When St Mungo witnessed what would become my home city he hailed it Glasgow, but what of the other Dear Green Places?
It’s not recorded why Mungo didn’t venture eastwards to Edinburgh, perhaps Glaswegians were more in need of saving.
But he’d have found an even greener place.
And it had a name already, Edwin’s Fort, after King Edwin of Northumberland.
Some would say it’s still populated by Geordies… on the stag do’s.
Green Paree
Green as they are, alas, our cities aren’t as verdant as our friends around Europe.
And some researchers even believe England’s green and pleasant land is merde compared to France’s vert.
Paris for Fiftysomethings and above was oft-called Gay Paree before its meaning changed and maybe now it should be called Green Paree .
A study by Drinking Straw analysed the number of parks, gardens, wildlife areas, forests, playgrounds and bodies of water compared to the size of the population.
To see which areas have the most green spaces per 100,000 people.
Paris is the greenest of any capital, with 325 total green spaces made up of 171 parks, 127 gardens, one wildlife area, 16 playgrounds and ten bodies of water.
Their Lux in
When accounting for population, it has 7.62 parks and 5.66 gardens per 100,000 people.
Little Luxembourg City comes in second with 13 green spaces despite its smaller population, comprised of eight parks, one garden and four playgrounds.
There were 8.51 parks per 100,000 people, the highest of any city in the study.
Rare oul’ limes
And our own fave capital, Dublin takes third on the list.
With 66 green spaces comprised of 34 parks, 15 gardens, seven nature and wildlife areas, three playgrounds, one forest and six bodies of water.
The study found it to have 6.47 parks and 2.86 gardens per 100,000 people when population was accounted for.
London’s falling
My own nearest city, Edinburgh, comes in 17th with a total of 31 green spaces when adjusting for population.
The Big Smoke London comes in 24th place with 356 in total, but when taking into account the city’s population it falls out of the top ten.
The final straw
So who are Drinking Straw?
Well, they are a distributor, wholesaler, and supplier of drinking straws in Europe, offering flexible, eco-friendly and plastic-free wholesale stock.
And they are right to keep on at us.
And they are ably supported by our airlines, cruises and hotels and the Mother Turtles, my old friend Ingrid out in the Maldives.
It’s the final straw what’s been happening all around us.
Let’s hang onto our Dear Green Places before we lose them altogether.
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