Compared with some other French cities, Lille is quite stony and lacks vegetation. But this is going to change. The city aims to ‘de-concrete’ and add a significant amount of vegetation to the urban environment. Increasing green space is a top priority of the city council. Ingrid Raoul, team member for the Nature Smart Cities pilot project in Lille, tells us about their latest achievements.

'Because of Lille’s grey character, the City has large areas that experience heat stress in the summer. Through our Nature Smart Cities pilot we will plant 3.000 trees and create 1.200 climbing plant pits in these high priority areas, to keep temperatures from rising too high. This will form part the City’s 6 year strategy to plant 20.000 trees in both public and private space.’ Which is ambitious, because Lille’s current tree population stands at around 34.000 trees.

In Lille, the strategy to make the city greener is connected to creating better infrastructure for cyclists and pedestrians. ‘Our strategy is to create green corridors that connect the green spaces we have. We see that green infrastructure improves the quality of the landscape. Residents are much more inclined to take the bicycle or walk on green streets. Additionally, these green corridors also benefit insects and birds, thus contributing to the preservation of urban biodiversity.’  

In Lille, the ambition to make the city greener has a strong social component too. ‘Part of the strategy is to add plants and trees to at least one third of each schoolyard’s surface. Outside school hours, neighbours may use the space. Right now, only 6 of Lille’s 79 schoolyards are still completely paved.’

‘We see a snowball effect: when citizens experience how much better their streets look with more plants, they start to ask for more. We decided to facilitate that. Our inhabitants can sign a contract with the city to take care of a certain bit of public green space. When they sign this ‘charte’ they can get seeds, potting soil and practical help. And when the citizens take care of green space together, they have more contact than before. So trees and other plants also add to social cohesion in a way.’

‘We’ve defined the priority areas to add plants and trees. Last months, two students helped us to define where exactly we should plant the trees. And we identified quite a number of blind brick walls, where we will add climbing plants.’