Analysis for Friends of the Earth also finds lower-income areas have far fewer trees than wealthier ones
Nearly half of English neighbourhoods have less than 10% tree cover, with lower-income areas having far fewer trees than wealthier ones, analysis has found.
England’s tree cover is just 12.8%, according to the research by Friends of the Earth, with only 10% made up by woodland – paling in comparison with the EU, where woodland cover stands at 38%.
Continue reading...DfT also says bids for new £200m funding pot for England could include plans for better school routes and inclusive street designs
Council bids for a £200m funding pot to boost walking and cycling must “take women’s safety into account”, according to the Department for Transport (DfT).
A 2021 Office for National Statistics study showed half of women felt unsafe walking after dark in a quiet street near their home.
Continue reading...After over a decade of living across two countries – and navigating the US’s tangled immigration policies – Tom Kobylecy and Yedid Sánchez’s life together is no longer shrouded in secret
Tom Kobylecy and Yedid Sánchez’s budding romance took place amid the intoxicating odor of woody oak and sawdust of a Chicago-area Home Depot. Her cleaning shift started at 6am, just as his shift restocking store shelves was ending. He would linger to strike up a conversation, but Yedid, a native of Cuernavaca, Mexico, spoke little English. The few Spanish words he could muster came out in a nasally midwestern accent.
After a few stilted attempts at conversation with the help of bilingual friends, she asked for his nombre, Spanish for name. “I thought she was asking me for my number,” Tom said. So, naturally, he gave her his number. A week later he asked her out for pizza. On their second date, he asked her to go fishing. Tom caught three and prepared them shake ’n’ bake-style. Yedid didn’t let on that the meal was not particularly appetizing – if she had they might not have kissed later that evening.
Continue reading...Disparity between rural and urban areas uncovered by Lib Dem FoI requests to 10 ambulance trusts
Patients in some rural areas wait almost three times longer for emergency ambulances than those in towns and cities, while people with potential heart attacks or strokes now face a one hour 40-minute average wait in one area, statistics have shown.
The disparities were uncovered by freedom of information requests by the Liberal Democrats to England’s 10 ambulance trusts, which in turn covered waiting times for 227 areas across the country.
Continue reading...Visits for retail and recreation have boosted activity in Sydney and Melbourne, but work from home preferences are keeping office trips low
Activity across Sydney and Melbourne’s central business districts is still below pre-Covid levels as work from home preferences keep office vacancies high – however, the business community is heartened by a surge in recreational visits that is expected to “rebalance” Australian cities.
Melbourne’s CBD was 33% less busy from mid-September to mid-November this year compared with the same period in 2019, with Sydney’s CBD slightly more active, down by 30% on pre-Covid levels, according to movement data drawn from anonymous mobile phone activity and analysed by research firm Roy Morgan.
Continue reading...After three riders died in September and injuries rise, doctors are pushing for better helmet compliance and a rethink on regulations
State and territory governments have largely resisted calls from doctors for tighter regulation of e-scooters, despite a recent spate of accidents that caused serious injuries and deaths.
Last month three Australians died while riding e-scooters, doubling the number of fatalities since 2018, when the first rental scheme was rolled out in Queensland.
Continue reading...Intervention expanded to include financial decisions and governance after report calls for urgent reform
The government’s intervention in the running of Liverpool city council is to be expanded to include governance and financial decision-making.
It comes after the publication of another critical report on the local authority by four commissioners appointed last year to work with the council staff in key areas after an inspection.
Ten-year-old girl suffers major head injuries as motocross bike rider at meet-up in Pontoise hits two children
French politicians have called for a crackdown on urban dirt-bike riding as a 10-year-old girl was critically ill in hospital after being hit by a motocross bike while she played on a housing estate north-east of Paris.
An 18-year-old boy was being questioned by police on Sunday after he handed himself in at a police station, accompanied by his lawyer.
Continue reading...The Line – due to be just 200 metres wide – will make Neom world’s most liveable city ‘by far’, officials claim
The promotional material is striking: two mirror-encased skyscrapers stretching more than 100 miles across a swathe of desert and mountain terrain, providing a future home for 9 million people. Is it the ultimate in high-density living, or a grandiose science fiction fantasy?
In short, economists, architects and analysts are not quite sure. So extravagant is Saudi Arabia’s plan to create an urban utopia that even those working on the project, known as the Line, do not yet know if its scale and scope can ever be realised.
Continue reading...Noise meters will be deployed to confirm ‘acoustically stressed’ areas where action will be taken
Barcelona’s streets and plazas have long been home to a raucous cacophony of restaurant patios, buskers and throngs of residents and tourists. Now the city is on a mission to find out just how noisy these spaces can get, with the installation of sound level monitors in 11 areas.
“It’s an absolute priority,” said Eloi Badia, the Barcelona city councillor for climate emergency and ecological transition. “Noise pollution – with all of its sleep disorders, pathologies and stress – is one of the most important public health issues we have in the city, second only to air pollution.”
Continue reading...Region has two-thirds of world’s most dangerous cities, with Bogotá, Rio, Mexico City and San Salvador also named in study
When police found the body of Marcela Graciano, a 31-year-old Colombian DJ, last Thursday, the brutality of the crime shocked even them. Her body, found in a house in a suburb of Medellín – Colombia’s second city – revealed signs of torture and her hands had been tied behind her back.
“The body was in an advanced state of decomposition,” the local police chief, Col Rolfy Mauricio Jiménez, said. The Valle de Aburrá municipality has had 11 murders this year, authorities said.
Continue reading...Stanley in Falkland Islands also becomes city after contest marking Queen’s platinum jubilee year
Doncaster, Milton Keynes and Stanley in the Falkland Islands have been awarded city status, approved by the Queen, in a competition being held as part of the platinum jubilee celebrations, the Cabinet Office has announced.
The eight winners of the 2022 Platinum Jubilee Civic Honours competition, also included Bangor in Northern Ireland, Colchester in England, Douglas on the Isle of Man, Dunfermline in Scotland and Wrexham in Wales.
Bangor (pop 61,000) in Northern Ireland was a key site for allied forces during the second world war, with supreme commander Dwight D Eisenhower giving a speech to 30,000 assembled troops there shortly before ships left for Normandy and the D-day invasion. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh visited Bangor Castle in 1961 before lunch at the Royal Ulster Yacht Club in the run-up to Prince Philip racing in the regatta. Previously, Edward VII had visited in 1903.
Colchester (pop 122,000) is Britain’s first recorded settlement and its first capital, and for the past 165 years has been a garrison town. Firstsite, its contemporary art gallery, was named Art Fund museum of the year in 2021.
Doncaster (population 110,000) highlighted that its “community spirit and resilience was demonstrated during the Doncaster floods in 2019 as the community rallied to provide relief”. Originally a Roman settlement, it is home to the St Leger, founded in 1776 and the oldest classic horse race in the world, regularly attended by royals since George IV. It has made three previous attempts for city status.
Douglas (pop 27,000) has links to the royal family through the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which originated there, with George IV as first patron, and the Queen patron today. Its cultural highlights include the annual Manx Music Festival, dating from 1892, and the Isle of Man Film Festival, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year.
Dunfermline’s (pop 56,000) most famous son is probably Andrew Carnegie, whose steel and industry helped build the US, and whose philanthropy started the world’s public library system, according to Dunfermline’s bid. Its royal links stretch back to the reign of Malcolm III, king of Scotland from 1058-1093, when he set up his court there.
Milton Keynes (pop 223,000), a new town started in the Queen’s reign, is described in its bid as “the pinnacle of the national postwar planning movement”. Today it has 27 conservation areas, 50 scheduled monuments, 1,100 listed building and 270 pieces of public art.
Stanley, in the Falklands, (pop 2,100) has been regularly visited by members of the royal family, including Prince William, who spent six weeks based there as a search and rescue helicopter pilot. This year marks 40 years since the Falklands conflict.
Wrexham (pop 42,500) boasts the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct, a Unesco world heritage site described as a “masterpiece of creative genius”. It is also home to Wrexham Football Club, established in 1864 and said to be the third oldest in the UK and with the world’s oldest international ground. In the past decade, Wrexham has become one of the fastest-growing retail centres in the UK.
Continue reading...Contenders hope to use the status as a springboard for social and economic recovery
Bradford, County Durham, Southampton and Wrexham county borough have been shortlisted to become the UK next city of culture, it has been announced.
The finalists were whittled down from a record 20 bids to eight longlisted regions, which also included Cornwall, Derby, Stirling, and the district of Armagh City, Banbridge and Craigavon.
Continue reading...Traditional defences may fail, and migration won’t be possible for everyone. But we may yet find more creative ways to live
We have passed the point of no return: rising seas will soon directly affect hundreds of millions of people around the planet. They will indirectly affect many millions more as transport connections, water supplies and factories in low-lying areas are lost or have to be relocated. What exactly are we facing? The latest research suggests we are likely to see a rise of a metre by the year 2100. Given how much carbon dioxide is already in the air and oceans, as much as three metres may be baked in over the 200 years or so that follow. And while that might seem like a long way off, coastal groundwater levels will rise much sooner, wrecking infrastructure and causing toxic pollution well before cities such as Miami, New York and San Francisco are permanently inundated.
Where will all those people, warehouses, water treatment plants and rail lines move to, given that the interior of large land masses will have become drier? The forced migration of hundreds of millions of people will undoubtedly lead to serious international conflict over space and basic resources like fresh water. Conflict is another word for war.
Continue reading...At 180 metres tall, pyramid-shaped glass and steel skyscraper will be city’s third-highest building
Construction of a 42-floor, pyramid-shaped skyscraper began in Paris on Thursday despite local opposition and objections from environmentalists who have called the project “catastrophic”.
The Triangle Tower (Tour Triangle) will, at 180 metres (590ft), become the city’s third-highest building after the Eiffel Tower, completed in 1889, and the Montparnasse Tower, which opened in 1973.
Continue reading...Clever corvids become newest weapon in Södertälje’s war against street litter
Crows are being recruited to pick up discarded cigarette butts from the streets and squares of a Swedish city as part of a cost-cutting drive.
The wild birds carry out the task as they receive a little food for every butt that they deposit in a bespoke machine designed by a startup in Södertälje, near Stockholm.
Continue reading...Phoenix’s new ‘heat tsar’ is betting on less asphalt, more green canopy and reflective surfaces to cool the sprawling heat island
A surge in heat-related deaths amid record-breaking summer temperatures offer a “glimpse into the future” and a stark warning that one of America’s largest cities is already unlivable for some, according to its new heat tsar.
Almost 200 people died from extreme heat in Phoenix in 2020 – the hottest, driest and deadliest summer on record with 53 days topping 110F (43C) compared with a previous high of 33 days. Last year there were fewer scorching days, but the death toll remained staggeringly high, with people experiencing homelessness and addictions dying disproportionately.
Continue reading...Budapest’s £67m new museum doesn’t just nestle among trees – they grow through it. But is Sou Fujimoto’s ravishing creation just another cultural bauble for repressive leader Viktor Orbán?
A great big crumpet appears to have landed in the middle of Budapest’s City Park, its circular hole-studded mass impaled on a thicket of trees. It droops down here and there, revealing little terraces cut into its top, and flares up elsewhere, showing off a sparkling underside of tiny golden leaves.
This surreal sight is the work of Sou Fujimoto, a Japanese architect known for making his models out of piles of crisps, washing-up scourers, or whatever else may be to hand. In this case, it wasn’t a crumpet but a lotus root that inspired this canopy, which now provides an otherworldly home for the capital’s new House of Hungarian Music. In a city that already has a renowned opera house, music academy and numerous concert halls, what could this €80m (£67m) project possibly add?
“We want to show the wonder of music to a younger generation,” says music historian András Batta, managing director of the new centre, which opened on Hungarian Culture Day this weekend. He is standing in the building’s glade-like interior, where oval openings bring light down through the swooping ceiling, and an aperture in the floor gives a glimpse of the exhibition level below. Faceted glass walls enclose a 320-seat concert hall and a small lecture theatre, while a suspended staircase spirals up to a library, cafe and classrooms, housed in the undulating roof. “Budapest has a very rich musical life already,” he adds, “so we didn’t want to repeat what you can get elsewhere. This is not just for high and classical, but ethnic, folk and pop – the really exciting side of music.”
The building is one of the first major elements of the €1bn Liget project, a controversial vision concocted by populist prime minister Viktor Orbán’s rightwing government to transform the Városliget area into a showcase of Hungarian national culture. A €120m Museum of Ethnography is nearing completion nearby, in the form of two gigantic sloping wedges rearing up out of the ground, clad in a strange lacy wrapping that nods to Hungarian national dress.
Continue reading...After independence in 1960, the country cast off western influences and forged a new African style full of triangular forms, rocket-shaped obelisks and rammed earth. Is this spirit now being suffocated? Our writer takes a tour of the capital
Visiting the International Fair of Dakar is like taking a stroll through the ruins of some ancient Toblerone-worshipping civilisation. A cluster of triangular pavilions rises from a podium, each clad in a rich pattern of seashells and pebbles. These are reached by triangular steps that lead past triangular plant pots to momentous triangular entranceways. All around, great hangar-like sheds extend into the distance, ventilated by triangular windows and topped with serrated triangular roofs. All that’s missing is triangular honey from triangular bees.
Built on the outskirts of the Senegalese capital as a showcase for global trade in 1974, this astonishing city-sized hymn to the three-sided shape was designed by young French architects Jean Francois Lamoureux, Jean-Louis Marin and Fernand Bonamy. Their obsessive geometrical composition was an attempt to answer the call of Senegal’s first president, the poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, for a national style that he curiously termed “asymmetrical parallelism”.
Continue reading...Nasser Sari has grown a huge social media following documenting life in one of the poorest French neighbourhoods. Now he wants to enter national politics
Influence is not a word readily associated with St Jacques, the Gypsy quarter of the city of Perpignan. Yet, on a recent chilly night shortly before 8pm, the ineffable hand of influence is behind an outbreak of street theatre on the plane tree-lined oblong of Place Cassanyes. People are arriving in droves. By 7.50pm, there must be more than 200, mostly young men, in rowdy clusters. Smoking, yelling, stretching, one group doing can-can legs: it’s like Fast & Furious without the automobiles.
One man in a red Adidas tracksuit is trying to line everyone up across the square’s breadth. A beacon in a sea of dark casual-wear, the influencer known as NasDas – St Jacques born and bred – is responsible for this circus. The previous night, NasDas posted to his 1.2 million followers a picture of one of his posse holding up a crinkled €500 bill, followed by footage of a previous Place Cassanyes footrace. Tonight is a rerun, only with a bigger prize. But this time the turnout is far bigger, too. Streaming live on Snapchat, he’s antsy: “On my mother’s life, I didn’t expect this kind of crowd – from Avignon, from Marseille, from everywhere.”
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