places that “exaggerate the dullness, the danger, the emptiness.” Her
solution was to throw the baby out altogether, to pave over the parks.
Streets and sidewalks, not parks, were the life of the city, she argued.
(She was not able to foretell the disappearance of children from
sidewalks and the astonishing rise of obesity and chronic diseases.)
Mitchell, on the other hand, saw a failure of civic community.
Here was an opportunity for public-health experts to make a
difference. And so they are trying. The Scottish government has
newly embraced some radical policies. One is cleaning up the
woodlands to reinforce medical and mental-health treatment for
stressed populations. Another policy, the National Walking Strategy,
encourages communities to improve signed trails, organize health
walks and otherwise get people off their duffs. It can be a challenging
proposition. Consider the scene from Trainspotting in which Renton
says, “We’re colonized by wankers. We couldn’t even find a decent
race to be colonized by. It’s a shite state of affairs to be in, and no
amount of fresh air is ever going to change that.” But change they’ll
try.
Government guidelines for the Dear Green Place and beyond state
that everyone should have access to safe woodlands within 500 meters
of their doorstep. Because for green space to be used, it has to be
close. To accomplish this, the country is on a tree-planting and
woodland-sprucing-up craze, aiming to increase the percentage of
Scotland covered by woodland from 17 to 25 percent. Access to
nature is a new national indicator for health in Scotland, and if you
squint your eyes and try to imagine the U.S. Congress passing such a
standard, you can appreciate just how remarkable this is.
Scotland is so committed to the idea of salvation in the woods,
walking or otherwise, that it’s underwriting a program called
Branching Out to provide mental-health care outdoors. Kevin
Lafferty, the health and recreation advisor for Forestry Commission
Scotland, invited me to come watch it in action, which is how I came