So How Grim is it Up North?

In yesterday’s post on ‘Parks for the Poor’ we cited the impact of proximity to greenery – parks, woodland – on life expectancy in the UK. Seems that you are less likely to suffer stress-related illness, irrespective of your income class if you can chill in some nice green space.

Now comes the news that Manchester is near the bottom of the league in environmental sustainability in the index constructed by Forum for the Future – and green space is part of the index. Manchester is down there at No.15 out of 20 – top place goes to Bristol and bottom goes to unloved Hull.

(Here is the list in descending order: Bristol; Brighton and Hove; Plymouth; Newcastle; Cardiff; Edinburgh; Sheffield; Leicester; Nottingham; London; Bradford; Coventry; Sunderland; Leeds; Manchester; Wolverhampton; Glasgow; Birmingham; Liverpool; Hull).

So while Manchester is aiming to achieve low-carbon city status by 2020, according to Forum for the Future,  it seems to have a long way to go. Ditto Liverpool, which starts from behind Manchester. Yesterday’s Daily Telegraph announced that “it’s still really grim up north”, with a north-south divide in the index. Yet that isn’t so evident: Newcastle and Sheffield are ahead of London (although the bottom of the index is decidedly northern). Daily Telegraph journalists might have difficulty finding Newcastle on a map.

However, Britain is far, far behind Europe – as a travel any Scandinavian city will demonstrate. Bristol is Britain’s lone entrant (in a field of 35) for the EU’s latest initiative – an annual European Green Capital. The green money is on Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Freiburg and Münster.

So a suggestion to the leaders of Manchester, Liverpool (and Hull): set a target to become European Green Capital in the next decade. Now that the British government is intent on reflating the economy by expanding infrastructure investment, put together an ambitious plan to redevelop your cities with – sustainability at the core.

Check out the research of Simon Guy and others in the School of Environment and Development at Manchester, in particular the Building Sustainable Cities Initiative. Greening cities is the BIG urban agenda. And it’s a poverty issue too – for greenery improves life expectancy, regenerates blighted urban areas, and encourages inward investment (and hence jobs). Win-Win.

And to cheer yourself up go to KLF (Jams) ‘its grim up north’ on YouTube – for some northern merriment in the ceaseless rain.

Regenerating Kingston, Jamaica

You wouldn’t usually connect the Prince of Wales to Kingston’s ghettos. But the Prince’s Trust is now helping to regenerate one of Kingston’s worst areas (see this piece in the FT). The area of Rose Town has disintegrated over the last 30 years, steadily becoming more violent and more derelict. The youth gangs of north and south Rose Town are at war with each other. UNDP reckons that 16% per cent of Jamaica’s population is in poverty.

So no Roses there. But the Princes Trust is now building new low density housing, designed to bring a sense of community back to the area. There has already been a reduction in tension in the area, comments the FT:

“One positive sign is that members of the rival north and south gangs have already come together through the Rose Town Benevolent Society, the local group overseeing the work”.

This is all part of a broader move to sustainable urbanism. The Prince’s Trust is considering projects in Sierra Leone, a country now at peace after a long civil war, but one where there is desperate shortage of housing.

Average cop has more integrity than the average professor

At least that’s what Harvard-trained sociologist Peter Moskos reckons. And he might know. He joined the Baltimore police force in the high crime Eastern district, after basing himself there for his PhD research into the methods and culture of an American Police department (go here for an interview). It has certainly given him a new view of academic research:

“I think in the Ivory Tower there’s a problem with researching a group without ever talking to them. In academia, it’s all about measuring in quantitative stats. Culture matters. Cops live and work there, so they can see it. It cannot all be explained by money. [Academics] think it’s all about racism and economics”.

His book Cop In the Hood: My Year Policing Baltimore’s Eastern District is out now. One to read before watching the next episode of the The Wire.