urbanpollinators.co.uk

Welcome to Urban Pollinators

This site exists as an archive of Urban Pollinators’ work. Julian Dobson, Urban Pollinators’ director until 2022, can now be contacted via the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University.

Squalor plus philanthropy: no recipe for healthy parks

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In the squalor of Victorian Britain, the creation of the first great public parks was a beacon of humanity and hope. Philanthropists and civic leaders understood that greenery, a place to breathe and somewhere to walk and play were the least that could be done to lighten the nasty, brutish and short lives the Industrial […]

Book review: The Metropolitan Revolution

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Will a ‘metropolitan revolution’ bring new life to the US and Britain? There are plenty of city leaders who’d like to think so. In this review for the journal People, Place and Policy we take a look at the popular recipe retailed by the Brookings Institution in Washington, and raise a few questions. You can read the full […]

How much longer can food banks pick up the pieces?

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‘We stick plasters on where people hurt. We’re not treating the disease.’ That comment, from a worker at a food bank in Hampshire, sums up the quandary food banks now find themselves in. More and more people are hurting; national figures from the Trussell Trust show a continuing escalation in the number of people seeking […]

Incroyable! Incredible edible book to be published in France

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We’re excited to announce that there’ll be a French edition of Incredible! Plant Veg, Grow a Revolution next year. Urban Pollinators has agreed to licence French publisher Actes-Sud to translate and republish the book as Incroyables Comestibles! – and we’re looking forward to seeing the Incredible Edible magic continue to spread throughout the French-speaking world. […]

How to eat an elephant

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‘Before you came over the challenge here looked like eating an elephant – it was just too enormous. Now I feel we know how to eat the elephant.’ We’ve been working with the Cedar Foundation, a small charity that began life in Bulgaria leading the de-institutionalisation of orphanages for disabled children, and is now beginning […]