Welcome to the CBD. Take a look at all the glass masonry and asphalt. The streets are canyons. Apart from a tree in the footpath, or a Peregrine Falcon way overhead, there’s little nature to be seen. Nature is absent in these landscapes, or more correctly “hardscapes”. This runs counter to the trend to put...

This paper focuses on five concerns touching cities that are rarely on planners’ screens, or given too little attention - notably fine particulate pollution, heat island effects and noise in local area settings, water quality deterioration from run-off, and the degradation of green space in urban environs.