In a nutshell...
As I stated in my previous post on ‘what is sustainability?’ I am introducing the main themes to my blog, and today that is ‘Reimagining York’. So, what is this theme about? Well, in a nutshell, it’s about how York could look like as a sustainable city!
Why York?
York is my hometown, a place I know and understand deeply and a place I care about. I have often thought about how the place is and how it could be and now I have finally decided to share those thoughts and opinions with a wider audience. I hope that through these posts I can engage with people in contribution to a more sustainable York.
So is York sustainable now?
The short answer to this is no! Below I’m listing just a small handful of areas that need addressing in York, there are many many more!
- 1286 homes were sitting empty in 2020, an increase on 2019, with housing expensive compared to income
- York had 20 days of poor air quality in 2020, whilst two air quality zones exceeded national air quality objectives
- Carbon emissions per person were 3.19 tons in 2019.
- There is rising food insecurity, with York Foodbank alone providing 5025 emergency food supplies in 2020
- The last census, 2011, showed that 52% of people commuted to work by car, even though a compact flat city like York is good for walking and cycling. This contributes to poor air quality, carbon emissions and congestion.
- And, as can be seen in the image below, some parts of York are in the top 10% most deprived areas of England. I will be looking further at the index of multiple deprivation in a future post...
Why should York be sustainable?
Hopefully this is easy to understand, but by becoming sustainably York would be problem solving and delivering a better city for its residents and for the planet. The real question is how to deliver sustainability!
How do we deliver a sustainable York?
This is perhaps the biggest question to be answered. All politicians will talk about the need for sustainability, but we are not seeing enough action to deliver it. To deliver sustainable outcomes we need to be thinking and prioritising differently to how we do now in order to make different decisions. For example, we need to give greater weighting in decision making to the environmental and social impacts of our decisions. In order to deliver a sustainable outcome we need to think about how a sustainable York should look and then plot how we are going to get there.
So what would a sustainable York look like?
This is what Reimagining York will be looking at! I, personally, want like to see York as a garden city, connected with nature, growing more of its own food and tied more closely with local farmers. I also want to see a city that focuses on developing good affordable housing for all, and that pushes active and public transport options to the front and centre. I hope that through this blog other people will come forward with their visions and ideas for the city and together, as a whole, we can build a bigger and better idea of how the city could and should look like.
Next Steps
The following posts in this category will gradually build up a picture of how a new sustainable York can be designed and delivered, so I recommend reading them in order! I intend to be ambitious in my thinking and visioning and want to start a debate on how a future sustainable York should look like. It is only through building a consensus on a way forward will we be truly able to deliver it. My focuses will be on green spaces, food growing and food waste but there is so much to be looked at and it is my hope that this blog will help develop the conversation on how York should look and operate. I hope you will enjoy reading my ideas and sharing yours too.
