Nourishing and protecting our urban ‘green’ space in a post-pandemic world

Abstract

‘Green spaces’ provide important cultural ecosystem services in our towns and cities. ‘Green’ space may come in many forms – for example parks, village greens, urban commons, or just neglected and undeveloped wasteland. But all of it is important as it can provide much needed space for open air recreation and exercise in crowded urban areas. The covid-19 pandemic and associated lockdown has shown just how important it is for us to have easy access to open space for recreation and exercise. But much of our green space is, in an age of austerity, under threat. Covid-19 has shown that we need to reappraise planning policy for the designation and protection of new areas of green space in our urban environment; to better protect existing open space, including village greens and commons; and to seek to rebalance planning policy to ensure that the drive for new housing does not take place at the expense of ensuring that adequate green space is provided for existing and future communities.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Horticulture: Critical Issues and Opportunities Derived from an Unexpected Occurrence

“…An acceleration of the transformation of the urban environment has also been observed during the pandemic. As was reported in several case studies, the use of green infrastructures significantly increased in 2020 [98][99][100]. As a result of the closure of cinemas, restaurants, gyms, libraries, cultural centers etc., people have shifted their recreational activities to parks, yards, and urban forests, in part with the aim of relaxing.…”

Green Infrastructure in the Time of Social Distancing: Urban Policy and the Tactical Pandemic Urbanism

“…Text descriptions and hashtags provided insight into public and green space users mindsets during the lockdown. Frequent themes in the text included: thankfulness, joy, gratefulness and kindness (15); lockdown movement and travel restrictions (11); Isolation hardship/solitude/social distancing (10); count of lockdown days (7); fun activity and exercise (6) and spending time with family or the "bubble" (5) (Other less common descriptions were focused on the empty city, closed, unused infrastructure (4); remedy, relief, keeping sanity and self-care (3); "Stay in bubble", "Stay safe", "Stay local" cautionary messages (3) and coronavirus, COVID-19 (2). Post included a great variety of attached hashtags with many of them quite descriptive: #remedy, #stayhome, #kiakaha #lockdowndoesnthavetobeboring, #lockdown, #bubblebuddies, #lockdowndiscovery, #covid #selfcare, #dayX (a count of lockdown days, example: #day7)).…”

Evaluating the risk of accessing green spaces in COVID-19 pandemic: A model for public urban green spaces (PUGS) in London

“…The pandemic demonstrates an urgent need for green spaces, especially for short-distance activities ( Kleinschroth and Kowarik, 2020 , Ugolini et al, 2020 ). Scholars are actively engaged in the discussion of new changes in human social behaviour and the use of the public spaces under the containment measures ( Geng et al, 2020 , Honey-rosés et al, 2020 , Mehta, 2020 , Rodgers, 2020 ). A large body of studies on the use of green spaces over the pandemic time has been published recently.…”

“…A study about the accessibility and allocation of parks in England and Wales suggests the necessity of developing relative policies of restricting access to high-risk areas and diverting the visitors to different access time periods, considering the potential overcrowding situation in the parks ( Shoari et al, 2020 ). Rodgers (2020) urges for a response from the planning system to ensure the availability of green spaces and the protection of existing green spaces.…”