Last Thursday evening I was fortunate to be able to see Alex\u00a0Seffen lecture at the Royal Geographical Society hosted by the Ellen\u00a0MacArthur Foundation. Steffen\u2019s opening premise was that we have a\u00a0tendency towards having a very in-depth knowledge of one particular\u00a0area, yet with little understanding of how it fits into the broader\u00a0scheme of things \u2013 in short we are unable to see how the world operatesas a system. Given my interest in interdisciplinarity I would be the
\nlast person to argue with him about this.<\/p>\n

The part I found of particular interest was Steffen\u2019s focus on\u00a0increasing densities of cities. Among other advantages increased city\u00a0density reduces the need for transport by making goods and services more\u00a0accessible. This is something of a contrast to the emphasis that is so\u00a0often put on sustainable transport. I am not sure that the area of\u00a0Southampton in which I live qualifies as a\u00a0food desert<\/a>,but access to services is an important issue. I live about twenty-five\u00a0minutes\u2019 walk away from my GP surgery and nearest post office; not a\u00a0major problem for me personally, but a huge barrier to a person unable\u00a0to walk the distances involved. My nearest high street is Woolston, or\u00a0\u201cthe recession-hit Woolston High Street\u201d as it is all too frequently\u00a0referred with its boarded up shops. It is busier on a Saturday night\u00a0with the takeways and bookmakers than it is on a Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

Despite living in a city, I live further away from any post office,bank, supermarket or doctors\u2019 surgery than I ever have living in\u00a0villages and small towns. In the UK denser cities are usually associated\u00a0with 1960s tower blocks which have become associated with social as\u00a0well as architectural failure. Steffen showed us pictures of high\u00a0density living arrangements which are much more attractive and enjoya ccess to goods and services (though I don\u2019t recall him addressing the\u00a0question of who has access to this housing.<\/p>\n

Some more thoughts on the lecture are coming soon.<\/p>\n\n\n

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  Last Thursday evening I was fortunate to be able to see Alex\u00a0Seffen lecture at the Royal Geographical Society hosted by the Ellen\u00a0MacArthur Foundation. Steffen\u2019s opening premise was that we have a\u00a0tendency towards having a very in-depth knowledge of one particular\u00a0area, yet with little understanding of how it fits into the broader\u00a0scheme of things \u2013 in … Continue reading Thoughts on Alex Seffen lecture at the Royal Geographical Society<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sustainable-development-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/johncanning.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}