Our town and city centres need more green spaces just so we can sit and rest a while.
It’d be great to hear from #placemaking colleagues on here about favourite examples where you live or work.
I mean a quiet spot where you can just sit and think or read or listen (on headphones) to music or a favourite podcast or whatever. Away from the bustle.
Maybe strangely the idea for this post came to me on a recent visit to London.
Arrive by train, cross the super busy, traffic-filled Marylebone Road, turn right after a short walk onto Marylebone High Street and you find just such a spot (see the image set) sheltered by trees, dotted with planting and quiet. A garden of rest. Quiet anywhere but especially so in a full on city.
I’ve probably not captured it as well as I could’ve because I wanted try and avoid images that included those taking the chance to stop who were, like me, sitting on one of its benches.
Raise this issue in conversation with place leaders and managers and you’ll typically get enthusiasm to have more such #highstreet spaces, quickly followed by a list of challenges to making it happen. Not least the opportunity cost of getting zero revenue from such a valuable bit of real estate, protecting it from anti-social behaviour, the cost of upkeep and maintenance and so on.
It’d be really interesting to hear what you think. Can we make more of these in our places…? If so. How…?
