Alan Simson

Leeds Beckett University | LEEDS MET · School of Art, Architecture and Design

Human beings have had a long, deep, cultural relationship with their trees, their woodlands and their landscapes-a relationship that transcends national cultures and which arguably sits as an equal alongside our scientific, economic, ecological and even our spiritual relationships. Although the 21 st century is very much the urban century, this rel...

The World is continuing to urbanise at an increasing and some say alarming rate, and although urbanism is not uniform in all countries, without a doubt the 21st century is the century of the Polycentric City Region. By the year 2007, for the first time in history, the world hosted more urban dwellers than rural, and in order to deal with this urban...

Change is an inherent aspect of human civilisation, and it is rarely comfortable. Cities across the globe are subject to constant change, and no urban area is likely to be immune from the forces that bring this about. Indeed, as the twenty-first century progresses, the nature of our towns and cities is going to have to change far more radically tha...

Many towns and cities in the UK and on mainland Europe are at a point in the urban system life cycle when they have shifted from an industrial to a post-industrial economy, and are entering a cycle of decline. In an attempt to reverse this trend, a frenzy of ‘urban regeneration’ has broken out to try to seek new sources of prosperity to replace tho...

Art is playing a significant role in reshaping relationships between society and forests. Art began to gain recognition as a way of giving places identity and it proved to be a powerful tool for the emerging discipline of urban forestry to link with their local communities, policy makers, decision makers, and fellow professionals. Urban foresters b...

Designers work to change the landscape from its current state to one which better meets society's prevailing needs, while protecting the valuable assets handed down from the past and ensuring that the potential for future generations is also maintained. The urban forest may already contain a great legacy, the best of which must be conserved, restor...

Experience would suggest that it can take at least thirty years for an idea to become firmly established and accepted by society at large. If that is so, then urban forestry is a concept whose time has come. It has been suggested that the concept of urban forestry is relatively new, having been originally conceived by Jorgensen in 1965 in Toronto,...

The urban woodlands on people's doorsteps are where societal values of woodland are highest but also where urban pressures are at their maximum. NeighbourWoods is a European-wide research project that focuses on aspects of planning, design and management of such woodland and identifies elements of good practice. This article looks at urban woodland...

As urbanisation proceeds at an ever-increasing rate across Europe, the demand for a “quality of urban life” also increases. Rapid urban development is not a new phenomenon, and this paper reflects upon the product of an earlier phase of such development in Telford New Town, UK. It focuses on the design and early management of the landscape/urban fo...

Urbanisation is a phenomenon that swept the world during the later decades of the 20th century and continues apace in the 21st century. In the UK, where some 92 per cent of the population is now deemed to have an 'urban lifestyle', this is causing a blurring of the distinction between 'urban' and 'rural'. Urban values are winning, and this is affec...