Sustainable versus Resilient: models ripe for change

Annalise V Johns, London-based urban designer brings us the latest discussions from some of the most interesting urban design discussions around London. Want to share what's being discussed in your city? Email us.

“…It will need to build up to 600,000 new homes each year just to keep pace. The market ought to provide them, but governments distort it. Corruption and mismanagement of land is a problem. Builders must cope with burdensome regulations and antiquated zoning laws.” (The Economist, June 16th 2018) 
 
The above is an excerpt from an article about Cairo. Interestingly, it was the exact sentiment echoed at all of the talks and conferences I attended on the UK’s Built Environment this past week. As the anniversary of the Grenfell tower fire passes, the regulations and policies that form the foundation for housing the UK’s population, seem to be demonstrating above all else that a new inclusive growth model is needed to make places function, and to bring us into the future.
 
Interestingly the UK’s Draft National Planning Policy Framework’s (NPPF) “purpose {…} is to contribute to the achievement of sustainable development.” Sustainable development is defined in terms of an economic model and its achievement  across most of London and most globalised cities demonstrated by the  number of tall buildings that dominate these urban centres. Among the talks I attended this week, one on Land Values was held by a small interest group. The audience included developers, economists and those involved in planning and housing policy. What was clear was the frustration among all attendees regarding the lack of authority against the predominance of traders' “gaming tactics” that dominate residential high density delivery, due to the impairment of current planning policies, regulations and taxing.

While in attendance at the Vision 2019: The Future of the Built Environment event, the emphasis on well-being was endlessly recurring. The takeaway was that the sustainability agenda had now been replaced with wellbeing. What has struck me is the disconnect. Health and the built environment hold the power to create a more resilient economic model for today and the future - information we’ve known for decades. History is riddled with examples of lessons learned from residential high density. Red Roads Flats in Glasgow, Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City, Pruitt-Igoe in St Louis, all demonstrated the ineffectiveness of mono estates. Yet, our cities are repeating these projects and inventing new ones, as seen in blocks of absentee residents occupying the centre and the most vulnerable moving into the suburbs, exacerbating growth and health inequality. Professor Robert Gifford’s 2007 article The Consequences of Living in High-Rise Buildings provides an important reminder as to the cause and effects of environment on health. Beyond the caveats is the knowledge of what fails to serve as acceptable urban form due to its impacts on mental health, social connectivity and mobility. We are in a state of crisis, a statement echoed at many of these events this week, we are on the verge of riots in the streets because we have ignored the majority of residents who are struggling economically. This struggle cannot be ignored, because it sits at the core of local epidemics of mental and physical health, manifested by the pervading patterns of exclusion reinforced across our emerging built environment.
 
How might we change this? First, all built environment practitioners; planners, developers, architects, urban designers, engineers, need a crash course in environmental psychology. Behaviour theory explains how environment is the most influential force in human evolution. It is not a mystery why over 60% of the world’s population is dying from preventable diseases such as cancer and diabetes, nor is it a wonder why depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. We are living in cities that are not designed for most to live in - they are designed for people to invest in.

This is what sustainable development creates: places, but not for people to live in. We need to stop being ignorant of the fact that we have NOT outgrown our biological DNA, we still possess all the characteristics of animals living in natural settings. We have only been living in an urban setting for 1% of our biological history and it is very clear this current design will lead to our extinction. A clearer understanding of the impact environment has on health, needs to be at the core of how we deliver all aspect of our urban environments.
 
Second, we need a new model, one that adapts both the environmental and economic elements in balance with human health, one Judith Rodin refers to as Urban Resilience. The Lancet review on planetary health 2015 states “the resilience approach is system oriented, take a more dynamic view, and sees adaptive capacity as a core feature of resilient social-ecological systems.”  NPPF lacks reference to personal health. It does mention community health but it does not support individual health, and this is what separates public health from planning. Public Health is focused on prevention, and the reduction of threat on the lives of individuals who vary in their (emotional, physical, educational and economic) asset base. Urban development possesses the possibility for creating not just health equality but economic justice as well, and that is the message missing from the NPPF.

The problem with a sustainable development-led purpose is it is an economic purpose that excludes human relevance, and this is at the core of our societal disconnect.  The definition of Sustainable Development is: “economic development that is conducted without depletion of natural resources”, humans are not present in this concept. The definition of urban resilience however, is “the capacity of individuals, communities, institutions, businesses, and systems within a city to survive, adapt, and grow no matter what kinds of chronic stresses and acute shocks they experience.” It is a model that enables an equilibrium of environment and health along-side growth and prosperity.
 
Marianna Mazzucato, one of the most important economic minds of our time, says in her new book: “assumptions about the generation of wealth have become entrenched, and have gone unchallenged. As a result, those who claim to be wealth creators have monopolised the attention of governments with the now well-worn mantra of: give us less tax, less regulation, less state and more market.” Our current regulations, policies and designs, clearly demonstrate a widespread obliviousness to the daily struggle of the majority of those living in urban settings, such as London, and the relationship of health issues caused by the lack of affordable, inclusive, healthy environments.
 
In conclusion I wish to share some examples that I am exploring as models for urban resilience that seem to demonstrate the Health –Environment –Economic paradigm.

Golden Lane Estate, London
Built in 1957 in the heart of the City of London, with a density of 200 persons per acre, a mixed tenure, with 60% of the site devoted to open space. Golden Lanes includes its own grocery store run by a resident who travels to the Covent Garden market daily to supply residence with fresh produce. The development includes tennis courts, a swimming pool and maintains a thriving social capital that extends generations, economic classes and cultural backgrounds.
 
Lancaster Cohousing, Halton Mill
Developed around the revitalization of a Mill supplying a source of Jobs, while generating its own energy supply, qualifying it with the highest standard of energy efficiency. Those living in the development have access to employment via a working mill and within the development which serves as a centre for wellbeing, offering services and spaces for the practice of health and wellbeing.

About the Author

Based in London as an Urban Designer for the past 15 years, Annalise V Johns specialises in designing multifaceted spaces that improve environmental resilience while maximising social determinants of health. Her experience with complex places means she is called on to provide solutions focused on sustainable transport, sustainable drainage and air quality improvements based on evidence and innovation.