Build on the Green Belt - that’s how we save nature

An interesting little finding from The Guardian:

The discovery that affluent neighbourhoods have more diversity of nature has implications for human wellbeing – and sheds light on the structural injustices in cities

There’s much muttering here about how richer areas have more wildlife. More numbers, more species, just richer in biothings. Richer areas being, something that should surprise no one, those areas with larger gardens.

That is, suburbia leads to a richness of nature. We’ve even heard it said - and we wholly believe it - that said suburbia contains more nature than the countryside itself. It’s a richer and more varied environment so why wouldn’t it support more and a more diverse biome?

As to the structural injustice we agree.

As we’ve noted before here in Britain it is currently illegal to build housing - build for anyone at all that is - what was considered the minimum acceptable for the working man a century ago. All in the name of preserving that precious nature, that Green Belt. Which is, as ever with public policy, entirely the wrong way around.

It is that suburbia of decent houses on large gardens which is the most nature rich area of the country. The structural injustice is that the planners insist that no one be allowed to build such and most certainly not for the poor. Those poor must be crammed into chicken shacks towering into the sky instead. Much to the annoyance of the poor of course - they’ve been saying for a century that a house with front and back garden is what they’d like, thank you very much.

As so often happens the architects, the planners, the government, the shrieking fantasists, have got this entirely wrong. Those extensive suburbs are exactly where nature thrives. Thus we should not limit their building but promote them, preferentially push them. That’s what the people want and we are, after all, a democracy. But more importantly, that’s how we save nature - by extending the portion of our land that is devoted to that nature. Suburbia.

Build on the Green Belt. Bulldoze it, house it, garden it - all to save nature. You know it makes sense.

Tim Worstall