I hope he had his tongue in his cheek, the person who replied to me, when I spoke about the importance of green space and connection to nature when planning new buildings in cities. But I’m not sure. He seemed quite willing to force people to live in concrete towers.

Access to the natural world doesn’t have to be a personal garden. It can be a public park, or even the temporary meadow which springs up in a neglected empty lot. I object to the term “vacant land” when referring to a patch of Earth filled with thousands of non-human beings.