Growing Green Cities

London is Europe’s largest city and houses the headquarters of more than 100 of Europe’s 500 largest companies.

It is the United Kingdom's economic, transportation, and cultural centre. In addition to its history, art, and politics, London is a popular tourist destination for its wide variety of museums, shops, restaurants, and sports teams.

Around 8.8 million people live in London, which had overall growth since 2011 of 6.7%. London is also the most ethnically diverse region in the UK with 46.2% of residents identified with Asian, black, mixed or ‘other’ ethnic groups, and a further 17.0% with white ethnic minorities. The median average age in London is 35.9, with over 18s representing 81.9% of the population.

 Transport for London  or TfL is the integrated transport authority responsible for meeting Mayor Sadiq Khan's strategy and commitments on transport in London. They run the day-to-day operation of the Capital's public transport network and manage London's main roads.

The pressures on the natural environment continue to increase with more competition for space caused by increased demand for consumer goods, agriculture, and accelerated urbanization.

London’s wildlife is in decline, in line with trends across the country. The city is home to several notable and protected species, and its inventory includes 23,500 trees with plane (Platanus) being the most dominant. These remove nearly 6.3 tonnes of airborne pollutants each year and store more than 6,700 tonnes of carbon. Beyond this, they divert an estimated 8,700 cubic meters of stormwater runoff away from the local sewer systems each year.

Urban trees are vital to London since they reduce air temperature and filter pollutants.

London has adopted the Healthy Streets Approach to make London's diverse communities greener, healthier, and more attractive places to live, work, play, and do business.

The Healthy Streets Approach puts people and their health at the center of decisions about how to design, manage, and use public spaces. It aims to make London streets healthy, safe, and welcoming for everyone.

There are 10 Indicators of a Healthy Street which focus on the experience of people using streets.

• Pedestrians from all walks of life
• People choose to walk, cycle and use public transport

Eight other indicators support the two main indicators and a community using its public spaces.

“My vision to create ‘Healthy Streets’ aims to reduce traffic, pollution and noise, create more attractive, accessible and people friendly streets where everybody can enjoy spending time and being physically active, and ultimately to improve people’s health.” —Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan

TfL Asset Operations looks after the government assets on the streets, from lighting to trees. They continually assess assets and conduct surveys and reviews for improvement. Surveys include the Healthy Streets Assessment and Tree Planning Assessment.

The Healthy Streets survey captures the real-life experiences of people walking and spending time on London's streets. Survey questions are tied to the 10 Health Streets Indicators. The results reveal areas of success and improvement, and the potential to add new green infrastructure.

 Read more  about the survey questions, methodology, and results.

The tree planting location survey, which assesses the viability of planting locations for trees, has been a particular success with over 3,000 submissions in the last three years. The results help identify potential sites and enable the Mayor's commitment to grow tree growth on the network by 1% every year.

The majority of the surveys were, prior to 2019, conducted using pen and paper. The team typed up results on return to office and sent the outcomes to the relevant parties by email. The process took hours, usually as long as the field work itself.

In 2019, the department embraced  ArcGIS Survey123  as an option to conduct these surveys — saving around 50% on the time taken previously. The team has since grown the number of surveyors to 100 people who now use over 12 different types of surveys that automatically generate a report on return to office.

The surveys are monitored using an ArcGIS Dashboard. Photos taken by the surveyors are stored on SharePoint to track progress using MS Flow and WebHooks for Survey123.

 The Mayor's Transport Strategy  sets out his plans to transform London's streets, improve public transport, and create opportunities for new homes and jobs.

The ambitious goal is that 80% of all trips in London will be made on foot, by cycle, or using public transport by 2041. Five values guide efforts to achieve the goal, with measurable results for each.

Explore GIS tools to engage your community in building a green, healthy, and inclusive city.

A geographic approach puts our greatest challenges in context and drives solutions for a sustainable future. And user-friendly GIS tools provide universal access to critical information.

The Growing Green Cities collection shares the sustainability stories of four cities: Kitakyushu, Japan; London, England; Norfolk, United States of America; and Sydney, Australia. Read about their climate challenges and the GIS solutions that support local leaders, planners, and scientists as they build more resilient communities.

Explore the map below to access the four stories. Each map pin with pop up includes a story link.