Public space and diversity: Distributive, procedural and interactional justice for parks

Lacustrine Urban Blue Spaces: Low Availability and Inequitable Distribution in the Most Populated Cities in Mexico

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2023

Lacustrine blue spaces provide benefits to the urbanites and wildlife habitat. Their availability varies depending on the city in which they are established and intra-urban social interactions. We analyzed the presence, distribution, and size of lentic water bodies in Mexico’s 145 most populated cities. We searched for patterns in their distribution concerning demographic, socioeconomic, and geographic data, aiming to understand their socio-ecological interactions in cities. We digitized lacustrine spaces to obtain their number per city, total surface, area of blue space per inhabitant, and surface as a percentage of the city’s total area. We tested for relationships between their number and surface and city population, hydrological regions, and urban marginalization index through linear and generalized linear models. We delimited 1834 lacustrine blue spaces, finding almost two-thirds of them artificial. Their presence and surface in Mexican cities were generally low, except for hydrological regions close to the Gulf of Mexico. Their number and surface decreased as the urban marginalization index increased. The lack of equitable provision of lacustrine space at the national level has implications for urban planning and land management. Blue spaces should maximize their ecosystem services’ provision for the whole society to promote cities’ sustainability and resilience.

Distribución espacial de las áreas verdes urbanas en Xalapa, México: un caso de inequidad

Article

Full-text available

Sep 2022

Las áreas verdes proporcionan beneficios y servicios ambientales y sociales a la población, sin embargo, generalmente, se distribuyen heterogéneamente en las ciudades, ligado a un aprovisionamiento desigual de tales beneficios, con implicaciones de justicia ambiental. Con base en un análisis cartográfico y estadístico, se evaluó la dotación y distribución espacial de las áreas verdes urbanas públicas en Xalapa, México, así como su relación con el Índice de Marginación Urbana del Consejo Nacional de Población. En Xalapa, la distribución de las áreas verdes mostró un patrón agrupado; el 47 % de las colonias de la ciudad no cuentan con áreas verdes y la menor dotación y superficie de áreas verdes estuvieron relacionadas con altos índices de marginación. Como en muchas otras ciudades en México, lo anterior constituye un indicio de una falta de justicia ambiental distributiva en la ciudad, así como de una necesidad de planteamientos de diseño y rediseño viables para el alcance de una dotación menos heterogénea de áreas verdes en la ciudad.

The green gentrification cycle

Article

Sep 2022

Significant research has shown that gentrification often follows the implementation of greening initiatives (e.g. new parks) in cities worldwide, in what scholars have called ‘green gentrification’. A few other studies in the Global North suggest that greening initiatives might be disproportionately located in disadvantaged neighbourhoods that are gentrifying as opposed to disadvantaged areas experiencing continuous disinvestment. Building on these findings, in this critical commentary we present the green gentrification cycle, which sheds light on the complex spatiotemporal relationships between greening and gentrification. The cycle posits that gentrification can precede greening, gentrification can follow greening and, in some cases, gentrification can both precede and then follow greening. We present the actors and processes involved in intentionally steering greening to already gentrifying communities and discuss them through an environmental justice lens. Specifically, we propose three complementary explanations for why gentrification precedes greening, including demand from gentrifiers, push from the green growth machine and increased resource availability in gentrifying communities. We then present a research agenda on the green gentrification cycle, including the need for a better understanding of how the cycle might materialise in places with varying political economies, such as the Global South.

Same, Same but Different? The ‘Right’ Kind of Gardening and the Negotiation of Neoliberal Urban Governance in the Post-socialist City

Chapter

Sep 2022

This chapter analyses the ways in which different urban gardening forms relate to neoliberalisation processes in the post-socialist city. Based on fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2020 including on-site observation and in-depth interviews with gardeners, activists and city officials in several Estonian cities, it seeks to understand the unequal treatment of community gardens and dacha allotment gardens. Despite equally fostering urban sustainability, dacha gardens are often negatively associated with a (post)socialist ‘survival strategy of the poor’ while community gardens are embraced for their transformative potential with regard to health, active citizenship, social cohesion, and environmental learning. Taking a critical approach to neoliberal urban governance, the study explores the adherence and/or resistance of both gardening forms to post-socialist urban neoliberalisation dynamics on three analytical levels: socio-spatial discourses, spatial materialities and cultivated subjectivities. As a result, the chapter conveys that dacha gardens rather ‘quietly’ maintain the system, while community gardens contribute to its thriving process, by being visible, actively engaging with, and being supported by, the neoliberal urban governance. This preferential treatment, however, comes at a price of higher vulnerability to co-optation attempts and neoliberal control of space, to which dacha gardens have hitherto resisted.KeywordsUrban gardeningAllotment gardensDachaCommunity gardeningQuiet sustainabilityContested spaceNeoliberal urban governancePost-socialist city

Visions for development and management of urban green and blue infrastructure: a citizen's perspective

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2022
ECOL SOC

Ongoing urbanization leads to problems such as densification, loss of biodiversity, and social injustice in cities. For increasing urban populations, green–blue infrastructure (GBI) is an important element in compact cities contributing to human health, well-being, and the provision of important ecosystem services. We analyzed responses from two open-ended questions about visions, ideas, and topics for the development and management of GBI important for citizens of the city of Leipzig, Germany. The questions were part of an online survey accompanying the development of the local GBI planning strategy: Master Plan Green. The strategy is focusing on five guiding themes that are leading local and global debates about sustainable and resilient cities: biodiversity, climate adaptation, environmental justice, health, and sustainable mobility. We categorize citizens' ideas and suggestions, summarize frequent problems and conflicts, and link ideas and visions to the five guiding themes. As the last step, we discuss citizens' suggestions in order to minimize conflicts in GBI and to identify deficits in present local planning. Major problems and conflicts that were addressed by respondents relate to quality, usability, other users, activities, and safety and security of GBI. Numerous suggestions aimed to tackle these problems, for example, by designating separate use areas, adding naturalness, improving maintenance, and enhancing facilities. A range of ideas and suggestions were based on diverging expectations underpinning the challenge of matching heterogeneous demands of GBI users in an equitable fashion. Linking these suggestions to the five guiding themes reveals that most ideas are covered by one or several guiding themes and are considered in local planning strategies. However, findings also demonstrate that increasing the quantity of Leipzig's GBI is a central request from respondents. Sociocultural and economic aspects as well as conflicting demands among citizens should further be central to GBI planning to avoid injustice and achieve sustainability objectives. This analysis gives insights into opinions and visions of citizens regarding the development of the city's GBI network and thus substantiates major strategic and planning themes leading global and local urban strategies toward sustainable cities. Considering specific suggestions and GBI deficits that bother citizens on a local level, offers the opportunity to improve the social and ecological resilience of GBI.

Authorization and levels of justice in recovery of gathering spaces after the great East Japan earthquake and tsunami 2011

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2022

Public meeting spaces can enhance justice in communities by providing a suitable platform where all community members can attend events, meet others, and express themselves freely. Many homes and gathering spaces were destroyed by the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami in 2011, and as a result, important platforms where communities could gather had vanished. Even though different types of organizations restored gathering spaces, in terms of enhancing justice, the recovered spaces served the affected people differently. This study aims to identify how different aspects of justice (procedural, distributive, and interactional) vary in gathering spaces that were created through different authorizations. For this study, cases from communities in Miyagi and Iwate Prefectures of Japan were selected based on a process-oriented approach combined with literature review, field visits, semi-structured interviews, questionnaire surveys, and an evaluation of justice criteria in different cases. The research found that among the studied cases, different organizations targeted communities distinctively. According to the justice criteria evaluation, gathering spaces created by residents' associations and non-profit organizations had better results than those created by local governments. These communities were empowered to administer the spaces, which were provided with well-connected multiple gathering spaces and a balanced ratio of social, optional, and necessary gathering activities. In contrast, local governments offered centralized large-scale gathering spaces with minimum connections to other gathering spaces, spaces were combined with various functions and did not authorize community members to be involved in their administration. It was concluded that procedural justice is an important key, as it results in the empowered authorization and administration of communities, enhances distributive and interactional justice, and leads to increased freedom of choice. It also leads to consideration of multiple gathering spaces, evenly distributed in the recovered area, and maximizes the accessibility and useability of such spaces.

Measuring inequalities in urban systems: An approach for evaluating the distribution of amenities and burdens

Article

Mar 2021
COMPUT ENVIRON URBAN

Current approaches for measuring inequality are insufficient or unsuitable for promoting and designing equitable built environments and urban systems. In this paper, we demonstrate how a recently developed inequality measure—the Kolm-Pollak equally-distributed equivalent (EDE)—could be used to support decision making to foster equity in the built environment. The EDE provides a measure of a distribution that is similar to the average (mean) but includes a penalty based on the inequality of that distribution. The primary advantage of the Kolm-Pollak EDE is that it can be used to evaluate the inequality of both desirable quantities (e.g., amenities) and undesirable quantities (e.g., burdens). This is essential in urban systems as inequities can manifest through, among other things, disparate access to opportunities like public amenities and unequal exposure to burdens, such as pollution and natural hazards. Additionally, the Kolm-Pollak EDE can be calculated for different sociodemographic subgroups, enabling needs-based assessments to promote environmental justice. Thus, the Kolm-Pollak EDE presents numerous opportunities for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers concerned with advancing equity. We demonstrate the approach with a case study of grocery store access in ten cities across the USA and provide a Python package (inequalipy) and R code to enable others to use these inequality metrics.

Alter(n), Diversität und Stadtgesellschaft

Thesis

Full-text available

Dec 2020

Friederike Enßle-Reinhardt

Die Dissertation befasst sich am Beispiel Berlins mit den Wechselwirkungen zwischen der Alterung der Gesellschaft und wachsender Diversität. In sechs Fachartikeln werden methodologische Zugänge zum Zusammenspiel von Alter und Diversität entwickelt und neue empirische Befunde aus qualitativer und quantitativer Empirie vorgestellt. Auf Basis der empirischen Erhebungen wird gezeigt, inwiefern gängige gesellschaftliche Altersbilder den komplexen Lebenslagen im Alter nicht gerecht werden, und entsprechend auch der institutionelle Umgang mit Diversität im Alter vielfach nicht adäquat ist. Daran anknüpfend schlägt die Arbeit eine räumliche Perspektive als methodologischen Zugang für die Analyse des Zusammenspiels von Alter und Diversität vor. Aus dieser räumlichen Perspektive werden drei empirische Beispiele analysiert: Die Nutzung öffentlicher Parks durch ältere Menschen, Umzugspläne und Umzugsmotivationen im Alter, sowie die Bedeutung der räumlichen Nähe für das Entstehen von sozialen Netzwerken in der Nachbarschaft im Alter. Die Arbeit leistet damit sowohl auf empirischer als auch auf analytischer und methodologischer Ebene einen wissenschaftlichen Beitrag: Sie vermittelt zunächst vertiefte Einblicke in die Lebenslagen älterer Menschen mit unterschiedlichen Hintergründen. Auf dieser Basis hinterfragt die Arbeit die implizite Normierung der mittleren Lebensjahre als objektiven Beobachterhorizont und unterstreicht die Notwendigkeit, Diversität mehrdimensional zu denken. Die Arbeit plädiert insofern dafür, die Konzepte Intersektionalität und Superdiversität zu verknüpfen, um auch innerhalb sozialer Gruppen genauer differenzieren zu können. Dabei erlaubt eine räumliche Perspektive einen offenen Blick auf Diversität und ermöglicht es, die bislang getrennten Forschungsfelder der Diversitäts- und Altersforschung zu verbinden. Die Arbeit schließt mit Handlungsempfehlungen für Politik und Planung.

The role of non-governmental organizations in achieving environmental justice for green and blue spaces

Article

Oct 2020
LANDSCAPE URBAN PLAN

The governance of green and blue spaces (GBS) has gradually shifted from public agencies to non-governmental organizations (NGOs) worldwide. Scholars have attributed this shift to the increased adoption of neoliberal governance involving reduced public spending for GBS. Although NGOs' work on GBS has raised environmental justice (EJ) concerns, some GBS NGOs have formed to advanced EJ goals. To date, limited research has compared GBS NGOs striving to advance different EJ pursuits, namely distributional justice (equal provision of GBS), procedural justice (engagement of marginalized people in GBS decision-making), and interactional justice (meaningful experiences in GBS for marginalized people). Focusing on California, where NGO coalitions have achieved significant EJ victories, we examine which GBS NGO characteristics are associated with their involvement in different EJ pursuits. We identify 121 GBS NGOs working in coalitions and analyze their websites and tax returns to extract information about their EJ focus, scope of work, revenue, and other characteristics. We find that working in urban settings, having higher revenue, and having a smaller geographic scale of work are associated with the odds of coalition-member GBS NGOs working on distributional justice. Few NGO characteristics are associated with the odds of working on procedural and interactional justice, suggesting that a broader range of coalition-member NGOs work on these tasks than on distributional justice. We also find that significantly fewer GBS NGOs outside coalitions focus on EJ than NGOs in coalitions. These findings from California can inform funding agencies, NGO management, and GBS government agencies worldwide.

PUBLIC SPACES THROUGH THE LENS OF PARTICIPATORY URBAN PLANNING – THE CASE OF KYIV

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2020

When Governing Urban Waters Differently: Five Tenets for Socio-Environmental Justice in Urban Climate Adaptation Interventions

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2023

Municipalities, their utilities and resource managers are designing and implementing policies and programs toward climate adaptation, which means governing urban water resources differently. Urban water managers are thus expanding their roles and responsibilities through the installation and maintenance of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) systems. This system expansion is perhaps more striking for water utilities administering GSI-related programs because they acquire a role that has an impact on how residents and neighborhoods will differentially experience the effects of climate change. Through an in-depth qualitative study of a GSI program in Tucson, Arizona, USA, we contribute to the socio-environmental justice framework with specific attention to distributive, procedural, recognition, interactional, and mobility justice. We highlight that a socio-environmental justice approach requires resource managers and decision-makers to recognize and respect the ways in which people’s everyday relationship to water and water infrastructure is impacted by culturally mediated social norms and values, as well as legacies of exclusion and inclusion in urban development and resource governance. Thus, we argue that discussions around water equity in urban water governance need to be placed within a socio-environmental justice framework to address historical inequalities and ensure these are not reproduced through GSI.

Public participation GIS can help assess multiple dimensions of environmental justice in urban green and blue space planning

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2022
APPL GEOGR

In the last two decades, there has been an exponential increase in application of public participation GIS (PPGIS) methods to urban green and blue space (UGBS) planning. However, integrating different elements of environmental justice in PPGIS research is still in its infancy, especially in regards to the deep and less visible issues related to recognition and participation of different groups in local green space planning and management. Here we present a new method for assessing perceived recognition and procedural justice with respect to UGBS in the Amager island of Copenhagen, Denmark. We collected survey data together with 2187 place-based values and preferences from 298 local residents. Using Exploratory Factor Analysis, we classified respondents in four clusters representing low to high perceived recognition and procedural justice. We then examined how these clusters relate to socio-demographics and the spatial distribution of mapped values and preferences. Results indicated no significant differences in terms of income and age between clusters. However, there was clear variation in the spatial distribution and type of values and preferences respondents from different clusters assigned, particularly for those who feel unrecognized and do not participate in local environmental decision-making compared to all other groups. In addition, gender had a significant effect on the perceptions of recognition and procedure. Female respondents scored lower on procedural justice than male and mapped landscape values and preferences closer to home than males, thus suggesting that gender inequalities can be deeply embedded in everyday public spaces and practices. Planning inclusive and environmentally just UGBS requires not only incorporating such gender perspectives, but a more flexible, intersectional and relational understanding of space that reflects the everyday needs of different and marginalized groups.

Private Events in a Public Park: Contested Music Festivals and Environmental Justice in Finsbury Park, London

Chapter

Full-text available

Sep 2022

City parks have long been understood as contested spaces. But creeping privatisation and commercialisation in an era of neoliberal austerity have heightened tensions between different user groups, and between local communities and park authorities. This chapter provides an in-depth case study of a contested green space in a global city. Finsbury Park in London opened in 1869 as the people’s park with the aim of improving the living conditions for the working classes. However, it is now a highly commercialised park, regularly hosting private events which are justified by the local authority as necessary to finance the maintenance of the park. The chapter focuses on the dispute between the local Friends group and Haringey Borough Council over music festivals staged in Finsbury Park. The Friends of Finsbury Park have challenged the legality of these events in the UK courts as they affect the accessibility of public space. Wireless—billed as the UK’s biggest and most famous urban music festival—is particularly controversial. This is an expensive and disruptive event, but one that celebrates urban and youth cultures, suggesting it may have positive as well as negative effects on park accessibility. Based on field work conducted from 2017 to 2020, and the analysis of documents covering the dispute, this case study assesses the ways that music festivals affect the status of Finsbury Park as a people’s park. The chapter highlights the wider implications of this local dispute and outlines the socio-spatial impacts of the shift in London towards parks financed by commercial income.

Green regeneration for more justice? An analysis of the purpose, implementation, and impacts of greening policies from a justice perspective in Łódź Stare Polesie (Poland) and Leipzig’s inner east (Germany)

Article

Oct 2022
ENVIRON SCI POLICY

Greening and green regeneration have been developed as a major strategy for improving quality of life in cities and neighbourhoods. Greening policies and projects are being applied at both the citywide and the neighbourhood level for various reasons, such as adaptation to climate change and the improvement of housing and living conditions as well as wellbeing and health. Urban policies, plans, and programmes have increasingly employed greening strategies to make urban neighbourhoods more attractive, to improve quality of life, and to provide residents with recreational space. At the same time, greening is increasingly “exploited” by market-oriented regeneration and construction strategies. The new critical debates on eco-gentrification—or distributional, procedural, and interactional injustices—are discussing emerging conflicts or trade-offs between green regeneration and the social or housing market impacts, as well as analysing the role of greening and green regeneration with respect to the (re)production of socio-spatial inequalities and injustices. Set against this background, our paper provides a comparative analysis of two cases—Łódź Stare Polesie (Poland) and Leipzig’s inner east (Germany)—and has a threefold purpose: first, it seeks to analyse interconnections between greening policies and justice concerns. To operationalise the aforementioned interconnections, we will, second, develop an operational model that looks at interconnections as a process and applies a justice perspective that focuses on a multidimensional, intersectional, relational, and context- and policy-sensitive understanding of justice. Third, the paper seeks to detect how a contrasting comparison can help us to come to a better and more comprehensive understanding of the interconnections between green regeneration and justice. The study itself builds on primary research about the two cases from earlier projects.

Factors and Strategies for Environmental Justice in Organized Urban Green Space Development

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2022

Dillip Das

Increased demand for land for economic and residential purposes has engendered tensions among different land users in Indian cities. Consequently, the development and management of environmentally just and organized green spaces involve major challenges. In this article, using the context of three Indian cities (Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, and Kolkata), the factors that contribute to environmentally unjust development and management of organized green spaces were examined and various strategies that would lead to environmental justice were evaluated. A survey research method was used to collect data, followed by factor analysis and ordinal regression modelling. Findings suggest that factors under five principal components contributed to environmental injustice, including: community features and infrastructure related to organized green space; the economics of development and management of organized green space; linking green space to environment and health; spatial development, land use, and accessibility; and land availability and governance of the supply of green space. Strategies such as community-led, green space development and management; fair and equitable distribution of green spaces; improvement of accessibility; connecting green spaces to benefits of health; and mandatory linkage of built infrastructure with the provision of green spaces would ensure environmental justice.

The thorny path toward greening: unintended consequences, trade-offs, and constraints in green and blue infrastructure planning, implementation, and management

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2021
ECOL SOC

Urban green and blue space interventions may bring about unintended consequences, involving trade-offs between the different land uses, and indeed, between the needs of different urban inhabitants, land users, and owners. Such trade-offs include choices between green/blue and non-green/blue projects, between broader land sparing vs. land sharing patterns, between satisfying the needs of the different inhabitants, but also between different ways of arranging the green and blue spaces. We analyze investment and planning initiatives in six case-study cities related to green and blue infrastructure (GBI) through the lens of a predefined set of questions - an analytical framework based on the assumption that the flows of benefits from GBI to urban inhabitants and other stakeholders are mediated by three filters: infrastructures, institutions, and perceptions. The paper builds on the authors' own knowledge and experience with the analyzed case-study cities and beyond, a literature overview, a review of the relevant city documents, and interviews with key informants. The case studies indicate examples of initiatives that were intended to make GBI benefits available and accessible to urban inhabitants, in recognition of GBI as spaces with diverse functionality. Some case studies provide examples of trade-offs in trying to plan and design a green space for multiple private and public interests in densely built-up areas. The unintended consequences most typically resulted from the underappreciation of the complexity of social-ecological systems and - more specifically - the complexity of the involved infrastructures, institutions, and perceptions. The most important challenges addressed in the paper include trade-offs between the different ways of satisfying the residents' different needs related to the benefits from ecosystem services, ensuring proper recognition of the inhabitants' needs and perceptions, ecogentrification, caveats related to the formalization of informal spaces, and the need to consider temporal dynamics and cross-scale approaches that compromise different goals at different geographical scales.

Visualizing fairness: Distributional equity of urban green spaces for marginalized groups

Article

Apr 2021

Previous environmental justice studies of urban green spaces (UGSs) have typically focused on issues in race/ethnicity or income level in Western countries and given limited attention to other dimensions of social disadvantage in Asian countries. To address this research gap, we examined distributional equity/inequity of UGSs among senior citizens living alone, single-mother families, individuals with disability, and basic livelihood security recipients in Seoul, South Korea. A geographically weighted regression was employed via a case study of 424 Dong districts in Seoul. Findings showed spatially heterogeneous equitable and inequitable access to UGSs; solitary seniors and single-mother families were more likely to experience inequitable access to UGSs, whereas people with disability and basic livelihood security recipients were more likely to have equitable access to UGSs. Seoul park management agencies could use the study findings to allocate resources for groups/regions that are in need of more access to UGSs.

“Physical activity patterns in two differently characterised urban parks under conditions of summer heat” [Environ. Sci. Policy 107 May (2020) 56–65]

Article

Dec 2020
ENVIRON SCI POLICY

"To them, we're just kids from the hood": Citizen-based policing of youth of color, "white space," and environmental gentrification

Article

Aug 2020
CITIES

Citizen-based policing creates “white space” in areas undergoing environmental gentrification. Citizen-based policing targets minority youth behaviors in parks in these areas. The number of graffiti-related 311 non-emergency calls increased with environmental gentrification. Minority youth may stop using urban parks due to citizen-based policing.

Environmental justice in the context of urban green space availability, accessibility, and attractiveness in postsocialist cities

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2020
CITIES

This article aims to position postsocialist cities in Central and Eastern Europe in the broader debate on urban environmental justice. The article crosscuts through all three dimensions of justice (distributive/distributional, procedural/participatory, and interactional/recognition) in the context of urban green and blue space provision. Environmental justice is still an emerging topic in postsocialist cities, constrained by market-orientation and neoliberal trends within society, privatization, and the primacy of private interests. The respective situation in postsocialist cities provides insights into the international debate on environmental justice, by highlighting some extremes related to neoliberal and populist governments and very rapid processes that lack long-term democratic consensus within societies. The findings of this study are discussed in the context of a postsocialist legacy, which includes broad tolerance for inequalities, a lack of solidarity in society, a lack of responsibility for the public interest, and extreme individualization and disregard for social interests. This has gradually led to the corporatization of local authorities and various business–government coalitions. This setting is more likely to favor business models related to the use and management of urban green and blue spaces than the environmental justice discourse.

Protected areas in land use planning policies: Key articulation for territorial justice

Article

Feb 2023
ENVIRON SCI POLICY

Degele Pamela

The Latin American region has been marked by a historic process of extractivism and weak institutional structures, causing deep socio-environmental and economic crises. The resaturation of territorial justice has then become the center of the debate. Nature-based solutions, for their innovative and systemic nature, could be key in approaching these complex problems. However, the interplay between these strategies and justice is not clear enough. This article addresses this interaction centering on protected areas, the most traditional response from regional governments to nature degradation. We attempt to test the hypothesis that integrating protected areas in land use planning policies improves the exercise of justice, understanding it from a place-based point of view. To this end, we carried out quali- and quantitative analysis of social perceptions, historical background, land use policies and governance in Tandil and Tornquist, two municipal districts of the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The results showed that i) protected areas were associated with justice if a conservation project reached a legal rule and if the community was involved in its formulation and management; ii) the integration of protected areas in land use planning policies helped to satisfy both conditions. We end by proposing a theoretical model which outlines how three strengths of land use planning can turn PAs into more just NbS. We also discuss the need to develop a broader and place-based approach of justice as “territorial justice”.

Based on nature, enabled by social-ecological-technological context: deriving benefit from urban green and blue infrastructure

Article

Dec 2022
ECOL SOC

Learning from Older Adults' Use of Urban Parks in Hong Kong's Low-income Areas

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2022

Spatial justice, specifically accessibility, Universal Design and the fulfilment of human rights for vulnerable groups are increasingly deemed relevant issues in urban research and city-level agendas concerning public spaces. Although the development of older adult-friendly urban environments is part of the agenda to promote healthy ageing societies, public spaces (e.g., urban parks) often exclude those in the advanced age group in the community. This article offers a preliminary assessment of the older adult-friendly urban environments, hostile urban design elements and the everyday activities of older adults in urban parks by focusing on the extreme case of Sham Shui Po. This is a low-income, high-density and public space-scarce neighbourhood in Hong Kong, a city characterised by a rapidly ageing population and high socio-spatial inequality. Qualitative methods as environment audit, direct observations and video-recordings were used to investigate the physical environment and the older adults' social and physical activities. Two representative urban parks are selected, the Nam Cheong Street Sitting-out Area (NCSA) and Tai Hang Tung Park (THTP). NCSA, located in a congested vehicular street median, allows independent mobility and is predominantly for intergenerational social activities. It is part of the daily route of residents and inhabitants from different ethnicities. Hostile design prevents the full use of seating facilities. THTP is a site for older adults to engage in physical activities and also accommodates large groups and caregivers. Defensive architecture and design layout may affect the group size in the parks, while sittable edges may directly contribute to the park use by older adults with physical disabilities, particularly near street crossings. The findings from this deprived neighbourhood highlight the critical role of landscape infrastructure for healthy ageing societies.

国外环境绅士化研究进展与启示

Article

Jan 2021

绅士化是近数十年人文地理学和城乡规划学持续关注的热门话题。在传统绅士化的基础上，学者们陆续提出了新建绅士化、教育绅士化、乡村绅士化、旅游绅士化以及环境绅士化等概念。其中，环境绅士化在近年尤受关注。本文首先对国外环境绅士化现有文献进行梳理和分析，对环境绅士化的概念、产生背景与影响进行介绍，认为环境绅士化是由环境美化或环境清理等环境改善实践所推动的地方物理空间品质提升，社会经济文化升级，弱势群体或低收入阶层直接或间接失所的过程。然后，从传统绅士化视角、环境不正义视角以及可持续发展内在矛盾视角对环境绅士化的相关研究进行了梳理，并特别基于环境不正义视角，对国外环境绅士化现有应对策略进行总结。最后，文章对现有国外环境绅士化的研究进行总结与评述，并呼吁我国学术界和实践界关注由于快速生态环境治理和绿化美化所引发的环境绅士化现象。

Mapping mental barriers that prevent the use of neighborhood green spaces

Article

Apr 2022

In comparison to the study of green space use, the study of its non-use or rejection is greatly understudied. Neighborhood managers and members of local gardening initiatives of Halle-Newtown, Germany, state that residents ignore local green-blue infrastructure (GBI) for recreational use. Halle-Newtown is a former showcase, large prefabricated socialist housing estate that is now facing an increase of households deprived in multiple ways. We are interested in the question of why people of Halle-Newtown refuse to use local GBI. In order to uncover potential barriers to the enjoyment of the ecosystem service benefits of local GBI, we have chosen the method of mental mapping to explore place attachment in Halle-Newtown. In summer 2018, about 100 residents of Halle-Newtown described the places they prefer when relaxing from a stressful and hot summer day. The results were surprising. Local GBI, be it created in socialist times or recently, was completely absent from their mental maps. Instead, people would overcome longer distances and cover higher costs to reach central green spaces. Tacit knowledge, namely the untold general rejection of the entire neighborhood by the residents, was found to be the deeper reason behind non-use of GBI and missing place attachment. The results uncovered that both neighborhood neglect and the multi-scalar character of urban recreational ideas/behavior are factors that help us to understand non-use of urban GBI, two key insights for urban planning.

Slow violence in public parks in the U.S.: can we escape our troubling past?

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2022

Previous studies on environmental justice have paid limited attention to procedural injustice in parks. Using the concept of slow violence, this paper interrogates the ideological and philosophical foundations of American public parks in order to unearth enduring structural patterns of procedural injustice. The paper illustrates that community, state, and national parks in the U.S. were founded upon the elitism, eugenics, and racism of affluent and powerful White conservationists and social reformers. To materialize their own interests, the White elite defined, built, and managed public parks by displacing, excluding, and criminalizing the Indigenous, the poor, people of color, and immigrants. As such, many of today’s park injustices, such as inequitable park availability and quality, gentrification, and non-visitation of people of color, originated from the beginning of the public parks in the 19th century and have been sustained ever since. The paper discusses corrective justice strategies to alleviate the enduring slow violence in parks.

In Pursuit of Just Sustainability

Book

Full-text available

Nov 2021

We are confronted with the challenge of developing cities and societies that respond to the key challenges of our age – climate change, resource scarcity, poverty and inequality. In essence, what is being called for is a transition towards just sustainability. Despite assertions that it is possible to develop in a way that is concurrently socially just and environmentally sustainable, in reality, achieving this alignment has proved elusive. The GCRO’s 12th Research Report, In pursuit of just sustainability, presents empirical case study research from a range of sectors, perspectives and approaches to advance just sustainability theory and inform practice. The report sets out to examine the interactions between social justice and environmental sustainability using the Gauteng City-Region as the case study context. The first substantive chapter in this collection (Chapter 2) provides a theoretical contribution to understanding just sustainability and proposes a set of considerations for applying it in practice. This chapter is followed by five empirical case studies, with two focused on the energy sector (Chapters 3 and 4), one on housing and urban form (Chapter 5) and the final two cases concentrating on the transport sector (Chapters 6 and 7). Gauteng provides an appropriate focus for examining interconnections between social justice and environmental sustainability because it is one of the world’s most unequal societies, where wealth inequality strongly correlates with resource consumption and with those who bear the burden of the environmental ills. However, the research does not argue for the uniqueness of the GCR in this regard, but rather that the number of relevant examples in just one small corner of the world, clearly demonstrates the significant need to engage issues of just sustainability in a deeper and more robust way. This collection of case studies aims to further the discourse on just sustainability by focusing attention on the complexities and potential trade-offs inherent in making progress towards a society that is both socially just and environmentally sustainable. Each chapter argues against simplification, and tries to demonstrate that while a crucial objective, building just sustainability is neither simple nor straightforward.

Mosaic governance A multi-method approach for engaging diverse groups in the planning of green spaces and meeting spots

Technical Report

Full-text available

Oct 2021

The aim of this synthesis fact sheet is to present a sustainable spatial planning framework for revitalising green spaces and meeting spots for social inclusion, biodiversity and well-being, including safety and security. We provide important insights for city planners about how new partnerships can be established between social entrepreneurs, NGOs, municipalities and marginalised groups, with a view to achieve social inclusion, biodiversity and well-being outcomes in green spaces and associated meeting spots. This work is supported by VIVAPLAN, an international research consortium funded by FORMAS, The Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development.

Mapping mental barriers that prevent the use of neighborhood green spaces

Article

Dec 2021
ECOL SOC

In comparison to the study of green space use, the study of its non-use or rejection is greatly understudied. Neighborhood managers and members of local gardening initiatives of Halle-Newtown, Germany, state that residents ignore local green-blue infrastructure (GBI) for recreational use. Halle-Newtown is a former showcase, large prefabricated socialist housing estate that is now facing an increase of households deprived in multiple ways. We are interested in the question of why people of Halle-Newtown refuse to use local GBI. In order to uncover potential barriers to the enjoyment of the ecosystem service benefits of local GBI, we have chosen the method of mental mapping to explore place attachment in Halle-Newtown. In summer 2018, about 100 residents of Halle-Newtown described the places they prefer when relaxing from a stressful and hot summer day. The results were surprising. Local GBI, be it created in socialist times or recently, was completely absent from their mental maps. Instead, people would overcome longer distances and cover higher costs to reach central green spaces. Tacit knowledge, namely the untold general rejection of the entire neighborhood by the residents, was found to be the deeper reason behind non-use of GBI and missing place attachment. The results uncovered that both neighborhood neglect and the multi-scalar character of urban recreational ideas/behavior are factors that help us to understand non-use of urban GBI, two key insights for urban planning.

Greensplaining environmental justice: A narrative of race, ethnicity, and justice in urban greenspace development

Article

Jun 2021

While urban greenspaces play an important role in shaping the cultural and social dimensions of cities, these spaces are also inherently political, often serving to perpetuate the exclusion and subordination of racially marginalized populations. Drawing upon critical race theory, the purpose of this research is to use narratives to highlight how race, structural racism, White privilege, and power continue to shape environmental injustices in the urban landscape. By sharing these stories, we illustrate how (a) environmental injustices stemming from structural and overt racism are often positioned as ordinary experiences, (b) the racialized state continues to foster environmental injustices in Latinx communities, and (c) how techniques of what we refer to as “greensplaining” are deployed by environmentalists and conservationists as further justification for White privilege, racialized marginalization, and processes of gentrification.

Striving for Inclusion—A Systematic Review of Long-Term Participation in Strategic Management of Urban Green Spaces

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2021

This systematic review contributes to the research field of user participation by suggesting a new holistic approach comprising a cyclic process model for long-term participation in the strategic management of urban green spaces, including analysis, design, and implementation phases, each followed by an evaluation. User participation in urban green spaces is encouraged in international conventions. Such initiatives aim to involve citizens more closely in decisions regarding local spaces, based on the premise that this will create better, more inclusive, and sustainable local environments. However, a social inclusion perspective is largely absent in the growing body of European scientific literature on urban green spaces. Further, user participation processes are often carried out within projects, with uncertainties about which strategic management phase (planning, design, construction, and/or maintenance) to emphasize and about the long-term sustainability of project-based participation. Therefore, the literature was examined for tools for participation with the focus on participation of local users in the strategic management of urban green spaces, and in particular, marginalized groups. A systematic review based on peer-reviewed scientific papers revealed the necessity for adapting participation processes to the known needs of different participant groups, including those of marginalized groups often excluded in the past. Local authorities have several pathways to socially inclusive and long-term participation. These include choosing and employing a suitable participation approach, anchoring repeated project-based participation in existing municipal long-term strategies, continuously supporting participating users and evaluating ongoing participation processes, and employing a mix of participation types and approaches. The “cyclic process model for long-term participation in strategic management of UGS” presented in this paper could guide such efforts.

A context sensitive systems approach for understanding and enabling ecosystem service realisation in cities

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2021
ECOL SOC

Paper available online here: https://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol26/iss2/art35/ Understanding opportunities as well as constraints for people to benefit from and take care of urban nature is an important step toward more sustainable cities. In order to explore, engage, and enable strategies to improve urban quality of life, we combine a social-ecological-technological systems framework with a flexible methodological approach to urban studies. The framework focuses on context dependencies in the flow and distribution of ecosystem service benefits within cities. The shared conceptual system framework supports a clear positioning of individual cases and integration of multiple methods, while still allowing for flexibility for aligning with local circumstances and ensuring context-relevant knowledge. To illustrate this framework, we draw on insights from a set of exploratory case studies used to develop and test how the framework could guide research design and synthesis across multiple heterogeneous cases. Relying on transdisciplinary multi- and mixed methods research designs, our approach seeks to both enable within-case analyses and support and gradually build a cumulative understanding across cases and city contexts. Finally, we conclude by discussing key questions about green and blue infrastructure and its contributions to urban quality of life that the approach can help address, as well as remaining knowledge gaps both in our understanding of urban systems and of the methodological approaches we use to fill these gaps.

Uptake and Use of Biodiversity Offsetting in Urban Planning – The Case of Sweden

Article

Feb 2023

Stadt begrünen – Grün- und Freiräume

Chapter

Jan 2023

Dagmar Haase

Mehr als die Hälfte der Menschen weltweit lebt in Städten und täglich werden es mehr. Städte sind attraktive Orte für Arbeit und Bildung, für gute Vernetzung und kulturelles Leben. Gleichzeitig sind Städte auch Orte, die teils von extremer Luftverschmutzung, Lärm und Hitze geprägt sind. Dennoch werden Städte vermehrt Rückzugsorte für Biodiversität, die sich aus der industriellen Landwirtschaft zurückzieht. Daher sind Freiräume in der Stadt von heute und morgen essenziell für das Wohlbefinden und die Gesundheit von Bewohner*innen, aber auch von Stadtökosystemen. Zu urbanen Freiräumen zählen vor allem Grünflächen und Gewässer, Wälder, Parks, Kleingärten und Brachen ebenso wie Flüsse, Seen oder Feuchtgebiete. Freiräume haben große Potenziale, die Umweltbedingungen in Städten zu moderieren und zu verbessern: Sie kühlen die Luft, reichern sie mit Sauerstoff an, sie puffern Lärm und bieten Orte der physischen und mentalen Erholung. Zudem sind Freiräume beliebte Orte für soziales Leben, Kommunikation und Freizeit. Dies gilt allerdings nicht für alle Freiräume, denn die Aufenthaltsqualität ist sehr abhängig von ihrem Zustand. Daher thematisiert dieses Kapitel verschiedene Filter zum Zugang zu Grün- und Freiräumen, Konzepte der Erreichbarkeit und Qualität, grundsätzliche Fragen der Umweltgerechtigkeit bezüglich urbaner Freiräume sowie aktuelle Fallbeispiele.

Grüne Freiräume in Ankunftsquartieren – Chancen und Herausforderungen

Chapter

Nov 2022

Annegret Haase

Cultures, Communities and Design FLEXIBILITY AND DIVERSITY IN MAKING AGE-FRIENDLY CHINESE PARK IN SOCIAL DIMENSION

Preprint

Oct 2022

Ying Liao

Abstract: Little is known about what social and spatial features of parks old people find most important for encouraging them to visit and be active and sociable in parks. This paper examines the significant role of parks and explores various spatial factors in connection with flexibility and diversity that affect social interaction among different age groups in the context of China. Social interaction is significant and beneficial for older people’s mental health, and therefore contributes to maintaining social sustainability. This study utilises extensive empirical fieldwork, including observation and ethnographic interviews, to investigate how parks are used and how social activity takes place among older people. The paper uses micro-design analysis to reveal social interaction occurring most frequently in park squares in China, extending the concept of flexibility in terms of diverse functional ‘in-betweenness’ for indeterminacy of use and regularity of large programmed events that enhance edge use in ‘positive’ space. In addition, the changeable seasonal spatial feature as unfamiliarity challenges existing theory to create more social opportunities in familiar spaces and extends the form of unfamiliar space. Moreover, adjacent diverse functions, children-playing and relatively enclosed small-scale spaces extend the concept of diversity in terms of function, form and users to create more social interaction among older users. Ultimately, these key findings will help to bring new insights to optimise the design of age-friendly public spaces in cities. Keywords: flexibility, diversity, social interaction, older adults, park visits, age-friendly design

From the Paradise of Beit Shean Valley to the Contested Landscape of the Valley of Springs: Water Amenities, Environmental Justice, and Sustainable Development

Chapter

Oct 2022

Tal Alon Mozes

This chapter discusses the failure to revive paradise in the fertile lands of the Valley of Springs, located in the northeastern part of the Jordan River Valley in Israel. It focuses on the area’s abundance of water and sunshine, which could have served as the essence of life and enjoyment for the various communities of the Valley and also for domestic and international tourists. However, during the 2020s, it provoked a symbolic as well as a physical struggle among the locals and the Israeli public at large. While currently proposed solutions focus on limited legal and spatial resolutions, the chapter suggests examining the Valley of Springs environmental history and current predicament through the perspective of water as an essential substance for living and tourism and an agent of social relationships, which also holds symbolic meaning. As such, and in light of the three pillars of environmental justice: distribution, procedure, and interaction—it proposes an alternative approach for creating a more sustainable future for the Valley’s tourism industry and for the region as a whole. This chapter is based on a comprehensive review of local and regional schemes that address water as a prominent, local resource, and the actual water-based recreation sites which were established throughout the Valley since the 1950s. The results indicate the need to adopt a holistic vision for the region, based on water.KeywordsWaterRecreationEnvironmental justiceSustainable developmentIsrael

Environmental Justice in the Post-socialist City. The Case of Riga, Latvia

Chapter

Sep 2022

The specificities of socialist planning and the deep socio-spatial transformations from the early 1990s make former Soviet and Eastern Bloc cities relevant case studies in the environmental justice domain. This chapter assesses distributive environmental justice in the capital city of Latvia, analysing possible socio-spatial inequalities in terms of the quantitative and qualitative distribution of urban green spaces. To this aim, the study integrates spatial and survey data analysis. First, survey data are analysed to investigate social status-based inequality in terms of green space availability. Second, green spaces in Riga are mapped according to their formal and informal status based on official documents. Third, georeferenced socio-demographic data from population census and registers are analysed to understand static and dynamic patterns of inequality in terms of UGS distribution. Finally, to grasp the dynamics and factors behind urban green space availability and accessibility, the results are discussed and framed within the context of urban governance trends by outlining examples of how urban development and planning logic and practises affect environmental justice in Riga. The study concludes that elements of distributive injustice do exist in Riga: poorer residents are more likely to be ‘bound’ to residential areas with low urban green space availability and accessibility, and spatial dynamics show an increasing concentration of wealthy residents in areas with higher urban green space quality. Moreover, the neoliberal governance logic, the lack of protection of informal green spaces and insufficiently participatory decision-making practices raise concerns about further increasing environmental injustice in the future.KeywordsEnvironmental justiceDistributive justiceUrban green spacesSocial stratificationUrban policy

Contingent Urban Nature and Interactional Justice: The Evolving Coastal Spaces of the City of Tallinn

Chapter

Full-text available

Sep 2022

Tarmo Pikner

Waterfronts in cities have become contested spaces often involving negotiated dimensions of environmental justice. On one hand, urbanisation expands to coastal areas which provide aesthetic and recreational places enjoyed by humans (often mirrored in high real-estate value). On the other hand, coastal areas provide valuable ecologies for more-than-human species. This tension comes to the fore through the unequal rights and negotiated values regarding the natural environment in planning processes. The current chapter focuses on intersections between urbanity, unfolding nature and disturbances in relation to coastal spaces, which are affected by post-socialist transformations. It thus elaborates the existing framework of environmental justice to understand the emergent characteristics of urban nature and interim phases of usage in the context of a post-socialist city. This is done in the case of two coastal spaces in Tallinn—Kalarand and Paljassaare. One located in the city centre and the other on the urban fringe, the case studies explore the dynamic characteristics of urban nature and interactional justice. As a result, the chapter shows that interactional justice in urban change is faced with a challenge to incorporate temporary practises, unintentional design and fleeting more-than-human qualities. It thus recommends the integration of disturbance-related ecologies and longer time frames in studying environmental justice in the post-socialist context, as this would allow to problematize common understandings of homogenous socialist legacies, wastelands and linear processes in urban transformations.KeywordsUrban natureEnvironmental justicePost-socialist spaceTallinn

Green Spaces and Their Social Functions: Specific Challenges in Urban Spaces of Arrival

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2022

Annegret Haase

Significance Statement Urban green spaces fulfil multiple functions. Next to their function as areas for leisure, recreation, perception of nature or improvement of physical and mental health, they are also operating as spaces of social contact, encounter, communication and interaction. This social function of urban green spaces becomes a challenge in heterogeneous neighbourhoods where many different groups of residents having different backgrounds of origin, socialization and social daily routines and practices live together and use the same public space. This chapter looks at the social functions of urban green spaces in heterogeneous urban areas, so-called urban spaces of arrival how we find them in many European cities, with a focus on encounter, communication and interaction.

The Link Between Urban Green Space Planning Tools and Distributive, Procedural and Recognition Justice

Chapter

Full-text available

Jan 2022

Significant Statement Climate change and an increasing urbanisation create pressure on cities in terms of extreme weather events, deteriorated public health and wellbeing and a loss of biodiversity. Urban green spaces, such as parks and street trees, can help to reduce vulnerability and improve living conditions. Planning tools can support decisions on where, what and how much urban green space to save or implement. If used appropriately, planning tools can capture citizens’ needs and foster a more just planning and implementation of urban green spaces. This demands knowledge about the tools, their efficiency and appropriate application, as well as knowledge about the ecosystem and human needs. It also demands adequate technical, time and economic resources, as well as organisational and communication structures that can include citizens in the planning process.

The underestimated role of the transportation network: Improving disaster & community resilience

Article

May 2022
TRANSPORT RES D-TR E

Improving community resilience relies on our ability to evaluate and understand the direct and indirect role of the transportation network. This requires losing our fixation with network functionality in favour of an approach that evaluates whether the network is truly serving the community’s needs. In this paper, we present such an approach. With the understanding that sufficient and equitable access to amenities is key to community resilience, we leverage open-source data and routing algorithms to simulate road and service closures under various hazard scenarios. Among our methodological contributions is the ability to efficiently modify entire transportation networks to reflect hazard damage and identify isolated communities. This makes integrating hazard simulation with access and equity evaluations practicable on a large scale. We illustrate this approach in three cities. Ultimately, a broader view of the transportation network’s role will better support communities prepare for and respond equitably when a disaster occurs.

Socioeconomic groups and their green spaces availability in urban areas of China: A distributional justice perspective

Article

May 2022
ENVIRON SCI POLICY

Relying on a nationwide social survey, this study examined the availability of green spaces to different socioeconomic groups living in urban areas in China. Through the survey, data was collected from 3759 individual urban residents. The socioeconomic statuses of the respondents were measured comprehensively using indicators such as household income, level of education, housing conditions, employment status, and internal migration status. Geocoded addresses of respondents were extracted to calculate three different indicators of green space availability: the coverage ratio of the overall areas of vegetation, the coverage ratio of park areas, and the closest distance to a park. The results show that the provision of green space does not strongly discriminate against people’s socioeconomic levels in China. Instead, certain disadvantaged groups were, at times, provided with more green spaces than comparison groups. Hinterland migrants (i.e., non-local Hukou) tend to live closer to parks than local people. Residents in affordable housing estates and urban villages (who are marginalized groups within cities) have a higher rate of vegetation coverage than other groups. However, higher-income people tend to live closer to parks than lower-income groups, although the differences in vegetation and park coverage for the two groups are insignificant. This study expands the current inquiry on the distributional justices of green space by adding a nationwide exploration in a developing country. The results evaluated green space availability in urban areas across the country, which also can inform decision-makers and planners about which disadvantaged groups should be the focus of efforts to promote equity in green space distribution

"UM LUGAR MUITO DE BRANCO": PERFORMANCES DE CLASSE E RAÇA NA PRAÇA DAS FLORES EM FORTALEZA

Book

Full-text available

Oct 2021

Fábio Macedo

Abordamos nesta pesquisa o comportamento da classe média e alta em um dos principais espaços públicos da cidade de Fortaleza, a raça das Flores no bairro Aldeota. Observamos seus modos de apropriação deste território com foco nas performances de classe e raça que são incorporadas pelos frequentadores desse espaço. Nos concentramos na análise dos significados simbólicos associados a um conjunto de representações e práticas que estruturam formas de consumo da praça, sobretudo, após a mesma ter se tornado, desde 2016, objeto de investimentos privados do capital imobiliário. Em termos metodológicos, tomamos por base a observação participante realizada entre julho de 2020 e janeiro de 2021, conduzida por meio da prática de esporte com grupos na praça e seus arredores; entrevistas com frequentadores, e pesquisa de conteúdos veiculados em sites de redes sociais online, buscando compreender o modo como esse espaço urbano é retratado em perfis de indivíduos no Instagram, em matérias de propaganda do governo e de empresas privadas que investem na região. Fundamentamos nossa análise especialmente nos aportes teóricos da sociologia bourdieusiana articulada ao campo de estudos críticos da branquitude para pensar a incorporação de determinados habitus de classe também em uma perspectiva racializada. Ao longo da pesquisa identificamos que os investimentos realizados na Praça das Flores e no seu entorno, não chegam em igual medida em bairros da periferia, e refletem relações de poder que reforçam barreiras de desigualdades socioeconômicas e raciais nos espaços públicos da cidade. Ao analisar as principais práticas de consumo da praça e as entrevistas com os praticantes, percebemos que as elites e classe média branca se apropriam desse território de modo racializado como capital simbólico através de diferentes performances de incorporação da branquitude reafirmando de maneira sutil a manutenção de seus espaços de privilégios na cidade.

Critical discourse analysis of urban park and public space development

Article

Sep 2021
CITIES

Lauren Mullenbach

Public urban parks are valued community amenities and an integral part of an environmentally just society. Given increasing concerns of gentrification associated with urban parks, this paper critically analyzed the discourse of urban park development to understand its main message, rhetorical devices, and potential to affect praxis. I find current discourse surrounding park development overstates the ability of public urban parks to reverse trends in social stratification while understating the possible downsides to urban park development. The discourse of ‘parks-as-social-healers’ is produced by urbanists with significant sociopolitical power in their respective fields who use three distinct discursive tools to enhance the discourse's utility and efficacy. Using the power and influence of wealthy foundations to back up their claims, this discourse exerts hegemonic influence on urban public space development. Downplaying gentrification and exaggerating social benefits—hallmarks of this discourse—can lead to environmental injustices, potentially exacerbating park access disparities.

Does public support of urban park development stem from gentrification beliefs and attitudes?

Article

Jul 2021
LANDSCAPE URBAN PLAN

Urban Nature: Enriching Belonging, Wellbeing and Bioculture

Book

Oct 2020

Assessing the relationship between community engagement and perceived ownership of an urban park in Philadelphia

Article

May 2019
J LEISURE RES

Urban parks provide many benefits, though evidence of environmental injustice associated with certain park investments is growing. Some cities fail to engage communities in park planning, which can reduce residents’ sense of ownership of new and renovated parks and disconnect them from the neighborhood social fabric. Thus, this study assessed the outcomes of resident engagement with an urban park nonprofit located in a low-income community of color in Philadelphia. We developed new metrics measuring perceived engagement with park planning and programming and its association with perceived community ownership and perceptions of the park as part of the neighborhood social fabric. We analyzed these variables following a renovation using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Results showed significant relationships between perceived community engagement and perceptions of the park as a community asset. These findings underscore the importance of engaging communities in park planning to enhance ownership and avoid feeling excluded.

The Governance and Politics of Nature-Based Solutions

Preprint

Full-text available

May 2017

This working paper aims at bringing together key insights on the governance of nature-based solutions, green/blue spaces, infrastructure and parks in cities as emerging in the peer-reviewed literature. It aims at setting the tone for the empirical and conceptual work undertaken in the framework of the Naturvation project, while looking for gaps, hot spots and on-going debates that require further research.

A just urban ecosystem service governance at the neighbourhood level- perspectives from Sofielund, Malmö, Sweden

Article

Oct 2020
ENVIRON SCI POLICY

The global urban population is increasing and in many urban areas this, combined with densification, create a strain on urban water management and availability of urban green space. Simultaneously, climate change leads to increased frequency and intensity of cloudbursts and hot spells. To counteract experienced problems, cities are increasingly working to improve urban green space through actively including nature-based solutions (NBS) and their related ecosystem services (ES). From an urban sustainable development perspective, it is important to understand where and how to work with NBS and ES, to benefit the whole society. This task of urban ES governance is challenging, especially as the possibilities to work with green space depend on the amount of available space, which varies greatly in and between cities. The aim of the study was to assess how local stakeholders involved in urban development and regeneration processes in a neighbourhood perceive the physical/environmental and social structures, and their interactions in relation to ES provision. The study focuses on actors that directly or indirectly influence the wellbeing of local residents in the district Sofielund in Malmö, Sweden, and is based on semi-structured interviews with 16 stakeholders, including property owners or managers, businesses and local representatives from the Swedish Union of Tenants. The results show that local stakeholder involvement is a key to a just urban ES governance. Without acknowledging different stakeholder perspectives, there is a risk that those with more power and louder voices may steer the urban development in a certain direction, leaving the rest devoid of influence. Approaches to involve local residents exist in Sofielund, both within the local community, housing organizations, as well as a part of the ordinary planning process, but several barriers exist for a more structured participatory culture where the interest of local residents are taken into consideration. Particularly relevant for the interviewed stakeholders, is the identified lack of structure for participation and communication between property owners and the municipality. If the distribution of ES is unequal and participatory structures are lacking, stakeholders will perceive that their interests are not considered. In a short-term perspective, this will create unsatisfaction and decreased trust. In the longer perspective, it may create a degradation of the neighbourhood where economically stronger inhabitants move out. By ensuring, that local inhabitants perceive that their needs of green space are recognized and that a potential uneven distributions of ES provision is considered, it is possible to achieve a more just sustainable urban development. Based on these findings, we make four recommendations on how a just urban ES governance could be developed; social and physical development has to be seen as a whole, power structures have to be recognized, inclusive engagement structures have to be put in place, measurements of ES have to target relative ES provision, related to the needs of differet groups of residents groups.

Public space and diversity: Distributive, procedural and interactional justice for parks

No full-text available

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