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DIY Streets

How locals transformed rat runs into public spaces

Getting cars cars to slow down instead of racing through backstreet rat runs benefits everyone from cyclists to residents. Clapton Terrace is one of 11 "DIY Streets", a nationwide project launched by sustainable transport charity Sustrans as a cheap solution to local traffic problems.

 "Residents take ownership, so it becomes a public space not just for car traffic but for play and doing everything related to civic life. It gives residents the opportunity to design streets how they want and take ownership. That is part of the philosophy."

Newcastle - top green city

Newcastle-upon-Tyne takes top spot as Britain's greenest city

A city once wreathed in smoke and deafened by shipyard steel-hammers, has transformed itself into the greenest in Britain, according to the country's most comprehensive sustainability audit, published by Forum for the Future.

Tyneside's triumph drew on improvements in air quality, biodiversity in public parks and open spaces and the best salmon run on a English river. The audit shows the city performing well on waste collection, extending green space, life expectancy and the local strategy for tackling climate change.

Eco-blind-alley

For green living, head for Mumbai or New York  Simon Jenkins offers an alternative to the ecotown.

New York, London, Mumbai, Hong Kong are crammed with buildings and people, economising on walls, roofs, central heating, offices, open space and mass transit.

In Britain the VAT incentive to replace rather than restore buildings – the result of builder lobbying – is flagrantly anti-green. If Britain must build at all, it should build high-density, low-rise, which conserves energy more efficiently than high-rise.

Rise of the Brixton Pound

Rise of the Brixton Pound

The Brixton pound is the latest local currency to be launched under the umbrella of the Transition Town Network, a rapidly growing global movement that urges local communities to "respond to the challenges, and opportunities, of peak oil and climate change".

"The Brixton pounds could be a catalyst for both interaction and exclusion. Will it be seen by the black community as white, middle-class liberals doing their stuff? It could act as a wedge between the communities if not done right. Community cohesion is about creating shared spaces and values . The Brixton pounds scheme will need the black community to buy into it, or else it will be seen as a white pursuit."

Suburbs and eco-towns

Tristam Hunt: The suburbs are derided by snobs, yet they offer hope for our future

"Tight, compact cities such as Florence and Siena have been the inspiration for far too long. We now need to take a lead from Croydon and Kingston-upon-Thames."

Simon Jenkins: Ecotowns and turbines are a political slap in the face of the landscape 

"...ecotowns ignore the social dysfunctionality of new towns and are carbon extravagant, built from scratch with new infrastructure for car-dependent commuters."

Wasteland war is won with guerrilla tactics

Joe Swift on guerilla gardening

The green warriors whose direct action transformed a bomb site into an inner-city garden that a whole community can now enjoy.

 How I transformed concrete tubs into a flourishing garden 'I became a guerrilla gardener over a decade ago. My family had moved to a kind of North London San Andreas fault where gentrification meets desolation...'

C40 meeting in Korea

World Cities Tackling Climate Change

C40 is a group of the world's largest cities committed to tackling climate change. Cities have a central role to play in tackling climate change, particularly as cities bear a disproportional responsibility for causing it. In fact, cities consume 75 per cent of the world's energy and produce 80 per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions. That is why it is so important for cities to work together, set the agenda on this issue and show leadership on this issue.

Through effective partnership working with the Clinton Climate Initiative C40 will help deliver emissions reductions and better energy efficiency.

Albert Basin and Elephant and Castle selected for newly launched climate positive development program

Sustainable Cities at the British Library

Sustianable Cities

The Natural Capital Initiative and Science Council are holding an evening event on 15 June 2009, to explore the concept of ‘greening’ a city at  the British Library.

The panellists will explore what it means to be ‘green’. What does ‘greening’ a city actually mean? How can we make sure that our cities are cosmopolitan and dynamic, meeting the needs of their population, while also ensuring that they are fit to meet the environmental challenges posed by a warming climate.

An elevated alternative to Central Park

Walk the line   Manhattan's High Line Park, a disused aerial railway reborn as a lush ribbon of gardens, is about to open.

It is organic and architectural. Quite different to the more commercial, conventionally pretty elevated rail viaduct park Promenade Plantée in Paris. It is a wild, low maintenance environment, a curvi-linear boardwalk that will flow for 22 blocks through woodlands, grasslands, sundecks, art installations, public squares and performance spaces. In essence, be the cultural anchor of the neighbourhood.  

Recession opens possibility for community land

Common ground

The recession is shifting attitudes about land ownership, making it easier for local people to club together to buy sites - from inner London to rural Devon.

Practitioners  argue that urban neighbourhoods and villages around the country are crying out for new, equitable forms of land ownership - dictated by need, rather than by greed - to deliver affordable homes, new businesses and community facilities that are no longer at the mercy of markets.

Community Land Trusts a resource to assist you develop community land trust solutions for affordable housing, amenity and workspace in Britain.