Reimagining our cities

“In town and in country there must be landscapes where we can walk in safety, pick fruit, cycle, work, sleep, swim, listen to the birds, bask in the sun, run through the trees and laze beside cool waters.” Tom Turner, Landscape Architect.

The Covid-19 lockdown has had a profound effect on the way that people feel about cities. Despite the evidence to the contrary, there is a sense that high-density living is, of itself, unhealthy – perhaps even dangerous. While higher-density cities are not necessarily more vulnerable to the impact of pandemics any more than lower-density cities are more resilient, there is increasing evidence that people are looking to move out to the suburbs or beyond, as quickly as possible. 

During the pandemic we have seen how important access to green space and nature has been for people’s physical and mental health. According to Sport England’s Active Lives survey 63% of people are now saying that being able to exercise and relax outside is more important than ever before.

In response to COVID-19 people are connecting more extensively with their neighbourhoods. The revaluating of place, experience and identity, the growing importance of the environment and the need to move towards a zero-carbon and thriving green economy now needs to be accelerated. 

The reasons for this are economic and commercial, as much as they are social and environmental. According to a recent McKinsey report, “To respond to the current and urgent threat of COVID-19, and to lay the groundwork to deal with what may be permanent changes for the industry after the crisis, real estate leaders must take action now.” (McKinsey & Co., April 9, 2020). The commercial property sector has been particularly hard-hit, with Covid accelerating the impact of a long-term decline of the high street and office buildings currently at about 20% occupancy.

John Lewis, the 160-year-old UK high street retailer, is dropping its “Never Knowingly Undersold” tag line in the face of online competition, just weeks after announcing the closure of its high-profile store in Birmingham’s New Street Station. And in London the subterranean retail complex below 1 Canada Square in Canary Wharf, usually thronging with the suited and booted, is a shadow of its former self.

New York, Paris, Madrid, Sao Paulo, Melbourne, Cape Town – nowhere is immune, no city unaffected.

There is a real and present danger of many of the world’s great cities simply being hollowed-out. Think of the fifty-year conversion of Detroit, from powerhouse of the US automotive sector, to bankruptcy – accelerated by a factor of ten.

City centres around the world will have to reimagine and reinvent themselves in order to survive.

Redpill Group Ltd is working with cities to do just that; combining citizen-centric smart city strategy with visionary landscape architecture to inspire city leaders, investors and innovators and give them fresh ideas, and hope, for the future.

Since March 2020 we have been working with Birmingham City University, the West Midlands Combined Authority, the Mayor’s Office and a range of stakeholders to accelerate a project called the West Midlands National Park: the brainchild of Professor of Landscape Architecture, Kathryn Moore. Professor Moore, Immediate Past President of the International Federation of Landscape Architects, described the overall approach in 2016 as part of the Tame Valley Wetlands Landscape Partnership Landscape Vision Development: https://www.tamevalleywetlands.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/TVWW_Report_Final_WEB.pdf

Our ambition now is to give the region and the cities within it, home to over 3 million people, a competitive edge that quite literally comes with its territory. Defining the region from a spatial landscape perspective in order to drive inclusive social, economic and environmental change. This work will re-evaluate the main barriers and challenges to our recovery in a post Covid-19 world, in the context of the need to address the climate emergency and create new and adaptive ways of living and working.

It will result in a region-wide spatial vision to kick-start a green post Covid-19 recovery and accelerate the journey to a zero-carbon economy. Specifically, ensuring that our partner cities can compete in the global battle for talent will enable the re-energisation and advancement of their knowledge economies, based on the excellence of their environmental, cultural and economic opportunities.

This way of reimagining a future for our cities that our children will thank us for is catching on. We are being approached by cities from around the world looking for inspiration and for fresh ideas. Our response is always the same; it’s absolutely right to look over the horizon to the future, but the answer is almost certainly right beneath your feet.

Dr Robin Daniels, Redpill Group Ltd.

Professor Kathryn Moore, Birmingham City University