What urban vegetation is for...number 7; a means of reducing human alienation from the urban environment

This one seems to me to be pretty uncontroversial. There are many ways in which alienation from urban surroundings manifests itself. It is evident in visible forms such as litter on the street and vandalism of buildings and street furniture, but also has internalised outcomes such as depression and substance abuse. It engenders that feeling familiar to most urban dwellers when they travel through a particularly deprived part of their city, or find themselves having to live or work there. It’s a shiver of revulsion down the spine. It is fear, or pity, or bad memories.

Remediation of industrial contaminated land is a cornerstone of landscape urbanism. It’s a goal and a principle. With some sites, though, physical remediation alone may not bring the place back to life. In such places, landscape architects perform a kind of social remediation. Without human input and interest, design projects will of course fail, and I propose that a very effective way of engaging that interest and demanding that input from a local population is through vegetation.

There are plenty of good examples of this working through urban wildlife habitats and outdoor health facilities. Another obvious case would be that of growing food as a life-affirming leisure activity which actively engages the growers with a place and through which no-go areas can be psychologically reclaimed by a body of people. Take as an example the old water treatment plant near where I live in South Manchester. At the moment it is an interesting spot, claimed by a small and specialist group of graffiti artists who update their installations on at least a weekly basis. I know this because I go and look at their art a lot, but there are many people who certainly would not go and look – wouldn’t go near the place, in fact, because of its ‘edgy’ feel.  It could be reclaimed for the whole community, however, with a little creative demolition and a few raised veg beds...an LU allotment site which could provide a focus for further regeneration without necessarily evicting the artists, who could perhaps come along and plant some tomatoes in this little walled suntrap when they come to repaint their stretch of wall.