Lessons from Amsterdam (green city guides)
Just as other countries can learn from England (cottage gardens, animal welfare, London transport), there are many areas of life that we can learn from other countries. This series of posts looks at what’s best about fellow countries (and cities) to see what we can be inspired by, in our own country.
Amsterdam is one of the world’s most beautiful cities. Yet although it’s known for being bicycle-friendly, in fact it was not always the case (it used to be gridlocked with road traffic). Home to beautiful canals and Anne Frank’s house, let’s see what we can learn from this lovely area.
Did you know that tulips (like all bulbs) are toxic to pets? Read more on pet-friendly gardens.
It plans cities for bicycles, not cars
Amsterdam is known as being a great place to get around, if you a bike. There are also four times more bikes than cars. Good town planning means that the only problem here really is bike theft! And bizarrely, thousands of bikes are pulled out of local canals each year.
Read more on bicycle-friendly town planning.
It looks after its historic canals
Amsterdam has three times more bridges than Venice, and over 165 canals. Apart from people throwing bikes in them, overall they are looked after very well, unlike some English canals that get littered with all kinds of rubbish by tourists, meaning volunteers have to clean them up.
Read more on how to protect our historic canals.
More urban planting, more bees!
Amsterdam is at the forefront of planting urban flowers, which has seen an increase in local bee species by 45% in the last 20 years.
Learn more on how we can do more, to help protect endangered buzzy bees.
