The green belt is about more than protecting green fields
There is a huge debate in the UK about how to kickstart housebuilding. The new Labour Government is proposing relaxing rules preventing building on the ‘green belt’, saying much of this is ‘grey belt’ of poor quality land.
But I feel this misses the point as the green belts were created to prevent urban sprawl rather than protecting the prettiness of the countryside. Urban sprawl is almost always intrinsically unsustainable, as it rarely comes with local services or convenient public transport. For example 20 years ago I commuted daily from one town to a city by bus and, even in the space of two and a bit years, the journey time was repeatedly extended by the bus being diverted into new housing estates. This hardly encouraged the use of public transport.
The extremes of urban sprawl can be seen in the US. When I visited a friend in deepest Maryland suburbia, the pavements (sidewalks) stopped abruptly at the end of his cul-de-sac. There was no escape unless you had a car – we couldn’t even walk to the railway station a mile away.
What’s the alternative? Brownfield is often held up as the only other option and, yes, we should be remediating brownfield sites and bringing them back into use.
But there is another increasingly important opportunity to grasp which is rarely mentioned: our city centres. Almost every city I visit has been hit to some extent by the shift to e-commerce, whether via the Amazons of this world, or the digital economy. This means we don’t have to ‘go into town’ so much to buy stuff – and fewer of us commute to work. The shutters have come down on many big retail brands of late.
Much of the debate around 15 minute cities (ignoring the tinfoil hat brigade) is about bringing amenities closer to where people live, but we should also be bringing people closer to existing amenities. By converting some retail properties into residential homes and using much of the under-utilised space above shops, we can reinvigorate city centres, arresting the decay. A city centre flat gives you everything you need right on your doorstep – making walking the default transport mode.
The alternative is hollowed out cities, congestion and pollution. Hardly an agenda to cheer about. We need to think smarter, looking to city centres rather than the urban fringe.