Suburbia in the UK - its potential for increasing environmental sustainabilty in urban areas
In discussion of the need to make cities more sustainable, and the associated development of ideas about how the concept of the "compact" city helps to address the environmental problems caused by cities, the role and potential of the existing suburban development and its associated green structure has tended to be neglected. Yet this "suburbia" forms, and will continue to form for the foreseeable future, a major component of every UK city . A city's suburban area (here defined as low to middle density housing with gardens) contains a considerable proportion of land which is not built over or sealed in any way (mainly within private gardens). This land area can, through the straightforward design and application of locally appropriate regenerative design solutions at the level of the individual property. For example, the land can be used to:
- enhance biodiversity
- process, through composting, biodegradable waste
- hold and collect water from roofs and sealed surfaces to be used for gardens and car-washes
- reduce heat loss by increased use of climbing plants which create a "pocket of still air" next house walls
When communities work together more elaborate regenerative design solutions can be developed at a neighbourhood level which can also be developed to maximise the potential of the open surface areas within suburban development. For example, to:
- locate tree-belts to reduce the speed of the wind as it hits the house and, therefore, reduce energy consumption
- manage local surface water flows to reduce the local effects of "flash flooding" from the sealed surfaces and roofs
- create biodiversity "corridors" through housing areas linking a city's more naturalistic open spaces
Suburbia
For the purpose of assessing the impact of its built form on sustainability, suburbia is defined as those areas of the city where the built form comprises 1, 2 or 3 storey detached, semi-detached or terrace houses with gardens back and front, at a density of 12 houses to the acre or less. This built form includes housing built privately as well as by public agencies: housing originally built for the welloff, for those on middle incomes and even for the relatively poorly paid (many of the local authority estates built in the garden city form since the 1940s, and now notorious for their social conditions and high levels of unemployment, take this urban form). In Britain, suburbia is so extensive in most cities that inevitably it has a very major impact on a city's present levels of environmental sustainability - mainly through its adverse impact on transport. With the exception of the problem estates where the layout reflected the suburban form, these suburban areas of a city have tended not to be seen as problem areas - the planners have left them well alone while they have concentrated on urban renewal and regeneration. However, what seems to have been forgotten is that the existence of the suburban urban form also creates a great and mostly untapped potential for technologically simple and low cost environmental changes, changes which could enhance the general levels of sustainability within a city relatively cheaply. In particular, these areas give scope for very local environmental planning initiatives which can be undertaken by communities themselves.
Sustainable "actions" in suburbia
In these suburban areas local schemes could be developed to maximise the environmental effectiveness of the presence of large expanses of unsealed surface (bare earth or planted land); these occur within any area of suburbia, even when the density is relatively high. What can be done to use such spaces to enhance sustainability is a direct result of density. For instance, if one considers the extent of unsealed surface in any suburban area, it is possible to show how it allows local inhabitants to make increased use of native plants in their gardens, so improving biodiversity. Where there is sufficient space between buildings, the same areas of land could also (or alternatively) be used to plant large trees, to reduce heat loss from homes in winter, or to shade them in summer. Unsealed surfaces are also areas of land which allow the development of new surface water channels and retention areas to be considered - schemes which, if the local people are willing, can use gardens and local open spaces and roadside verges. Such local low cost water management schemes can aid in the reduction of flash flooding, thereby making the sewage system more effective and ultimately reducing the cost to the community of water cleansing.
In developing an approach to increasing the environmental sustainability of suburbia, there is a need to recognise that the problems and potential of existing suburban areas, particularly as they relate to sustainability, can be very diverse - no blanket national or even city-wide solution can be applied, since local physical and natural conditions vary greatly throughout the UK. Ultimately, it is what local people decide that they would like to implement on their own "territory" (in their homes, gardens and local public areas) that will determine whether cities become more environmentally sustainable entities. There is too much to be done for local authorities to undertake all the work themselves. For this reason somehow the local communities need to become involved in re-planning and re-engineering their own neighbourhoods, to achieve greater environmental as well as social sustainability. A mechanism needs developing to enable such involvement.
What can be achieved locally to improve levels of sustainability depends in part on understanding and using the interactions between the local physical and natural environmental characteristics which still underlie all existing built form. The pre-existing systems continue to function as much as our use of the land surface allows and can be the basis on which to build plans to enhance sustainability. The changing social characteristics of the inhabitants, as well as the associated local economic conditions, also influence what can be done on any area of land, as do the mechanisms in place to enable change. In reality, these are very complex issues which have taxed the minds of planners and academics for decades, the complexity almost creating a paralysis. We now have a situation where, if we do decide to plan to promote planning to enhance sustainability, it is very doubtful whether there are enough skilled people employed in local government, or available as consultants, to tackle the question of how to re-engineer suburbia as well as the denser urban areas, so that they function in a more sustainable way.
Suburbia - a way forward
Perhaps, therefore, it is timely to question whether the problem needs to be treated as so complex, particularly in relation to suburbia where change can happen relatively easily and comparatively cheaply. Can the question of how to enhance sustainability in suburban areas be addressed in another way than that normally adopted by the traditional town planning process when land-use change is considered? Can we develop instead relatively straightforward, common-sense approaches to some simple tasks which will improve the way we use water, deal with waste and reduce energy consumption, at the same time enhancing biodiversity? Only so much can be done by individuals in their homes, but there are nevertheless real opportunities for community involvement in re-engineering the local landscapes to make the form of development more sustainable. Could the role of professional environmental planners be reduced by setting the limits and giving only general directions to a community? This would reduce the cost to society and give the planners time to cope with broader issues, but in these circumstances would the desired environmental changes actually take place, or are the individuals that make up communities too disinterested in concerted actions?
This suggestion is not to decry the role of the professional planner, designer or environmentalist; it is just a pragmatic approach to the vast amount of work that needs to occur on the ground, throughout Britain, if Agenda 21 is to work in our cities. There is already more than enough work requiring skills in planning, engineering and designing in the more densely developed parts of our cities as well as in the projected areas of new build that will be needed to meet the estimate of over 3 million new homes required over the next 20 years.
|
