The making of the new suburbia

It is well-established that good quality green spaces play an important role in health and wellbeing. The delivery of such spaces on the ground in the UK is determined by the planning system, which grants permission for land use change, subject to a series of conditions.

Green space provision and ecological mitigation are standard conditions. However, many developers are not complying with these requirements on the ground, resulting in suboptimal spaces that are very different from those envisaged on plans.

My first piece of research for the project found that just 53% of the ecological green space provisions that had been conditioned were actually installed, with serious implications for human and natural e-co-flourishing. While a great deal of attention is paid to green space design during the process of obtaining planning permission, the planning system is under-resourced when it comes to delivery.

My fellowship will draw together theoretical and empirical insights to understand why this is happening. A key idea is that the spaces produced are “landscapes of disavowal”. Disavowal can explain how inaction on green space provision is fed by a system in which everyone already knows that we exist in a time of multiple and serious human and ecological crises, (including health crises) but meaningful action nevertheless appears impossible.

I will show how disavowal is leading to a distinctive aesthetic on new build housing estates, producing landscapes of ecological ruin that are suboptimal for humans and non-humans alike.

Empirically, I will work with communities to develop a citizen science project auditing green spaces on new estates. I will also use qualitative narrative methods to understand what urban nature means to ordinary people, and how their views and valuations of green space differ from those of built environment professionals such as planners and ecologists.