Tag: Covid-19

Urban & rural: rebalancing, levelling, localising

April 6, 2021

There are many reports of Londoners leaving the city for a better quality of life and Showhouse quoted research commissioned by online lettings agent Mashroom, which found:

  • 60% said the COVID-19 pandemic has made them reconsider their living situation
  • 65% said they have had a better work-life balance since working from home,
  • and 43% would welcome cheaper living costs, as those polled are paying an average of £1,464 a month on accommodation.

This trend is seen in several countries

A report from Madrid records that some city dwellers – after questioning the supposed advantages of their lives in the city – are now escaping from claustrophobic Covid-19 lockdowns and settling in villages. For decades Spain’s rural areas have been affected by a steady drift of families and young people to cities, leaving the country’s villages. There are now an estimated 3,000 abandoned villages in Spain, mainly in Galicia. Proyecto Arraigo has been devised by the Spanish government using EU Covid recovery funds to create ways for people to live and work in these areas.

The European recovery plan is an EU-funded post-pandemic strategy to create better opportunities to live and work in depopulated rural areas is being offered to several states, including Spain and Ireland.

For decades, rural areas have seen their populations dwindle, as people moved to the cities. Now, however, the government is seeking to provide incentives to urban dwellers seeking to relocate to rural Ireland and reverse that trend.

City incomers pose problems in areas as they can offer higher prices than young locals – and those who use the properties only as second homes also deprive local businesses of trade.

Measures are being taken to address this problem

Ex-local authority housing sold under the right to buy scheme often carries a restriction limiting its occupation to those who have already lived or worked in Cumbria for the previous three years. Recently built housing or converted dwellings also may attract a local occupancy clause during the planning process. New dwellings within the Lake District National Park have an occupancy clause. Other areas with such restrictions include rural Wales, St Ives, the New Forest and Purbeck in Dorset.

Many ‘red wall’ areas have sizeable areas of largely vacant housing

The British government could use the genius of companies like Urban Splash, noted for its conversion of old industrial buildings – but now also offering some newbuild local authority housing (below, Northstowe).

Such designers would attract those wishing to move out of big cities by regenerating and redesigning those areas with swathes of vacant housing, transforming many of the low-cost but drab neighbourhoods.

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The 15-minute city – the radical shift that all towns and cities need

November 8, 2020

Extract:

Monbiot reports that, like several of the world’s major cities, London is being remodelled.

The mayor, recognising that, due to Covid restrictions, fewer passengers can use public transport, has set aside road space for cycling and walking. Greater Manchester is asking government to support plans for 1800 miles of protected pedestrian and bicycle route.

Paris, under its mayor Anne Hidalgo, is seeking to reverse this trend, by creating a green “15-minute city” – a city, “reclaimed entirely by its citizen”, where everything a resident needs can be found within a short walk.

Districts treated by transport planners as mere portals to somewhere else will become self-sufficient communities, each with their own shops, parks, schools and workplaces, within a 15-minute walk of everyone’s home.

 

READ MORE HERE

 

 

 

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President Macron is relocalising: reshoring the production of pharmaceuticals

July 29, 2020

Several references have been made on this site about the growing awareness of the need to develop strong British supply chains which will reduce the high carbon dioxide emissions caused by transporting goods made in other countries.

Reshoring (aka onshoring, inshoring, or backshoring) is the process of returning the production and manufacturing of goods back to the company’s original country.

It is the opposite of offshoring, the process of manufacturing goods overseas to try to reduce the cost of labour and manufacturing. Some readers may enjoy reading about the downside of offshoring, described in detail by Bryan Luoma.

Twenty two leading industrial engineering associations in the Reshoring UK initiative, aim to connect manufacturers with trusted suppliers capable of delivering UK-based products and services.

The reshoring trend has been explored and publicised by Professor David Bailey since 2013; he reported in the Birmingham Post (archived to Birmingham Live) that “repatriating activity – including some sourcing – to the UK is very much on the agenda”. In 2018, Bailey and Lisa De Propris suggested that the advantages include the skilled jobs created which have a multiplier effect, stimulating demand and – in turn – leading to additional employment opportunities.

Many journalists and NGOs have focussed on food security and the Farmers Weekly reports the incorporation of three measures to encourage this in the Agriculture Bill

https://www.nfuonline.com/news/latest-news/expert-insight-the-agriculture-bill-2020/

Today the French President, Emmanuel Macron, adds another important advantage – that of security

The Covid-19 pandemic has alerted the French president to the need for France to invest in reshoring, to produce more medical equipment and pharmaceuticals within its borders and to finance a ’much-needed’ initiative to repatriate the production of critical medicines.

Critics said the pandemic exposed the weakness of France’s healthcare system after masks, tests and drugs ran short, leaving it with far more deaths than neighbouring Germany. “Everyone saw during this crisis that certain drugs were no longer manufactured in France or even in Europe”.

Mr Macron said in a speech at Sanofi. “We must draw lessons from that. . . and the state is ready to invest in such reshoring projects.”

Macron unveils a much-needed initiative to bring home production of critical medicines during a visit to Sanofi, a French pharmaceutical MNC 

in June France issued a call for companies to indicate interest in bringing back production of 30 generic drugs used to fight Covid-19, including medicines used for patients on ventilators, painkillers such as fentanyl and morphine and antibiotics.

Production will start with the country’s top-selling medicine, paracetamol – though Big Pharma opposes this, pointing out that it can be produced more cheaply in Asia. Mr Macron said that France is aiming to reshore production within three years.

 

 

 

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Our future must be local: the living world cannot be sustained by pre-Covid levels of consumption

July 26, 2020

In a recent article, George Monbiot cites several poll findings including:

  • a YouGov survey suggesting that 8 out of 10 people want the government to prioritise health and well-being above economic growth during the pandemic, and 6 out of 10 would like it to stay that way when (if) the virus abates;
  • a survey by Ipsos finds that 58% of British people want a green economic recovery, while 31% disagree;
  • a survey by BritainThinks which showed that only 12% of people want life to be “exactly as it was before” and
  • a poll at the end of June, commissioned by Bright Horizons, which finds that just 13% of people want to return to working as they did before the lockdown.

He comments: ”It’s rare to see such strong and consistent results on any major issue”.

But ‘business as usual’ depends on the resumption of pre-Covid levels of consumption and Monbiot believes that the Westminster government is promoting just that. The environment secretary, George Eustice (right), has signalled that he intends to rip up our system of environmental assessments.

Air pollution regularly exceeds legal limits in Birmingham (UK) and London

And when business as usual resumes, so will the air pollution that kills more people every year than Covid-19 has yet done. Climate breakdown and air pollution are two aspects of the unravelling of all living ecosystems, rainforests, coral reefs, rivers, soil.

Monbiot rightly condemns the policy of planned obsolescence

This offers appliances which are designed to break down – deliberately engineered not to be repaired – and is one of the reasons why the average smartphone, containing precious materials extracted at great environmental cost, lasts for between two and three years.

But there has been a backlash against products which have components glued together and cannot be repaired. In 2017 the first Repair Café opened in Amsterdam and there are now 1900 worldwide.  In America, California has become the 18th state to propose a “right to repair” law, which would require electronics companies like Apple to make their devices easier for users to repair some parts when they break or go wrong. Around 20 US states are said to have right to repair legislation in progress and household appliances will become easier to repair thanks to new standards being adopted across the European Union. From 2021, firms will have to make appliances longer-lasting, and they will have to supply spare parts for machines for up to 10 years.

As David Suzuki, Canadian biologist, broadcaster and environmental activist insists: “If we are ever going to solve today’s enormous and escalating problems, we will need to radically rethink the economy”.

He adds that the argument for economic decentralization, powerfully and passionately presented in a fine book, Local is Our Future is one that we can no longer ignore.”

The author, Helena Norberg-Hodge boldly opens: For our species to have a future, it must be local. The good news is that the path to such a future is already being forged”.

 

 

 

 

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