The future of humanity depends on us working WITH the Environment and embracing it. Not constantly trying to fight it, dominate it, or, as we do in most of our cities, completely obliterate it. GIMBYism is a movement that promotes the idea of MORE GREENERY in our cities, not less.

Many of us watch in horror as almost every development and city project results in less greenery. We watch as properties with 100-year-old trees, get bulldozed and replaced with McMansions and their gardens of concrete and astroturf. We watch as the last few green spaces we have left get sold off to developers. We watch as more trees are removed to make way for more infrastructure. All resulting in a NET LOSS in greenery in our cities. The exact opposite of what we should be doing. But GIMBYism isn’t against development. It is in favor providing a NET GAIN in greenery in our cities. It proposes that for every new development we need to be adding more greenery, either on-site, ideally, or in other places near by, so there is a net gain.

Since Visual AI has crept into the mainstream there has been a proliferation of people and projects re-imagining our cities and neighbourhoods as green places. Biophilia has become a buzzword along with Ecotopia, Regeneration and much of the Solar Punk movement is focused on Green & Sustainable Cities. All of these people and movements are visualising how people & nature can coexist together. It really is our only option for the future, so it’s only natural that people are imagining green, human-scale cities. I have posted about this stuff many times HERE & HERE & HERE. The greening of cities is also a big part of the global Urbanism movement, with countless Architects, Urban Planners YouTubers and TikTok creators all talking about this.

All images by Katie Patrick: https://katiepatrick.com/

There is the temptation to see GIMBY & YIMBY* as opposite approaches, but I don’t see that at all. Especially when we are looking at the whole environmental & humanitarian picture. GIMBY & YIMBY are two side’s of the same coin. People living together in cites and living with nature are not mutually exclusive. GIMBYism doesn’t demand an end to development; it just asks that EVERY development factors in the environment and improves greenery on-site or within the neighbourhood. Just as vested interests have tried wedge Unions & Environmentalists, we should not let them do the same with GIMBY & YIMBY movements.

*The YIMBY movement is a pro-infrastructure development movement mostly focusing on public housing policy, real estate development, public transportation, and pedestrian safety in transportation planning.

What we have right now is a lot of Greenwashing. Where cities and developers call projects “green” but they are nothing of the sort. Massive tower blocks, with a few plants on them, marketed as “Sky Gardens.” Projects where a few trees get plonked outside a new train station and that’s considered good enough. It’s not! We must at all times be increasing overall greenery and biodiversity along with every development. We have Mandatory Parking Minimums in many cities. These should be replaced with Mandatory Greening Minimums. Where developers have to provide real on site greenery, ideally, or off-site. Somewhere local that residents or workers can easily access.

Fortunately, local councils & governments are starting to see this. Some are adding a levy that is paid by the developer of higher density buildings to allow for the purchase of land to be turned into parks. This offsets any possible loss of greenery and provides shared green spaces for residents of new developments, achieving the NET GAIN in green spaces our cities need. As we add more density, this raises more taxes and allows for more greening on streets.

The optimum outcome for people & environment is medium density. A neighbourhood with five story buildings uses one tenth on the land of a typical North American suburb. That does not mean we should exclude all taller buildings and single family dwellings, it just means the default city building plan should be human scale, medium density and greenery infused. If we have this reduction in overall land usage it allows us to bring large amounts of green spaces into our more dense cities and we will still be using much less land than we are now. We can have tree lined streets, pocket parks and community gardens everywhere. We can see fragments of initiatives like this popping up all over the world right now. In Barcelona https://www.barcelona.cat/pla-superilla-barcelona/en/superblocks-green-hubs-ans-squares) In Montreal https://youtu.be/jM5NmJyXEeM In Colombia https://reasonstobecheerful.world/green-corridors-medellin-colombia-urban-heat/ We just need cities to implement GIMBYism over a whole metropolitan area.

Greenery and trees are so important to our cities; it can’t be stated enough. And as our planet gets hotter they will only become more important. The health benefits from trees are well-documented. They make our streets more quiet and tranquil. They filter out pollution. (LINK) Reduce stress. (LINK) Reduce heat. (LINK) We are hard wired to enjoy nature. To love its soft edges, its fragrance. We love the aesthetics of nature because it’s part of us.

Along with greening our cities, GIMBYism encourages community participation. GIMBYism provides a wonderful opportunity to bring people together, to develop a sense of community, and to build social cohesion. It can also provide both mental and physical health benefits by encouraging local residents to “adopt” parks, trees, plants, and reserves, and through the organizing of annual working bees where residents can, get hands-on involved in planting and maintaining greenery. After all, these green spaces are our commons and ripe for more Participatory Urbanism and community involvement.

The important words in all of this are NET GAIN and BIG PICTURE. Our built environment is dominated by developers and vested interests. We make all planning decisions on a project-by-project basis and not based on the environmental whole. We are building stuff like The Ponds in Sydney that is just the worst of every world. It’s not a leafy suburb, filled with plants and nature, and it’s not affordable medium-density housing near local transit. But this is what many cities are encouraging. Is it any wonder we are in a housing crisis? So let’s fix both. Let’s fix the housing crisis and fix the environmental crisis. If we are going to build tall buildings, let’s always match that with big green projects like The Green Line in Melbourne. If we are going to build infrastructure, let’s line it with trees.

Those are my thoughts on GIMBYism what do you think? I am currently working on some GIMBYism in my neighbourhood and would love to hear from other people who are working on greening their local communities.

If you have any relevant links please do share in the comments below or in the Fedivers at @OWGF@mastodon.world or LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/owgf/

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