How can gardens be used to improve urban areas?

Question

Yahoo! Answers staff note: This is an official Yahoo! Answers Brain Bus question. Look here for more details: http://uk.blog.360.yahoo.com/y_answrs_team_uk

Answer 1

Wouldn't it be nice to see more trees , plants and greenery in amongst urban sprawl and greyness..Plants and flowers add colour and lift ppl's spirits..Plus it's great to be able to have a nice green space to chill out in if u dont have a garden for instance..

Answer 2

I have never accepted the theory that urban growth must be at the expense of the natural environment. Keeping most of the large trees on any plot, adding a water feature (running water), and allowing all unused areas to be green (roofs, etc) will allow a large amount of nature to thrive amongst us. For the rest, connected greenbelts, and river diversion rather than covering, could help solve a lot of our problems

Answer 3

Urban areas, particularly poor inner city areas such as Hackney, just look extremely ugly. With greenery, the area will look much more aesthetically pleasing. To add to this, it will heavily benefit the environment. The atmosphere will be cleaner and much less polluted.

Answer 4

They make them look better.....by adding colour and encouraging wildlife aswell as breathing out the oxygen we need in increasingly polluted areas!!
They're a great place to relax whether at the back of a house or outside a coffee shop. Trees and flowers on roundabouts and alongside roads and in pedestrian areas always look attractive and take away the dullness of all the concrete and brickwork.

Answer 5

The impact of involving children living in urban areas in decisions about their local community can be dramatic, according to new research from the Economic and Social Research Council. Empowering them can have positive effects on the children's academic and social development and contribute to improving school curricula.

These findings emerge from an innovative research project, led by Professor William Scott of the University of Bath. Professor Scott and his team worked with a group of 11 and 12 year olds in a secondary school in a deprived urban area of South Gloucestershire to explore, and ultimately improve their local environment.

The research project gave the children a leading role: not only did they help determine the focus of the research, they were also an integral part of the research team - designing the process, collecting and analysing data, drawing conclusions and suggesting changes.

The teachers involved in the research reported that the children 'had had a massive boost to their self-esteem, with individuals growing in confidence'. They attributed this to the responsibility and trust children had been given saying that 'what had been achieved was largely generated by the children themselves'.

The teachers were particularly impressed by

* the project's impact on the children's capacity to learn and enjoy learning,

* their new found ability to relate to people in different ways

* and the development of new skills, particularly in the imaginative use of IT.

The project also involved educationalists, local authority representatives and adult family members and the adult participants were reported to be enthused by the new insights they had gained into how to engage children, the new collaborative working relationships they had established and by the new ways of thinking about the curriculum. One of the teacher researchers described the project as 'one of the best professional experiences in many years of teaching'.

The researchers found that urban children were very knowledgeable about their local community and were directly affected by such problems as air and noise pollution, traffic dangers and crime. They increasingly found themselves with nowhere to go and nothing to do, particularly around the age of 11 and 12 when they move from primary to secondary school and are start to move away from their home-centred, adult-controlled childhoods.

Professor Scott and his team noted that children's ideas about the environment were rarely sought when planning decisions were made. Children did not know how to make their voices heard and believed that their schools should support them in getting their views across. Moreover, the researchers suggest that this lack of connection between children's experience of school and their out-of-school lives contributes to their decline in academic progress and motivation experienced by many children in the early years of secondary school.

The project was highly successful in establishing ways for children to participate in planning decisions. The children produced a DVD and organised a Children's Conference where all Year 7 pupils were able to participate and question a panel of school and local officials. As a result, the police community liaison officer and the local authority parks committee representative agreed to come into the school to listen to the children's concerns. The work of the project continues in the school and is being extended to other local schools.

Answer 6

If the council gave the community bits of unused land and the whole community got together to develope it young and old it would bring the community together and the more places you see the greener the better it would be for all

Answer 7

A prime example is WEN's Local Food campaign and culture kitchens - growing food, then coming together to make big meals with lots of different cultural foods made by the community to raise awareness on the importance of food for health and environment, giving people in urban areas skills to grow and cook food for families and communities.

I think the Women's Environmental Network have the right idea with their Local Food campaign, it trains groups of women in how to grow food in urban areas. It's not just a case of turning an urban waste-land into something that is more visually attractive but also brings about community by getting women and families working together who may normally have not have talked to one another.

It's a big environmental idea to provide poorer urban families, many of which are minority group families, to grow food to help provide a cheaper way of feeding their families and also educates both those involved and those outside of the group of the importance of food and it's impact on health and environment – organic food and reducing food miles awareness.

http://www.wen.org.uk/local_food/index.htm

Answer 8

when you have gardens that are cared for around you it improves the whole area....when there's the chance ofa community garden that people can share and care for it brings people together and gives them a positive focus...not so good if people get overly protective though...shared spaces have to allow for a variety of people and their tastes

Answer 9

. . . they could be covered over to create a totally artificial environment for the cultivation of marijuana, which could then be distributed free to the local population, creating a far more laid-back society . . .

Answer 10

tarmac them into car parks