and about natural habitats improves academic performance compared with conventional methods of teaching, and boosts ‘critical life skills like critical thinking, leadership, teamwork and resilience’. Just as importantly, the evidence shows that establishing an emotional connection to the natural world inspires environmental stewardship. Their conclusions press for bringing nature into the mainstream education system. There are plenty of examples, such as the Danish concept of forest schools, which has been widely adopted across the globe, the eco schools programme in Tanzania, Uganda and Malawi, bush schools in Brisbane, Australia, and Nature Kids/Jóvenes de la Naturaleza Lafayette in Colorado, USA.

While researching this book, it became increasingly clear that we still don’t do enough to teach children about nature and humanity’s place within it. If, from a young age, we establish a deep connection to wilderness as our life-support system, would we rewire our ingrained habits and even change the aspirations of the young? In recent years, we’ve certainly seen the impact of young voices like those of Greta Thunberg and others, amplifying critical issues such as climate change. Armed with the knowledge of what nature in all its forms gives us (protection, food, medicine, essential services, recreation and so on), it’s likely that the curiosity of our children would spark a return of personal responsibility for our wild spaces. The effects of engaging our children stand to engender liveable, lovable spaces that help both humans and wildlife thrive.

DESIGNING NATURE-RICH CITIES

Biophilia is an elegant term that recognises our innate need for nature. It means, quite literally, love of nature, and is believed to have been first used by Erich Fromm in the 1970s. In his 1973 The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, Fromm described biophilia as ‘the passionate love of life and all that is alive’; the term was later popularised by American biologist Edward O. Wilson.

As we’ve become increasingly urbanised, we have drifted away from our natural roots, and the built environment that seals us indoors in order to protect us and make us more productive has also severed our connection to our most primal life-support system. Urban buildings represent the most visible manifestation of the walls we need to put up to protect ourselves in cities, cocooning us from the outside world so we can work, train, learn, love and heal. Yet, all these activities stand to benefit from rewilding our souls and, if you are a numbers person, these more than stack up. Research by Terrapin Bright Green LLC in 2015 shows that biophilic design can impact job performance (10 per cent of employee absences are linked to buildings with no access to nature), healing rates (hospital stays are more likely to be 8.5 per cent shorter if the patient can view nature), learning rates (children learn 20–26 per cent faster in natural daylight) and violence statistics (areas with access to nature have reported 7–8 per cent less crime, and can add a premium to properties ranging from 4 per cent to 127 per cent).

Thought leader in city greening, Dr Timothy Beatley, uses the phrase ‘natureful’, and he is clear that for a city to truly embrace a love of nature, it can’t just contain it; nature must be woven into its residents’ daily experience. Elements of biophilic design are on show in cities across the world.

Singapore has established its supertrees – colossal organic structures that emerge from the ground to provide shade during the day and a spectacular light show at night, which is visible from across the city. The living skin of the eighteen trees is also home to over 158,000 plants. Singapore’s prioritisation of access to nature is manifest in its public spending, and mental-health charity Dose of Nature reports that 0.6 per cent of Singapore’s annual budget (US$150 million per year) is spent on increasing greenspace. Interestingly, even as its population expands, its proportion of nature is increasing – proving that greening can go hand in hand with urbanisation.

Atlanta, one of the highest density commercial cities in America, has focused on welcoming its migratory birdlife by creating more habitat and nesting sites for birds such as the chimney swift (which are, incidentally, crucial natural mosquito controllers) in Piedmont Park.

Perth, Australia, turned a 1960s brutalist and broken-down water feature into a freshwater urban wetland that has invited the return of wildlife lost when the area was drained for development. The Native Wetland, designed by garden designer and television host Josh Byrne as part of the Perth Cultural Centre project, cost A$100,000 – half the cost of replacing the original fountain. The centre now also includes a civic space for local workers, residents, school children and visitors to interact with the wetland, an urban orchard and a play space. In an article in Biophilic Cities Journal, Josh Byrne reflects on the centre as ‘a great example of where a bit of inner urban biophilia and civic space can go hand in hand’. Underpinning the business case for creating and managing public assets in a positive way, the wetland also alleviates risks from urban stormwater. Essentially, it acts as a set of kidneys, treating rainwater – which in an urban context is often polluted by hydrocarbons and other chemicals from vehicle runoff – before it ends up in storm drains and flows into the river basin.

A city woven into nature is a disarming and inspiring sight. But biophilia goes beyond beauty; it is also incredibly functional. Copenhagen’s ‘cloudburst projects’ emerged because of the increase in sudden, heavy storms (for context, in 2011 one storm resulted in 6 inches of rain in less than three hours; the bill for the damage was US$1 billion). We know that these ‘freak’ storms are now less freak and more standard. By designing parks that turn into ponds to redirect floodwater from the streets, Copenhagen shows us that we can have playful spaces that have alternative purposes. In apocalyptic rain, no one will be playing outdoor sport anyway, so why not let a hockey or basketball court double as a reservoir? Successful biophilic design encourages us to understand, and sometimes recover, a city’s natural roots so that we can make the best use of our space.

Whether we look at this through the lens of improving public health, growing social capital, attracting wildlife or designing places to work, relax or contemplate in, the case for biophilia in cities comes out on top. The only thing missing is our understanding of the city’s natural ecosystem to grasp these benefits, which might explain why biophilia is far from mainstream in the urban environment.

Roof space and walls are worth a special mention, too. According to a 2021 article in Circular Economy and Sustainability, in most developed cities, roofs take up 40–50 per cent of hardstanding surface area, and buildings make a hefty contribution to carbon emissions (45 per cent in the UK). So, turning our roofs from grey to green can lessen the environmental impact of buildings by 1–5.3 per cent. They also provide quieter places for our wildlife to get on with life without interruption.

The suggestion levelled by Dutch evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen, a professor at Leiden University and author of the 2018 book Darwin Comes to Town, is that we should create spaces for adaptive species to colonise of their own accord rather than engineering complete ecosystems. In architectural terms, this means designing spaces where biodiversity can flourish. Bioaugmented materials, such as the ‘living concrete’ being piloted by University College London’s Bartlett School of Architecture, can enable colonisation by airborne algae, moss and lichen spores – effectively mimicking tree bark. These innovations are game-changing in helping our urban wilds to thrive, and we need to invest more in making them accessible across our inner-city neighbourhoods.

We also need immersive natural spaces because physical and mental exposure to other species is critical to our sense of ecological happiness. As reassuring as a living wall might be, we cannot simply disappear into it when things get stressful. Nature wraps us up in a cocoon – it soothes the senses by intensifying natural colours, patterns and textures, giving us the scent and sight of greenery and a blast of fresh air, and absorbing unwelcome sounds while amplifying the natural cacophony, such as birdcall and insect chatter. By default, places that are welcoming to nature will be welcoming to us. This doesn’t necessarily work the other way around, so we need to seek places that offer reciprocal benefits and are not designed from an exclusively human-centric perspective.

Where original wilderness areas have been built over, reintroduction of the wild is possible and, as city dwellers, we have the chance to shape this. Biophilia shows us the potential for pockets of land, when left to take their own course, to breathe life back into depleted areas. Property developers and asset owners have proliferated doubt around whether there is space and budget for nature in the middle of the city. The real question is: is there space for a city without nature? If we can dig up anything hopeful from the Covid-19 pandemic, it is that it has rewired the hearts and minds of city dwellers who found themselves yearning for, leaning into or finding meaning in the great outdoors. By all accounts, the cities we want for our current and future selves are replete with nature.

SHARED SPACES