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Mosaic governance for urban green infrastructure: Upscaling active citizenship from a local government perspective
Abstract
Compact urban development, social demands and austerity measures are increasing pressures on urban greenspace. Meanwhile, active citizens, defined as voluntary individuals or groups who self-organize to contribute to urban green space development, provide ecological and social benefits to urban societies. This has inspired local governments to seek collaborations with non-state actors, including active citizens. However, the diverging aims, place-specific focus, and varying expertise of active citizenship may inhibit its contribution to ecological connectivity and upscaling beyond the local scale.
In this paper, we investigate how “mosaic governance” has potential as a framework for understanding active citizenship, its potential for upscaling and its relationship to strategic UGI planning. Using the policy arrangements approach, we analyse the role of discourse, resources, actors and rules of the game in the upscaling of active citizenship. Based on eight empirical cases from seven European cities, we analyse the diversity of collaborations between local governments and active citizens in greenspace development.
The cases show how active citizens can significantly contribute to UGI planning and implementation, for example by developing large parks with volunteers or designing a network of green corridors. The cases reveal multiple ways citizens and local governments benefit from collaborations, as well as different pathways for upscaling innovative discourses and practices from local communities to formal policy or to other cities. To enable upscaling, UGI planning needs to combine long-term, more formalized and higher-scale strategic approaches with more incremental approaches that correspond with localized, fragmented and informal efforts of local communities. While collaborations between municipalities and active citizenship is not without its difficulties, the examples of upscaling in our cases demonstrate the transformative power active citizens may have towards a more green, just and democratic city.<br/
... Mosaic Governance is a rather recent branch of hybrid or networked governance approaches, with specific focus on urban sustainability governance (Buijs et al., 2016;Buijs et al., 2019;Gentin et al., 2022). Mosaic Governance is a normative governance design focused at stimulating the reflexive co-creation and management of urban green and NBS through the application of a set of interrelated policy instruments to develop and strengthen cross-scale networks and collaborations between governmental and non-government actors (Buijs et al., 2016;Buijs et al., 2019;Raymond et al., 2021). ...
... Mosaic Governance is a rather recent branch of hybrid or networked governance approaches, with specific focus on urban sustainability governance (Buijs et al., 2016;Buijs et al., 2019;Gentin et al., 2022). Mosaic Governance is a normative governance design focused at stimulating the reflexive co-creation and management of urban green and NBS through the application of a set of interrelated policy instruments to develop and strengthen cross-scale networks and collaborations between governmental and non-government actors (Buijs et al., 2016;Buijs et al., 2019;Raymond et al., 2021). It links civil society networks, understood in their broadest definition consisting of active citizens, community groups, NGOs, social enterprises, with municipalities, housing agencies and other professional organisations responsible for urban green planning and management. ...
... Previous studies (Buijs et al., 2016;Buijs et al., 2019;Gentin et al., 2022;Gopalakrishnan & Chong, 2020;Mumaw & Raymond, 2021;Raymond et al., 2021;van der Jagt et al., 2021) suggest that Mosaic Governance in its ideal typical form consists of five key characteristics: i) an explicit focus on place-based initiatives by active citizens and social enterprises, who are ii) motivated by care for and engagement with local environmental and social issues. These initiatives are embedded in iii) a complex multi-level network with iv) diverse actors, ranging across civil society, governments, and businesses, all guided by multiple values and knowledges, with v) mutual steering through distributed power and agency. ...
... At the same time, many citizens and NGOs demand greening efforts from authorities, who are usually responsible for planning and maintenance of public urban green spaces and often have their own departments and strategies for this purpose (Hansen et al., 2022). In many cities stakeholders and citizens actively engage in various greening movements, resulting in a shift towards hybrid or mosaic governance approaches with increasing interactions between authorities and other stakeholders (Buijs et al., 2019). ...
... Activities and interests from a various stakeholders, policy ambitions on different levels of scale, and the social, economic and environmental characteristics of the city all determine the complexity regarding greening efforts. In this light, a top-down policy approach towards urban greening is no longer seen as effective for implementing policy as it insufficiently connects to efforts from stakeholders and citizens (Buijs et al., 2019). Data-driven approaches often insufficiently recognize and incorporate the expertise of diverse stakeholders (Dijkshoorn-Dekker et al., 2020), while initiatives by local stakeholders have difficulty to realize impact on a larger spatial scale (Buijs et al., 2023). ...
... Aligning the priorities and efforts of various stakeholders, linking different types of knowledge, and connecting this to diverse urban infrastructures can therefore be seen as an important challenge for optimizing urban greening efforts in public space (Buijs et al., 2019) as well as for providing inclusive green spaces (Murphy et al., 2023) and promoting multifunctional spaces that include green infrastructure (Hansen and Pauleit, 2014). The optimal organization and actual realization of impactful greening thus requires cooperation and an exchange of knowledge between stakeholders, connecting practical and lived knowledge of citizens with professional expertise, policy knowledge and spatial data. ...
The unprecedented growth of metropolitan areas creates challenges for maintaining liveable and biodiversecities. Urban areas face multiple demands on sparse space whilst various stakeholders similarly aim to promotegreening efforts. In this context, authorities need to balance various policy objectives with demands from diverseurban stakeholders. Part of this challenge is the question how generalized data-driven green space planningapproaches can be connected to local, contextualized understandings, practices and values related to greenspace.In this paper, we present a participative application of GIS that contributes to bridging the gap between data-driven and citizen-centred approaches in urban greening.
Through an empirical study in Amsterdam, we show how this can link local priorities with larger-scale policy frameworks through deliberative and data-driven co-creation. In our case study, local stakeholders and researchers jointly identified criteria for greening, translatedthese into indicators and eventually identified potential locations for small-scale greening. Site visits by local experts helped to validate the model results and translate this into concrete plans for greening several locations.
Our approach promoted a dialogue between stakeholders, linking spatial data with practical experiences andaligning local priorities with policy programmes. Combining various knowledges from involved stakeholders also contributed to the quality of analysis and validation of modelling results. By increasing transparency and inclusiveness of planning, it also contributed to acceptance of process outcomes and empowering local stakeholders. With increasing urgencies for environmental measures in many cities, we emphasize the potential oftransdisciplinary GIS-approaches to navigate different interests and integrate various types of valuable knowledge. We suggest that similar approaches may be applied to other environmental challenges that have a strong spatial character
... De huidige indicatoren rondom burgerbetrokkenheid bij natuur geven inzicht in de mening van burgers en in de activiteiten die zij ondernemen (CLO, 2022 Alle Nederlandse provincies hebben doelstellingen rondom vermaatschappelijking en hanteren verschillende beleidsinstrumenten om samen te werken met burgers en hun betrokkenheid bij de natuur te stimuleren (PBL, 2020;Buijs et al., 2022). En op gemeentelijk niveau zien we ook dat overheden vaak samenwerking met burgers zoeken als het om natuur gaat en een belangrijke rol kunnen spelen bij het ondersteunen van burgerinitiatieven (Buijs et al., 2019a). ...
... De belangrijke rol van overheden in het ondersteunen en mogelijk maken van groen vrijwilligerswerk is al vaak benoemd (o.a. Hajer et al., 2011;Buijs et al., 2019a;Mattijssen, 2022;Bouma et al., 2023). ...
Greenspace volunteers make an important contribution to nature conservation in the Netherlands. This report discusses the results of a representative survey of these volunteers. About 34% of the 10,799 respondents took part in voluntary activities for nature and greenspace during the past 12 months. The study distinguished between
four groups of respondents, with a separate questionnaire for each group: individual volunteers (22% of the respondents), organisation volunteers (4%), initiative volunteers (8%) and non-volunteers (66%). The analysis focuses on the activities undertaken by volunteers, their level of engagement, what motivates them and how they became involved. Initiative and organisation volunteers were asked an additional set of questions, including about their networks and estimations of the impacts of their work in both ecological and social terms. Non-volunteers were asked about their interest in greenspace volunteering. The study emphasises the importance of representative data for long-term monitoring and proposes repeating the survey every five years to identify trends in greenspace volunteering.
... In urban forests, this can manifest as the dynamics of single trees, private backyards, and urban forest patches influencing landscape-level ecological connectivity across large urban agglomerations (Rudd et al. 2002;Pirnat and Hladnik 2016;Johnson et al. 2021). The nested yet decentralized complex nature of urban forest management has been described as polycentricity Ordóñez 2019;Ordóñez et al. 2020;Tzoulas et al. 2021) or mosaic governance (Buijs et al. 2016;Buijs et al. 2019). But no matter the term used, the multidimensional layering of actors (i.e., organizations or individuals, sometimes called "stakeholders")(cf., Reed et al. 2024), decision-making venues, and discourses (i.e., narratives)(cf., Lawrence et al. 2013) with biophysical conditions and human communities all influence urban forest outcomes. ...
... For the UFSES framework, I draw a definition of institutions from the field of political science and new institutional economics (Ostrom 2005a) and as applied to urban forestry by Mincey et al. (2013): "rules, norms, and strategies" that structure the interactions of individuals and groups and between people and our environments. Political scientists have also referred to institutions as the "rules-in-use" (i.e., the updated Ostrom SES framework presented in McGinnis and Ostrom [2014]), analogous to what urban forest governance scholars using a variation of the "policy arrangement approach" have called "rules of the game" (Buijs et al. 2016;Buijs et al. 2019;Ordóñez et al. 2020;Konijnendijk et al. 2021;Geron et al. 2023). In colloquial terms, institutions are analogous to management, broadly defined, which is why I couple these terms in the UFSES framework. ...
Urban forest management is a multistakeholder, multi-objective situation whereby a surfeit of synergistic or competing goals may exist. Greater research and applied guidance for what works in which urban forest contexts could help improve urban tree and forest outcomes. The challenge in conducting research of this nature is systematic definitions of “what works” and “which contexts” across multidimensional, polycentric urban forest social-ecological systems. This paper presents a comprehensive framework for studying the complexities in urban forest systems (synthesized from numerous other frameworks in the field) that could be used to generate context-specific insights into urban forest management and dynamics. The logic of using frameworks and specific frameworks that already exist within the field are reviewed. Then, I present the urban forest social-ecological system (UFSES) framework. The UFSES framework specifies 5 first-tier factors: the Characteristics of Trees in the Urban Forest (T) ; the Surrounding Growing Environment (E) ; Management & Institutions (M) ; and Characteristics of the Human Community (H) ; which influence Urban Forest Outcomes (O) . A detailed set of second-tier variables nested within these factors are presented in tables at the end of the paper. The framework can foster holistic systems thinking in a systematic yet flexible way; provide a working draft of a common language for thinking about and studying urban forest systems; and enable comparative case research.
... The inclusion of the urban poor in the decision-making processes during the planning and design of UGI is also important for fostering a sense of place amongst the users. Meaningful and respectful engagement with communities, the poor included, is likely to enable urban residents to feel empowered to use UGI and not feel excluded from it (Buijs et al., 2019). Conversely, failure to engage communities in park planning can reduce residents' sense of ownership of new and renovated parks and disconnect them from the neighbourhood social fabric (Mullenbach et al., 2019;Shackleton & Njwaxu, 2021). ...
... Further, differential management by users can contribute to risk reduction by biomass removal. In some cases, such user involvement can have positive outcomes for urban ecology (Phillips et al., 2020), and for local UGI governance (Buijs et al., 2019). Temporal and use considerations can also inform choice of species for different types of UGI. ...
The provision and management of urban green infrastructure (UGI) provides multiple benefits to the wellbeing of urban residents. A crucial, yet underexplored benefit, is the role that UGI can play in poverty alleviation. Acknowledging this role raises questions as to how UGI design and management can better provide opportunities for poverty alleviation and how it varies across UGI types and contexts. We consider this, using South Africa as an example, for five dimensions of poverty alleviation, namely (i) contributions to cash or non-cash income; (ii) increased opportunities for skills development and learning; (iii) improved physical and mental health; (iv) lessening of vulnerability and risk, and (v) increased opportunities to participate in decision-making. We do this for six types of UGI (amenity spaces, blue infrastructure, natural/semi-natural lands, urban parks, urban agriculture , and verges). We collectively ranked the current and future potential for poverty alleviation and the extent of change required to achieve the ranked potential for each UGI type. Urban agriculture was scored as having the highest current potential to contribute to poverty alleviation, and verges the least. In contrast, the ranking indicates that adopting pro-poor designs and principles will have the greatest returns per effort in parks and amenity spaces. But the widespread distribution and large extent of verges make them key areas for pro-poor interventions. Overall, we found that greater investment and changes in attitudes of authorities would have the greatest impact in poverty alleviation in all types of UGI, rather than policy and procedures around UGI design and management. We conclude that although the various types of UGI have markedly different potentials to contribute to poverty alleviation, there are some overarching strategies that planners and managers could adopt to promote poverty alleviation through UGI design and management.
... Additionally, the study identified significant engagement in physical activity, sitting/relaxing, and socializing, with physical activity being the most prevalent among daily visitors. This supports existing research indicating that green spaces are pivotal in encouraging physical activity and reducing chronic disease risks [54,55]. Such spaces can significantly enhance urban residents' well-being by promoting physical and social activities [25]. ...
... Moreover, this study supports the call for more inclusive UGS planning frameworks that consider different user groups' diverse preferences and perspectives [52]. This requires a systems approach to UGS planning, viewing these spaces as integral parts of a broader urban social-ecological system and coordinating efforts across sectors [52,55]. Urban planners should incorporate the views and needs of diverse populations, ensuring that UGS designs are inclusive and reflect the varied experiences desired by different groups [50,51,54]. ...
This study aims to investigate how urban residents interact with Urban Green Spaces (UGSs) in Nagpur, India, specifically focusing on the patterns of visitation and engagement. Data were collected via a face-to-face questionnaire survey using the Survey 123 app. The analysis included interaction (types of UGSs, visitation frequency, and UGS availability); engagement (activities); demographics (age, gender, and work status); and nature connection (self-reported) aspects. Using data from 2002 participants, the study employs statistical analyses using R software (4.3.2) to explore the correlations between these variables. The results revealed key factors influencing UGS usage, highlighting the interplay between environmental and social aspects. Neighborhood UGSs, proximity, and accessibility were found to be pivotal in promoting frequent visitation, while physical activity emerged as the most common activity among daily visitors. Older adults visited UGSs less frequently, suggesting potential barriers, while employed individuals visited more often. A strong association between nature connection and UGS interaction was highlighted, emphasizing the psychological and emotional aspects of UGS usage. For example, individuals who felt more connected to nature reported using UGSs for physical activities, mental relaxation, and socializing. These findings underscore the need for integrating UGSs within broader urban social-ecological systems, which means recognizing these spaces as vital components contributing to overall health and resilience and catering to the population’s diverse needs, ensuring that these spaces are accessible and enjoyable for all community members, including those from different cultural, age, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Additionally, fostering nature connectedness through education and exposure to natural environments is recommended to enhance UGS usage, supporting broader urban planning strategies to create sustainable and healthy urban environments.
... There are various forms of urban governance, from top-down planning approaches to civil society initiatives. Regarding other urban green spaces, to implement urban wilding, hybrid, collaborative or mosaic governance approaches involving long-term collaborations between local governments and community initiatives could contribute to fair and sustainable changes (Buijs et al., 2019;Frantzeskaki, 2019;Toxopeus et al., 2020). In particular, to ensure that the implementation of wilding is adapted to local needs without imposing external visions of nature, it is important to implement these measures with concern for social recognition and inclusion (Albert et al., 2021;Kabisch et al., 2022;Tozer et al., 2020). ...
... The mobilisation of communities in these areas has made it possible to change the institutional public discourse on the ecological roles of these areas, while empowering these communities in terms of socio-cultural identity, social relations and power to negotiate with institutions (Trentanovi et al., 2021b). With the aim of scaling up, the various local citizen actions can be integrated into a mosaic governance network that is animated and coordinated by local government to facilitate spaces for deliberation (Buijs et al., 2019). Inclusive approaches in the implementation of wilding do not only concern civil society, but must also extend to all municipal actors at different hierarchical levels. ...
Accelerating urbanisation and associated lifestyle changes result in loss of biodiversity and diminished wellbeing of people through fewer direct interactions and experiences with nature. In this review, we propose the notion of urban wilding (the promotion of autonomous ecological processes that are independent of historical land‐use conditions, with minimal direct human maintenance and planting interventions) and investigate its propensity to improve biodiversity and people–nature connections in cities. Through a large interdisciplinary synthesis, we explore the ecological mechanisms through which urban wilding can promote biodiversity in cities, investigate the attitudes and relations of city dwellers towards urban wild spaces, and discuss the integration of urban wilding into the fabric of cities and its governance. We show that favouring assembly spontaneity by reducing planting interventions, and functional spontaneity by limiting maintenance practices, can promote plant diversity and provide ecological resources for numerous organisms at habitat and city scales. These processes could reverse biotic homogenisation, but further studies are needed to understand the effects of wilding on invasive species and their consequences. From a socio‐ecological perspective, the attitudes of city dwellers towards spontaneous vegetation are modulated by successional stages, with grassland and woodland stages preferred, but dense shrubby vegetation stages disliked. Wild spaces can diversify physical interactions with nature, and enrich multi‐sensory, affective and cognitive experiences of nature in cities. However, some aspects of wild spaces can cause anxiety, feeling unsafe, and the perception of abandonment. These negative attitudes could be mitigated by subtle design and maintenance interventions. While nature has long been thought of as ornamental and instrumental in cities, urban wilding could help to develop relational and intrinsic values of nature in the fabric of cities. Wildness and its singular aesthetics should be combined with cultural norms, resident uses and urban functions to plan and design urban spatial configurations promoting human–non‐human cohabitation. For urban wilding to be socially just and adapted to the needs of residents, its implementation should be backed by inclusive governance opening up discussion forums to residents and urban workers. Scientists can support these changes by collaborating with urban actors to design and experiment with new wild spaces promoting biodiversity and wellbeing of people in cities.
... Top-down approaches are inefficient and can exacerbate social conflicts, economic inequalities, and environmental injustices (Sowińska-Świerkosz and García, 2022). Although they are usually slower processes, cross-sectoral and multiactor approaches are more recommended (Buijs et al., 2019;Ugolini et al., 2015). The participation of universities and research centers is beneficial, contributing technical knowledge, innovation, research, and problem-solving solutions (Ugolini et al., 2015). ...
Tackling climate change and biodiversity loss are two of the great global challenges of the 21st century. The nature-based solutions (NbS) approach creates an opportunity to meet efforts on the two agendas while producing other co-benefits beyond climate resilience and biodiversity conservation. This opportunity becomes even more relevant in areas with both high climate vulnerability and special interest for conservation. Coastal wetlands in the Mediterranean basin are under severe threat from urban sprawl, mass tourism and climate change. Coastal lagoons, dune systems and halophilic ecosystems are considered as priority habitats of community interest for conservation by the European Habitats Directive. In the Catalan coast, these ecosystems are fragmented and isolated, and ecological protection and restoration efforts are essential. In this context, the present work analyzes the case of de-urbanization and ecological restoration of La Pletera salt marsh by the Life Pletera project (2014–2018), interpreting it within an NbS approach and assessing its effectiveness as a strategy for climate adaptation and biodiversity conservation. The analysis brings insights for the effectiveness assessment of the project during the first years after implementation, gathers elements on the factors and constraints that made its implementation possible and reflects on future challenges so that its effectiveness is lasting in the medium and long term.
... While social media has the obvious advantage that it fuels the breadth of residents' public participation. But at present, the most important reason for Chinese residents to choose social media for public participation is still that the public and the government have not achieved real twoway communication (Buijs et al., 2019) This is also the reason why residents use social media to conduct collective large-scale online cyber actions to call for policy optimisation (Wu and Lin, 2018). Given these dynamics, it is crucial to focus on the origins behind social media public participation. ...
Given the current low level of public participation and limited channels of participation in Chinese urban planning. Social media has become an important platform for public participation in China. Taking the banyan tree relocation and felling incident in Guangzhou City as an example. This paper explores how social media-facilitated public participation can effectively influence urban planning decisions through case study and discourse power analysis. It is found that place attachment may serve as a significant motivator for public participation in urban planning. Social media plays a dual role in this process. On one hand, it can improve the effectiveness of public participation in urban planning and ultimately fulfil the role of advancing democratic government decision-making. On the other hand, the paper reveals challenges such as information homogenization, emotionalized communication, and elite dominance. These issues underscore the need for further improvements in regulatory mechanisms and technical support. Therefore, future urban planning policies should take people's emotions into account, and also need to accelerate the construction of improved systems, mechanisms and technologies for social media public participation to achieve high-level public participation goals.
... In this vein, urban forest governance (hereafter UFG), broadly described as the structures, rules, interactions, and processes shaping actors' decisions and actions in establishing and maintaining urban forests and providing associated benefits (Lawrence et al. 2013, 1) -as an integral element of the broader urban governance system, must have the capacity to create an enabling environment that fosters thriving urban forests over the long term (Hudson 2015;Morzillo et al. 2022;Ordóñez et al. 2020). Scholarly attention towards UFG-related issues has recently increased, with studies indicating a shift towards more democratic and participatory arrangements (Ambrose-Oji et al. 2017;Buijs et al. 2019). Indeed, although public institutions, particularly municipalities, continue to play a central role in urban forestry (Almassy et al. 2018; T. J. Mattijssen, Behagel, and Buijs 2015), collaborative UFG is increasingly acknowledged as a valuable approach for leveraging the resources pooled by multiple actors to tackle socioeconomic and environmental challenges and achieve common goals (Gulsrud, Hertzog, and Shears 2018;Tengö et al. 2022). ...
Although urban forest governance is gaining momentum in the literature, scholars have paid limited attention to assessing its functioning and performance. This article addresses this gap by adopting a governance capacity lens and providing an assessment framework tailored for local-level application. Using a mixed-methods approach, the framework is operationalized to investigate the governance of BoscoInCittà in Milan. Results show that actors collaboration is crucial for establishing effective governance arrangements that ensure the successful management of urban woodlands, tackle urbanization pressure, enhance ecological connections , and deliver forest benefits, even in the absence of parti-cipatory processes and comprehensive management and monitoring plans.
... Participatory processes in the urban landscape has the potential to scale localised, community driven efforts up and out (Buijs et al. 2016(Buijs et al. , 2018. This potential is hampered by recurring dangers of projectification of urban change (Torrens and Wirth 2021), such as lacking structures for organisational learning uptake and long-term visions in otherwise meaningful participatory processes. ...
This article presents a review of methodological advancements and transformative potential in participatory processes with young people in urban landscapes. It offers a framework understanding of current types of participatory processes in relation to urban landscape planning, and underlines lifeworld and action as two key components in transformative participatory processes with young people. The two-step scoping review of a literature sample (n = 44 studies) finds a prevalence of less-interactive approaches to young people’s participation in urban landscapes, and subsequently analyses openings for lifeworld and action in the more interactive approaches described (n = 17 studies). The interactive methods described demonstrate opportunities to facilitate young people’s own articulations of lifeworlds within the urban landscape, especially in extended processes deploying multiple creative methods. The relatively few examples of actions and interventions resulting from participatory processes points to the need for further development and the ambition to include young people in transforming urban landscapes towards increased sustainability.
... Co-design, co-production and co-management need to be tailored to place-specific contexts to be relevant, effective and successful. In addition, lack of evidence on NBS impacts on environmental and socio-ecological benefits, limited reflexivity, adaptive management, and lack of participation of stakeholders may prevent successful NBS interventions to scale-out to other cities or to emerge at higher policy levels (Buijs et al., 2016(Buijs et al., , 2019. This need for coproduction of NBS also relates to the need for co-production of knowledge on NBS. ...
This chapter provides an overview to co-creation and co-governance in the context of nature-based solutions, its policy and societal relevance in order to drive systemic change towards mainstreaming nature-based solutions (NBS). Moreover, it emphasizes NBS importance in strategic and enabling EU and global policy frameworks. The first section draws attention to the variety of strands that underpin the concepts of co-creation and co-governance. Likewise, it highlights how the concepts of co-creation and co-governance are intrinsically interrelated. This is followed by a section that discusses the added value of co-creation and co-governance in NBS planning. The third section gives a snapshot of relevant EU and global frameworks for NBS, while the fourth section underlines the essential role of co-creation and governance for mainstreaming NBS in strategic planning processes and policymaking.
... Dresden's UGI is structured as green connecting hubs and corridors, with respect to which urban policies are, on the one hand, aimed at improving the ecological quality of the network of hubs and connections, and, on the other hand, oriented toward operationalizing a system of regulations to limit or prevent the expansion of the urban built environment. The intentionality of the Dresden municipality's approach is to ensure that the framework of urban ESc provision is perceived by the local community as a complex GI and open spaces as the building blocks of this infrastructure [17,18]. ...
Urban green infrastructure (UGI) is a network composed of natural and semi-natural areas, such as greenspaces, open areas, and water bodies, designed to enhance the provision of ecosystem services and to meet the needs and expectations of local communities. UGIs should be accessible and should improve the well-being and health of their users, protect and enhance biodiversity, and allow for the enjoyment of natural resources. The study proposes a methodological approach to defining a UGI, conceived as a network of areas connected by urban ecological corridors and suitable for providing climate regulation, flood risk mitigation, outdoor recreation, and biodiversity and habitat quality enhancement. The methodology is applied to the functional urban area (FUA) of the City of Cagliari, Italy. The analysis results show that areas with high values of climate regulation, carbon storage and sequestration, and habitat quality enhancement are particularly suitable to be part of a UGI. Although values for outdoor recreation appear to be less significant, the provision of this service is particularly relevant within the Cagliari FUA. However, areas characterized by high values of flood risk mitigation show a different behavior, which highlights how the presence of impermeable surface within urban areas is associated with a loss of patch connectivity.
... Urban green space is an important outdoor public activity space for residents, and the rationality of its planning and construction directly affects the health and well-being of urban residents. In the context of microrenewal, easily accessible and highly functional recreational microgreen spaces provide cities with shared interaction spaces for residents [6]. ...
In this study, optimization of the microgreen space distribution through multistage regulation is investigated, with the goal of alleviating the imbalance between the supply and demand of green resources in the central urban area of Shenyang. An optimized evaluation model of green space supply and demand is employed to calculate the green space accessibility index at a 100-meter grid scale and identify different levels of green space resource supply and demand. Priority is given to supplementing resources for the elderly population by balancing the green space supply in vulnerable areas. Particle swarm—ant colony optimization (PS-ACO) is used to select microgreen space sites within each priority level. On the basis of the “important-urgent” quadrant analysis, S1-priority residential areas account for 8.12% of the grid, S2-priority areas account for 67.01%, and S3-priority areas account for 24.87%. The PS-ACO algorithm outputs potential microgreen space sites within each priority level to accurately regulate the green space distribution in residential areas with different supply pressures and limited land availability. A spatial correlation analysis of the new sites reveals good spatial dispersion within service units, effectively alleviating demand pressures, and good aggregation at a regional scale to address imbalances in the supply of green space in a targeted manner. Thus, the optimized results of the PS-ACO algorithm are effective, providing reliable site-selection references for subsequent urban microgreen space distributions.
... Given that a variety of stakeholders should be actively engaged during the planning and implementation of NbS [104], the mosaic governance approach recognises the dynamic nature of active citizen participation and the interactions between informal local networks, allowing both horizontal and vertical interactions between citizens, community groups and public authorities [105,106]. The proposed NbS project could establish a neighbourhood greening forum, an open and informal group whose role is to propose greening ideas, develop existing suggestions, plant vegetation in public spaces and share relevant knowledge, aiming for an emerging form of governance that empowers the community and has already proven successful [107]. ...
... In addition, future qualitative studies could seek to understand what advocacy strategies and other conditions (e.g., local and state politics, economic cycles) help NGOs successfully adopt and implement green space equity policies. Further, future work could also examine how NGOs might collaborate with public agencies to move towards green space equity (Buijs et al., 2019). ...
... Community stewardship was coded separately. Given much discussion in the academic literature about community stewardship (e.g., Buijs et al., 2019;Clark et al., 2020), as well as Table 2 Topics extracted via topic modelling from Canadian urban forest management plans (UFMPs) (n = 74). ...
Urban forests are a critical element of urban environmental planning. Greater awareness of the ecosystem services provided by urban forests over the last two decades has led to an increased interest in improving urban forest management. In Canada, the conditions of management are usually articulated by a municipal government in an urban forest management plan (UFMP). This study responds to previous studies on the content of Canadian UFMPs to provide a more comprehensive and updated comparison of UFMPs across Canada. While previous research has examined the content of UFMPs at a moment in time, and often when far fewer plans existed, in this study we consider changes in content over time and the influence of the social-ecological characteristics of municipalities on this content. We combined quantitative and qualitative content analyses, including topic modelling text analysis algorithms and interpretative thematic coding, to extract content, in the form of topics or themes, from 74 UFMPs. We assessed the distribution of these topics and themes by year of publication, and the influence of social-ecological characteristics upon this distribution using standard correlation and means differences analysis procedures. We found that Canadian UFMPs contain a broad number of themes and topics but are dominated by ideas referring to increasing tree abundance. Comparatively less attention is being paid to climate change and community stewardship. Mentions of increasing tree abundance and climate change rose over time. There was also a greater mention of administration, community education, and increasing tree abundance in smaller municipalities. Canadian municipalities may be well positioned to increase the abundance of urban forests given current management conditions. While abundance itself is beneficial, increasing abundance without addressing issues related to biodiversity, vulnerability of urban forests to climate change, and community stewardship, is a management trade-off that could, for example, increase abundance in the short term, but increase vulnerability in the long term. While focused on Canadian cities, this study also provides guidelines for possible cross-country comparisons and reflections on how UFMPs can be powerful management and planning tools for a climate-resilient and sustainable future.
... Collaborative modes of governance are particularly important to ensure that they can be inclusive, for example, to create the frameworks and policies that facilitate genuine community engagement [42] and trust in processes among local communities and governments [43,44]. This mode of governance has been elucidated through different framings such as co-inquiry [45] and mosaic governance [46][47][48][49][50]. ...
... Several obstacles can contribute to the inefficiency of these citizen actions, including a lack of long-term commitment from inhabitants, insufficient representativeness of broader population interests, limited legitimacy of local interests, challenges in conflict resolution, and potential ignorance or manipulation by competent authorities (e.g., Healey et al., 2008;Jones, 2018). To strengthen the positive impacts of these citizen self-organisations, Buijs et al. (2019) argue to establish a mosaic governance, i.e. the development of a 'the diversity of processes that may facilitate existing active citizenship and stimulate its upscaling through a mix of governance modes and policy interventions […]' (p. 54). ...
Landscape protection implies selecting values for preservation and legitimising specific interests while potentially excluding others. Literature on landscape protection recognises the need to move beyond the expert-dominated conservationist paradigm. Based on an analysis of laws, decrees, charters, web documents and semi-structured interviews, this research examines the processes and results of public involvement in landscape protection in Wallonia. While 'democratisation' of the landscape gains ground in institutional protection tools, citizen initiatives are mostly carried by only a few inhabitants or isolated groups and wield limited influence in the decision making process. Nonetheless, citizens' groups increasingly invoke landscape interest in local initiatives, expressing a desire to share their values and develop local projects. This observation underlines a gap in participation processes. Rights and responsibilities of the population depend not only on their place in the decision-making process but also on their interests and attitudes towards their landscapes.
... To avoid ecological crises and unsustainable expansion [58,59], the UGI in urban clusters has received significant attention from managers and landscape designers [60][61][62]. Based on our findings, we strongly recommend that future planning not only focuses on preventing the loss of UGI area but also emphasizes the internal structure and characteristics of UGI. ...
The rapid urbanization process means that even moderate-sized cities can quickly become part of larger urban agglomerations, creating new urban zones. Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) plays a crucial role in these clusters, acting as precious green spaces essential for maintaining ecological safety. This study combines fluctuation analysis based on Morphological Spatial Pattern with traditional landscape pattern analysis, comprehensively addressing the evolution of UGI in terms of quantity, characteristics, and morphology. We selected the Taiyuan-Jinzhong agglomeration as our study area, which is currently in an agglomeration process. The results demonstrated the critical role of surrounding mountains as natural ecological barrier zones. During urban agglomeration, management strategies focused on large-scale afforestation to ensure the quantity of UGI. However, this approach also led to a more clustered landscape with reduced connectivity. Additionally, linear or small-scale UGI types such as branch and islet have seen reductions over the past decade. Changes in internal morphological and complex fluctuations within UGI can harm the formation of ecological networks and potentially negatively affect biodiversity and ecological safety. The research highlights how ecological protection and urban planning policies can influence UGI fluctuations. Therefore, urban managers should not just concentrate on maintaining the quantity of UGI, but also give consideration to changes in its internal features and morphology. Before cities further agglomerate into larger urban clusters, it is crucial to address deficiencies in UGI, continuously improving type configurations and functional structures at the landscape scale. Through strategic planning of UGI, cities can mitigate ecological risks and foster sustainable urban development.
... These terms often overlap or intersect with co-production and are sometimes used interchangeably in different contexts by different institutions. Although with different nuances, examples include co-creation (Ansell and Torfing, 2021), co-design (Basnou et al., 2020), collaborative governance (Emerson et al., 2012;Malekpour et al., 2021), participatory governance (van der Jagt et al., 2016), mosaic governance (Buijs et al., 2019), partnerships (Whitehead et al., 2017), and adaptive co-management . Given its proximity with cognate concepts, this study takes a broad perspective to illustrate the different approaches that emerge from the literature. ...
The governance of urban forests as nature-based solutions (UF-NBS) in cities presents numerous challenges for public officials as different socio-cultural, environmental, political, and economic priorities must be bridged. In this context, co-production emerges as a collaborative approach that brings together stakeholders from various sectors to generate new knowledge and address challenges at the intersection of policy, practice, and research. This study aims to investigate the experiences and perspectives of public officials involved in the design, implementation, and governance of co-production for UF-NBS. Based on 22 semi-structured interviews conducted in seven European cities, we show that public officials generally have a positive perception of applying co-production in the context of UF-NBS and express willingness to adopt the approach in the future. Meanwhile, the findings also point to important lessons such as professional facilitation, early participation, participation in networks, institutionalised planning, and the use of platforms for knowledge exchange for successfully exercising UF-NBS co-production.
... The first group of questions in this theme focuses on how government agencies, large NGOs, and other societal actors can facilitate power building among underserved communities (see Table 2). Questions focus on funding support for community-based NGOs that build power, opportunities for co-creation of knowledge and mosaic governance (Buijs et al., 2019(Buijs et al., , 2024, and government policies and practices that can facilitate community power. Specifically, when government agencies engage underserved communities in mosaic governance, there is a risk that community expertise is treated as free labor because residents are not compensated (Jones, 2003), similar to unpaid or underpaid labor conducted by underserved groups for climate change adaptation (Johnson et al., 2023). ...
Urban green spaces-including parks, trees, and other vegetated areas-are inequitably distributed in cities worldwide, as underserved groups, such as low-income and people of color, have significantly lower provisions of such resources. Motivated by the health benefits of green spaces, advocates and policymakers in several countries have sought to ameliorate these systemic inequities by implementing green space equity initiatives. Many such initiatives are individual projects (e.g., a new park in an underserved neighborhood), but new policies have also been implemented to advance green space equity. To date, limited research has examined which policies have been implemented, what it takes to adopt and implement them, and whether they have effectively advanced green space equity. Based on a scoping literature review and a workshop with an interdisciplinary group of researchers, we developed a research agenda on green space equity policy. Our research agenda includes research questions grouped into four interrelated themes: policy impact and evaluation, power building and policy change, green gentrification, and health equity and climate change. The contributions of this paper are twofold: We synthesize current knowledge on green space equity policy and present a research agenda whose findings can inform policy work on green space equity.
... From its start, urban agriculture has been based on citizens' initiatives and activities (Buijs et al., 2019;Certomà & Tornaghi, 2015;McClintock, 2014). However, in later years, urban agriculture has also emerged as a domain of public policy. ...
Public policies for urban agriculture have lately been developer in several cities. This chapter investigates motivations for such policies in three Norwegian cities: Oslo, Bergen, and Trondheim. The motivations can be synthetized in five categories. They are much the same in the three cities but with different emphasis. First, urban agriculture is set into an urban “green” development discourse, particularly in Oslo and Bergen. “Green” not only means literally to make gray urban areas green by adding vegetation but also refers to an environmentally friendly urban development, increasing biodiversity and the amount of pollinator friendly plants. Second, food production and alternative food systems are important motivations, particularly in Trondheim and this municipality’s aim to couple urban agriculture to peri-urban professional agriculture. This aspect is also prominent in the policies in Bergen. Third, all cities underline the provision of social meeting places and local community building as a motivation for municipal support. Fourth, all cities consider urban agriculture as an important means for providing municipal welfare services, including work training, integration, health promotion, and spreading knowledge about growing. A fifth dimension is coupled to active citizenship and co-creation of city development particularly in Trondheim.
... Co-design, co-production and co-management need to be tailored to place-specific contexts to be relevant, effective and successful. In addition, lack of evidence on NBS impacts on environmental and socio-ecological benefits, limited reflexivity, adaptive management, and lack of participation of stakeholders may prevent successful NBS interventions to scale-out to other cities or to emerge at higher policy levels (Buijs et al., 2016(Buijs et al., , 2019. This need for coproduction of NBS also relates to the need for co-production of knowledge on NBS. ...
This report analyses co-creation and co-governance approaches for Nature Based Solutions (NBS). Each project represents different ways in co-designing, co-developing, co-implementing and co-monitoring NBS that are being deployed in diverse European contexts. The analysis presents best practices regarding the co-creation of NBS at its different stages, phases and scales. It provides guidelines for researchers, practitioners and other experts that are researching, implementing and/or evaluating territorial processes that prioritise and advocate for inclusive and nature-based approaches.
... Being an active citizen means feeling empowered (Wallace, 2018), namely, feeling one has enough transformative power to contribute to the decision-making processes of public policies (Howard & Parks, 2012). Active citizenship stems from the goals and values of the individual to concretize into community actions based on the experiences and needs of the community, regardless of government decisions (Buijs et al., 2019). ...
Climate change is a reality that can no longer be ignored, so much so that combating climate change and its impact is one of the main goals of the UN Agenda 2030. Youths, albeit the main victims of climate change, are often excluded from decision-making processes on sustainable actions. More and more young people are joining collective pro-environmental movements, raising their voices against the current inadequate sustainable policies and claiming to be the main actors of change. However, pro-environmental collective actions are often judged negatively by public opinion, diminishing their effectiveness and potentially impacting youth participation. In light of this, it is critical to understand the individual, contextual and relational aspects that lead young people to engage with these movements. The present study aimed to systematically review the existing literature on factors that might promote youth participation in pro-environmental movements. According to the PRISMA guidelines, we conducted a literature search of three databases (PsycINFO, ProQuest, and SCOPUS). Moreover, we deepened our research by focusing on two relevant theoretical models on collective actions, the Social Identity Model of Collective Action and the Social Identity Model of Pro-Environmental Action. After the screening and the eligibility phases, 11 articles (12 studies) were included. Most of the selected studies adopted a cross-sectional quantitative design. The results revealed individual and relational factors involved in promoting youths’ involvement in pro-environmental movements. To the aim of deepening young people’s pro-environmental activism, findings highlighted the need to consider personal and social drivers together. Limitations of the study, future directions, and practical implications are discussed.
... Showcasing and disseminating co-production process and results tailored and accessible to different target audiences, participating in and hosting engagement, networking, best practice, and knowledge exchange events (Djenontin and Meadow, 2018;Hölscher, 2018;Mahmoud and Morello, 2021) Partnerships for (lasting) place-based engagement: Establishing and nurturing (capabilities of) formal and informal networks, platforms and partnerships to (continuously) build trust and social relations, and engage in mutually beneficial exchange, participatory management and maintenance Frantzeskaki and Kabisch, 2016;Chatterton et al., 2018;Hölscher, 2018;Jaspers and Steen, 2019;Mahmoud and Morello, 2021;Jaspers and Steen, 2019;Buijs et al., 2018) Overview of co-production processes in Genk (Belgium), Glasgow (United Kingdom) and Poznań (Poland). The open garden and natural playground in kindergarten no. ...
... mobility, but also welfare and social services). Therefore, the challenge here consists in scaling up and scaling out these initiatives (Buijs et al. 2019), finding innovative institutional forms that can sustain this kind of territorial development, especially in suburban and periurban municipalities in the outskirts of Milan where the economic and technical resources of the public administrative offices are rather weak. ...
... We found that this practice can be successfully delegated to NGOs that work as leverage points. For instance, implementing mosaic governance in urban green infrastructure has benefited from the crucial role of citizen groups and NGOs (Buijs et al. 2019). NGOs have played a complementary and mutually supportive role in bridging a wide diversity of local communities and institutions to cooperate for conservation governance. ...
Inclusive conservation approaches that effectively conserve biodiversity while improving human well-being are gaining traction in the face of the sixth mass extinction of biodiversity. Despite much theorization on the governance of inclusive conservation, empirical research on its practical implementation is urgently needed. Here, using a correlation network analysis and drawing on empirical results from 263 sites described on the web platform of the PANORAMA initiative (IUCN), we inductively identified global clusters of conservation outcomes in protected and conserved areas. These clusters represent five conservation foci or archetypes, namely (i) community-based conservation, (ii) sustainable management, (iii) conflict resolution, (iv) multi-level and co-governance, and (v) environmental protection and nature's contribution to people. Our empirical approach further revealed that some dimensions of inclusive conservation are crucial as leverage points to manage protected areas related to these clusters successfully, namely improvements in the socio-cultural context and social cohesion, enhancing the status and participation of youth, women, and minorities, improved human health, empowerment of local communities, or reestablishment of dialogue and trust. We highlight inclusive interventions such as education and capacity building, development of alliances and partnerships, and enabling sustainable livelihoods, or governance arrangements led by Indigenous peoples and local communities or private actors, as levers to promote positive transformations in the social-ecological systems of protected areas. We argue that although some of the leverage points we identified are less targeted in current protected area management, they can represent powerful areas of intervention to enhance social and ecological outcomes in protected areas.
... In this regard, there is a need for a robust approach to maximize benefits to local communities. The inclusive approach to conservation recognizes that the resources are governed by, with, and for local communities (Buijs et al., 2019). Locals' participation in conservation management is not evident from the findings. ...
The global conservation movement is fueled by an increased number of protected areas (PAs), and it will continue to influence the conservation paradigm in the future. However, despite the unequivocal interest in PAs and their designation, their conservation success is compromised due to human-wildlife conflicts (HWCs). HWCs are age-old issues in PAs and conservation discourse, yet they continue to impede the conservation process and negatively impact the residents’ wellbeing. Therefore, policy changes, including some changes in land-use patterns (e.g., a buffer zone concept), were made to accommodate the residents’ livelihood needs. Further, a damage relief mechanism was introduced to mitigate HWCs in PAs, but still, HWCs remain a challenge to conservation efforts. This study looks at the HWCs from residents’ perspectives in the context of Bardia National Park in Nepal, where a detailed account of problematic wildlife is documented, along with the overview of strategies to mitigate HWCs, damage relief mechanism, and their idea to foster successful PA management. We collected 871 responses from a resident survey for this study. Our findings show that a few selected wildlife species are problematic to residents while they use a combination of strategies to control HWCs, with varying degrees of success. The damage relief mechanism was not perceived well, and residents demand participatory management. The findings are discussed in detail along with the practical implications for PA management.
... Positive community perceptions and engagement with NBS will improve the potential for upscaling co-production, co-maintenance and citizen science activities, widely documented in the European Union (e.g. the case in the Netherlands, United Kingdom and E Europe) and North America (e.g. Portland and Seattle in the NW United States) [4,13,36]. ...
With increasing focus on the importance of integrating nature spaces and nature-based solutions into our cities, what are the key priorities and pathways for action in Australian cities? Australia, a highly urbanised settler colonial country, has a rich biodiversity and cultural heritage, the result of thousands of years of custodianship and care for Country by the First Peoples. Their deep cultural and ecological knowledge and ongoing care and connection with Country, including urban Country, underpins approaches to restoring and connecting with nature in Australian cities. With continuing urbanisation and urban change, as well as increasing impacts of climate change, including heatwaves, wildfires, flooding, and extreme weather, we identify four pathways for just transitions with and for urban nature in cities. The pathways focus on ways of thinking, organising, acting, and knowing for prioritising urban nature. We highlight evidence-based planning for nature (ways of knowing); inclusive governance for just transitions (ways of organising); conserving, restoring, and maintaining nature (ways of acting); and emphasising First People’s and local communities’ knowledges and practices (ways of knowing). Our pathways, or stepping stones, point to interlinked and interrelated priorities for ensuring nature is actively and effectively integrated into Australian city planning and practice.
Urban foraging for wild plant and animal products is increasingly recognised for its multiple benefits for people and nature stewardship. Planning for foraging in urban greenspace is one way that foraging can be made more accessible, beneficial, and equitable. Here, we explore how foraging could be recognised and provided for in urban municipalities in eastern South Africa. We synthesise forager and land manager interviews, policy analysis, and iterative discussions to develop four land use configurations under which foraging could be planned for. Design principles for community-based natural resource management are used to assess the feasibility of each configuration. We identify stakeholders who would be involved in governing each configuration, and how urban foraging can co-produce desirable outcomes for their priorities. We list locally-specific actions to enable collaborative greenspace governance through urban foraging. We suggest some generally applicable design considerations and implications for each of the four configurations.
The Food Trails project drives sustainable transformation in urban food systems across 11 European cities by scaling local innovations and promoting collaborative frameworks. Responding to interconnected environmental, economic, and social challenges, it emphasizes food security, nutrition, climate, circularity, and community empowerment through 32 pilot actions.
This deliverable focuses on a processes of mutual learning and replication between the 11 cities involved in the projects, analysing how local initiatives can be scaled and promoted and how transformative food policy can be developed and implemented. These actions are analysed by the QuickScan Lens for Replication (QSLR), which examines policy, vision, stakeholder roles, resources, activities, and learning. This framework allows cities to address barriers such as limited resources and political prioritization while leveraging enablers like cohesive urban food policies and Food Policy Councils that facilitate collaboration and strategic alignment.
Through extensive peer learning, including city visits, workshops, and expert missions, Food Trails fosters knowledge exchange, with cities implementing and adapting actions based on insights from other administrations to shape impactful food policies. The project underscores that scaling sustainable practices isn’t simply about replication; it’s about adapting to local contexts, supported by flexible governance and strong partnerships. By embedding sustainable food practices into city governance structures and aligning them with regional and global sustainability goals, the project seeks to create resilient, inclusive food systems. Overall, Food Trails advances systemic change by supporting cities in integrating food system innovations within policies, scaling impact sustainably across urban settings.
The rapid urbanization of the twenty-first century has presented both challenges and opportunities for creating more livable and environmentally-friendly cities. United Nations Sustainable Development Goal number 11 is about Sustainable Cities and Communities. In this SDG the UN website observes that presently a majority of the global population resides in urban areas. They estimate that by the year 2050, almost 70% of the global population would reside in metropolitan regions. Urban areas play a key role in economic development and account for over 80% of the world's gross domestic product (GDP). On the other hand, UN observes that they contribute to about 70% of the total worldwide greenhouse gas emissions (Nations, Making Cities and Human settlements more inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable, 2023). When urban development is carefully strategized and effectively administered, it has the potential to be sustainable and foster equitable economic growth.
Local governments have taken an active role in climate change policymaking and have filled in gaps from the national and state levels in the USA. However, even with the growing scholarly interest in urban climate policymaking, there is still a lot that scholars do not understand about it. The current research project seeks to provide a deeper investigation into how municipalities interact with their citizens in sustainability and climate change policymaking. It further analyzes the specific ways that citizens are included in climate policymaking. To examine these questions, the research uses a mixed methods approach, combining survey and interview data. Findings reveal that municipal characteristics are related to citizen involvement around climate change, but that there are also specific motivations for how local governments interact with their citizens, particularly related to increasing citizen buy-in and diversity. The research provides implications for how local governments conceptualize citizen involvement for sustainability policymaking and how they might approach the issue in the future.
Urban green spaces (UGS) provide mechanisms through which people connect and interact with each other, strengthening social relationships as well as human‐nature connections, both of high relevance for sustainable development. However, what determines urban residents' engagement in activities for the protection of UGS still lacks a systematic understanding.
Our study aims to address this gap by enriching the value‐belief‐norm (VBN) theory with relational values based on a questionnaire (N = 221) among residents engaging in UGS maintenance in the city of Munich (Germany).
Exploratory factor analysis and structural equation modelling showed that both individual responsibility and societal responsibility guide urban residents in their actions towards UGS protection.
Furthermore, we found a direct impact of biospheric, altruistic and hedonic values on engagement for the protection of UGS.
Therefore, this study signals the importance of investing in actively promoting pluralistic values among urban residents as cities today urgently need a reconnection of the human‐nature relationship and UGS stewardship actions.
As we further confirm that relational values have impact on the constructs of the VBN theory, we conclude with a plea for recognizing the potential of relational values as enablers of change towards more responsible behaviours towards urban nature.
Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.
Mosaic governance is a concept used in environmental policy, where the basis is the initiation of topics by the civil sector. Active citizens should contribute to creating environmental policies (specifically green infrastructure and waste management in the presented research). The article aims to analyze active citizenship in local environmental policy initiatives using the concept of mosaic governance. Mosaic governance focuses on exchanging resources, discourses, game plans, and experiences between governments and active citizens. Mosaic governance is mainly applied in Western European cities, where the concept originated. In the Central European area, the investigation of mosaic governance is not so strongly widespread. That is why the article's authors investigated the model mentioned in Slovakia. The paper's primary goal is to show the different forms of civic activism involved in environmental policies in selected cities. Since the Slovak Republic has eight self-governing regions, one city was selected from each. The criteria for selecting cities were realized projects in green infrastructure and waste management, a higher rate of the city's transparency index (according to statistical data), the willingness of local government actors to conduct interviews, and financial subsidies used in environmental projects. Each city uses citizen activism differently when creating environmental policies. The authors conclude that several modified versions of mosaic governance and representation of civic activism exist. The basic model, where citizens are involved based on the initiative of self-governing bodies; the optimal model, where citizen activists directly initiate topics; and the adaptive model, where citizen activists are direct decision-makers.
Key words: Mosaic governance; active citizens; green infrastructure; waste management; local government
Sociológia 2024, Vol. 56 (No. 2: 93-119)
https://doi.org/10.31577/sociologia.2024.56.2.4
The UK has a long history of providing and managing urban parks. The formal park and garden, developed as a morally improving ‘place apart’ in the city, can inform people’s idea of what a park is. This paper aims to explore the legacy of this conceptualisation of the park through an extensive review of literature and policy documents. This paper examines prevailing discourses by locating them more accurately within its political, economic and social context of the times. The paper also examines why, despite being described as ‘treasured assets’ by national government today, UK urban parks continue to be undervalued and taken for granted? Why does the lamenting of the fate of UK urban parks sector persist in the twenty-first century? To answer this question, the paper will focus on the formal urban park by applying the analytical framework of place-keeping as a conceptualisation of long-term green space management and stewardship.
Urban Green Infrastructure (UGI) plays a pivotal role in shaping sustainable cities by integrating natural elements into the urban landscape. This comprehensive review explores the multifaceted contributions of UGI towards enhancing environmental quality, social well-being, and economic resilience in urban settings. As cities continue to grapple with challenges such as climate change, air and water pollution, and the urban heat island effect, UGI emerges as a key solution for fostering urban sustainability. The review delves into the various components of UGI, encompassing green spaces, urban forests, green roofs, and permeable surfaces. It examines how these elements collectively contribute to mitigating environmental issues by absorbing carbon dioxide, reducing air pollutants, and attenuating the impacts of extreme weather events. Additionally, UGI serves as a biodiversity hotspot, supporting diverse flora and fauna within urban boundaries. Beyond its environmental benefits, UGI significantly influences social dynamics and well-being. The presence of green spaces fosters recreational opportunities, promotes mental health, and strengthens community cohesion. Accessible and well-designed green infrastructure contributes to equitable distribution of environmental benefits, addressing environmental justice concerns in urban areas. Economically, UGI proves to be an asset for cities by enhancing property values, reducing energy consumption through temperature regulation, and supporting local businesses. The review explores successful case studies of cities that have effectively implemented UGI to achieve sustainable urban development, drawing insights into best practices and potential challenges. This comprehensive review underscores the integral role of Urban Green Infrastructure in creating sustainable and resilient cities. By addressing environmental, social, and economic dimensions, UGI emerges as a holistic approach that aligns with the evolving needs of urban populations and the imperatives of a sustainable future. Understanding the intricacies of UGI implementation provides a foundation for policymakers, urban planners, and researchers to collaboratively work towards fostering greener, healthier, and more sustainable urban environments.
The coordinated relationship between Nature Reserves (NRs) and adjacent communities has a significant impact on both these local communities and conservation management practices. However, the precise relationship between NRs and their surrounding communities remains poorly understood, whether it is coordinated or unbalanced? This study employed a matrix analysis approach alongside a coordination degree model to assess the relationship and the degree of coordination between the Xiaoheishan NRs (Xhs NRs) and local communities. In addition, a structural equation model was used to analyze the factors that influence the degree of coordination between the Xhs NRs and adjacent communities. Taking into account the willingness of these communities, a prospective development model was proposed. The results of the study revealed that: (1) the relationship between the Xhs NRs and their surrounding communities was predominantly characterized by a protection‐oriented approach, particularly in the subprotected regions of Xhs, Dxs, and Jzs. (2) The path analysis revealed that the level of dependence, knowledge, and cost perception among the Xhs NRs communities had a direct negative influence on the degree of coordination. Conversely, the attitudes and perceived benefits to the Xhs NRs had a direct positive effect. (3) The pathway to future development involves a triple model approach: a public participation model, an economic model that focuses on mutual benefits and a protection and poverty alleviation model. The relationship between NRs and surrounding communities should be accurately defined; and the contradiction between protection and development should be fully coordinated. To achieve coordinated development of NRs and communities that reside close by, the Xhs NRs, along with other smaller and scattered NRs, should actively involve the public, particularly local communities, in conservation management.
La urbanización en América Latina ha avanzado con poca planificación, resultando en problemas socioecológicos, como inundaciones y contaminación de recursos hídricos. La infraestructura verde es un concepto reciente para responder a estos problemas. El concepto es atractivo porque propone soluciones multifuncionales y mejorar la conectividad a diferentes escalas espaciales. Sin embargo, su implementación en América Latina se encuentra aún en fase inicial con escasa documentación. Debido a su carácter multifuncional y multiescalar, su exitosa implementación requiere de procesos transformativos en diversos ámbitos. Este estudio analiza avances en estos ámbitos aplicando cinco dimensiones de transformación: entorno facilitador, institucional, gestión e instrumentos, implementación y operación, y monitoreo y evaluación. El análisis de diez ejemplos de promoción e implementación de infraestructura verde en ocho países de Latinoamérica muestra que hay menos avances en la provisión de financiamiento y en el monitoreo/evaluación, mientras que avances en la gestión e instrumentos y en la implementación/operación son frecuentemente reportados. El liderazgo y la voluntad política han sido factores claves para los avances. La caracterización general y la documentación basada en ejemplos de avances en diferentes regiones de América Latina contribuyen a informar y guiar la futura promoción e implementación de infraestructura verde.
Australia is experiencing an accelerated rate of climate-related extreme weather events, and many of the solutions to reduce the exposure to climate-risk are nature-based, governing urban forests, waterways, and stormwater. However, the governance of nature-based solutions in Australian cities is still fragmented and piecemeal, generally lacking a coherent narrative and widespread support. What is needed are institutional spaces that mainstream such solutions. In this paper, we draw on a case study of urban forestry implementation across metropolitan Melbourne, as a lens to examine the creation and evolution of such institutional spaces. We explain the functions and design characteristics of institutional spaces from the perspective of the requirements for establishing and maintaining institutional spaces and what is produced or the outcomes from institutional spaces. The mobilisation and evolution of institutional spaces are important to understand for the impact on the planning and governance of individual cities as well as the metropolitan region. Our key findings frame institutional spaces as relational, learning-oriented, collaborative, and empowering spaces that facilitate transformative agendas and actions for the mainstreaming of nature-based solutions in cities. From these findings, we identify seven recommendations for how practitioners can make the most of institutional spaces. Practitioner pointers. Creating space to bridge silos, foster experimentation, and develop evidence-based policy is critical to mainstream nature-based solutions.. Collaborative approaches are essential for effective institutional spaces, to participate in networking and knowledge co-production opportunities.. Actors in institutional spaces facilitate mainstreaming by learning from and building on policy and practice legacies. ARTICLE HISTORY
Looking at two cases of community forests (CF) in Eastern North America, this article examines their institutional features in order to assess whether they are conducive to adaptive governance. To do so, this article presents CFs as manifestations of polycentric governance, which allow identifying the complex networks of relations existing between different actors involved in governance at many scales. Polycentric governance is assumed to have a higher adaptability to changing factors. To better capture the variables conducive to adaptive gov-ernance in CFs, we draw on the socio-ecological system (SES) framework. The study shows that variables from the SES framework are useful in identifying features of polycentricity in CFs. Moreover, these variables highlight mechanisms Comparing polycentric configuration for adaptive governance 353 of adaptability in CF governance, namely: interaction between organizations and actors, multiplicity of complementary rules from different organizations and structures of governance. Moreover, ongoing communication with the forest users and learning among actors appear key for CF governance's adaptability.
Experiences of nature contribute to human health and well-being, yet as the world’s population continues to concentrate in towns and cities there is mounting concern that these experiences are diminishing. Despite this, little is known about how we can maintain experiences of nature as cities grow. Here, we quantify how people’s opportunities to experience nature might change with future urban growth in the city of Brisbane, Australia. We simulated the addition of 84,642 houses under compact and sprawling growth scenarios and modeled changes in people’s opportunities to experience nature by estimating changes in backyard size, public green space provision, and bird species richness close to households. We discovered that the form of urban growth could strongly influence people’s opportunities to experience nature in a way that is highly nonrandom across the socioeconomic gradient. Under a sprawling pattern of development, with low residential densities and few interstitial green spaces, our models suggest severe declines in access to public green space and bird species richness around people’s homes. These declines are predicted to be concentrated in socioeconomically disadvantaged areas of the city. Compact development leads to greater reductions in backyard size, but smaller declines in access to public green space and bird species richness. Our results point to a difficult trade-off; residential infill will maintain larger green spaces and higher overall bird diversity but reduce backyard sizes, impacting people’s opportunities to experience nature in a different way. Careful planning is needed to balance the availability of public and private urban green spaces to ensure that the opportunities for people to experience nature are maintained as urbanization continues.
This article excavates the role, function and practices of community within Transition, a grassroots environmentalist movement. It does so to pursue a quest for understanding if, how, and in what ways, community-based environmental movements are ‘political’. When community-based low carbon initiatives are discussed academically, they can be critiqued; this critique is in turn often based on the perception that the crucial community aspect tends to be a settled, static and reified condition of (human) togetherness. However community—both in theory and practice—is not destined to be so. This article collects and evaluates data from two large research projects on the Transition movement. It takes this ethnographic evidence together with lessons from post-political theory, to outline the capacious, diverse and progressive forms of community that exists within the movement. Doing so, it argues against a blanket post-political diagnosis of community transitions, and opens up, yet again, the consequences of the perceptions and prejudices one has about community are more than mere theoretical posturing.
Landscape approaches have become en vogue in the past couple of decades. Originating from nineteenth-century landscape geography, this renewed popularity since the 1980s is fueled by debates on—among others—nature conservation, landscape restoration, ecosystem services, competing claims on land and resources, sectorial land-use policies, sustainable development, and sense of place. This review illuminates the ambition and potential of these landscape approaches for interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral collaboration. To show this,wework with a T-shaped interdisciplinary model. After a short history of the landscape approaches, we dive into their key dimensions—from ecology to economics and culture to politics. Thereafter, we bring these dimensions together again and reflect on the integrative potential of landscape approaches for offering common ground to various disciplines and sectors. Two examples of applications are also dealt with: a landscape governance framework and a landscape capability framework.
Urban green infrastructure (GI) has been promoted as an approach to respond to major urban environmental and social challenges such as reducing the ecological footprint, improving human health and well-being, and adapting to climate change. Various definitions of GI have been proposed since its emergence more than two decades ago. This article aims to provide an overview of the concept of GI as a strategic planning approach that is based on certain principles.
A variety of green space types exist in urban areas, including remnants of natural areas, farmland on the fringe, designed green spaces, and derelict land where successional vegetation has established itself. These green spaces, and especially components such as trees, can cover significant proportions of urban areas. However, their uneven distribution raises issues of social and environmental justice. Moreover, the diverse range of public, institutional, and private landowners of urban green spaces poses particular challenges to GI planning. Urban GI planning must consider processes of urban change, especially pressures on green spaces from urban sprawl and infill development, while derelict land may offer opportunities for creating new, biodiverse green spaces within densely built areas.
Based on ample evidence from the research literature, it is suggested that urban GI planning can make a major contribution to conserving and enhancing biodiversity, improving environmental quality and reducing the ecological footprint, adapting cities to climate change, and promoting social cohesion. In addition, GI planning may support the shift toward a green economy.
The benefits derived from urban green spaces via the provision of ecosystem services are key to meeting these challenges. The text argues that urban GI planning should build on seven principles to unlock its full potential. Four of these are treated in more detail: green-gray integration, multifunctionality, connectivity, and socially inclusive planning. Considering these principles in concert is what makes GI planning a distinct planning approach. Results from a major European research project indicate that the principles of urban GI planning have been applied to different degrees. In particular, green-gray integration and approaches to socially inclusive planning offer scope for further improvement
In conclusion, urban GI is considered to hold much potential for the transition toward more sustainable and resilient pathways of urban development. While the approach has developed in the context of the Western world, its application to the rapidly developing cities of the Global South should be a priority.
Keywords: green infrastructure, green space, ecosystem services, urban, multifunctionality, connectivity, integration, social inclusion
Scholars observe an increased involvement of citizens in green space governance. This paper focuses on green self-governance, in which citizens play a major role in realizing, protecting and/or managing green space. While existing research on green self-governance focuses mostly on specific cases, we aim to contribute towards a large overview via an inventory of 264 green self-governance practices across The Netherlands. With this, we discuss the relevance of green self-governance for nature conservation and its relationship with authorities. In our analysis, we show that green self-governance practices are very diverse: they pursue a wide variety of physical and social objectives; employ a multitude of physical and political activities; involve different actors besides citizens; mobilize different internal and external funding sources; and are active within and outside of protected areas. While green self-governance can contribute towards protection and management of green space and towards social values, we highlight that this contribution is mostly of a local relevance. Most practices are small scale and objectives do not always match those of authorities. Although we speak of self-governance, authorities play an important role in many practices, for example, as financial donor, landowner or regulatory authority. In this, self-governance is often not completely ‘self’.
Abbreviations: PAA: Policy Arrangement Approach; NNN: National Nature Network; N2000: Natura 2000; NCOs: Nature Conservation Organizations; NGOs: Non-governmental organizations
In cities worldwide, low-carbon urban initiatives (LCUIs) are realised by pioneers that prove that climate mitigation strategies can be integrated in urban development trajectories. Practitioners and scholars reflect on the need to scale-up such initiatives in order to accelerate the transition to low-carbon cities. Yet, limited conceptual clarity exists regarding the meaning of the concept of ‘scaling-up’ and the factors driving this process. This article aims to contribute to practice and theory on low-carbon urban development by presenting a taxonomy on the concept of scaling-up. Moreover, an explanatory framework is presented consisting of factors expected to contribute to the impact and scaling-up of LCUIs. Two case studies were conducted to illustrate the explanatory framework. The studies are illustrative but suggest that the explanatory framework allows for a systematic understanding of how the impact of former initiatives can be explained, and how their scaling-up can be promoted.
GREEN SURGE Deliverable 5.2 “Advanced approaches and strategies for UGI planning
and implementation”. The contents of this report outline the results of the second
phase of research on green infrastructure planning and implementation in Europe as
part of the EU FP7 project GREEN SURGE (ENV.2013.6.2-5-603567; 2013-2017)
The contributors provide an overview of theoretical perspectives, methodologies and instructive experiences from all continents, as well as implications for collective action and policy. They argue strongly for social innovation as a key to human development. The Handbook defines social innovation as innovation in social relations within both micro and macro spheres, with the purpose of satisfying unmet or new human needs across different layers of society. It connects social innovation to empowerment dynamics, thus giving a political character to social movements and bottom-up governance initiatives. Together these should lay the foundations for a fairer, more democratic society for all.
In this chapter we discuss social innovation and sustainable development as two approaches that can jointly contrib- ute to the formulation of more harmonious human-environment relationships to address the problems of an unsustainable world. Sustainable development is a multidimensional approach that considers the social, economic, environmental, cultural and institutional aspects of human-nature interaction. However, this multidimensionality can be a weakness, as policymakers and practitioners tend to artificially disconnect its key ingredients into separate standalone ‘pillars’. We believe that a social innovation perspective to sustainable development can help overcome this disconnectedness. Social innovation in this context relates to how individuals, groups and communities can take action in response to the problems of unsustainable practices and unsatisfied social needs while also focusing on the challenges of environmental degradation and climate change.
Although experimented within public organisations for over 30 years, strategic planning and management still raise a number of questions and doubts as to their ability to improve public performance. The purpose of this article is to look into the strategy formulation processes in the public sector and the type of strategic approach that best matches the characteristics of this sector. It sets out to do so by first drawing up a theoretical analysis grid, based on the three main approaches to strategy in the public sector. This is followed by an exploratory case study that brings to light a complex strategic process that combines and alternates rational, collaborative and political decision-making logics, and a planned and incremental development.
Points for practitioners
This research highlights the need to combine different logics and approaches in the strategic control of public organisations: a rational logic, a political logic and a collaborative logic. It underlines, in particular, the importance for public managers to build skills in the development and management of inter-organisational networks and interpersonal relationships. The ability to create interactions between a variety of stakeholders, both internal and external, to mobilise and channel collective intelligence towards the definition and implementation of public projects and policies is a key component of the strategic management of public organisations.
The compact city approach has gained global impact as a planning approach for sustainable development in areas with increasing urban population. Through densification and compact building, it aims to counteract negative effects of urban sprawl concerning ineffective land-use and related environmental problems. In spite of its benefits, increasing attention is paid to problems and challenges related to implementing the compact city approach.
This review looks at the effects of urban densification and compact city development on urban green space and its planning. It identifies problems, challenges and strategies of urban green space planning during densification processes. Findings confirm that urban densification processes, including consolidation and infill development, can pose a threat to urban green space. However, the literature on the compact city approach often lacks specific suggestions for urban green space conservation and planning. Provision of urban green space in compact city environments and during densification processes is described as a major challenge. Loss of private urban green space rarely seems offset by provision of more public green space. Several ways are identified to deal with these challenges, while also highlighting research gaps e.g., as to how loss of green space quantity can be offset by increased green space quality.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) have the potential to become a powerful political vision that can support the urgently needed global transition to a shared and lasting prosperity. In December 2014, the United Nations (UN) Secretary General published his report on the SDGs. However, the final goals and targets that will be adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015 risk falling short of expectations because of what we call “cockpit-ism”: the illusion that top-down steering by governments and
intergovernmental organizations alone can address global problems. In view of the limited effectiveness of intergovernmental efforts and questions about the capacity of national governments to affect change, the SDGs need to additionally mobilize new agents ofchange such as businesses, cities and civil society. To galvanize such a broad set of actors, multiple perspectives on sustainable development are needed that respond to the various motives and logics of change of these different actors. We propose four connected
perspectives which can strengthen the universal relevance of the SDGs: “planetary boundaries” to stress the urgency of addressing environmental concerns and to target governments to take responsibility for (global) public goods; “the safe and just operating space” to highlight the interconnectedness of social and environmental concerns and its distributive consequences; “the energetic society” to benefit from the willingness of a broad group of actors worldwide to take action; and “green competition” to stimulate
innovation and new business practices. To realize the transformative potential of the SDGs, these four perspectives should be reflected in the focus and content of the SDGs that will be negotiated in the run up to September 2015 and its further implementation.
This paper explores the way community groups, central to new systems of local governance, are related to local institutions and how those relations influence them. We draw from two theoreti-cal approaches – behavioural and institutional – that offer different answers to the question: what makes community groups thrive? Based on an analysis of 386 community groups in the Netherlands, we distinguish four types of groups: feather light, cooperative, networked and nested groups. Then, in a neighbourhood case study we focus on the relations between groups and local institutions to gain a deeper insight into the institutional dynamics of urban governance. Moreover, we combine the findings of both studies claiming that different groups need different things from local institutions, and that in the current NPM-driven world only the higher educated community groups have productive relationships with local institutions, while others are some-where in between frail contacts and failing demands.
Based on three case studies on citizens' initiatives in their local governance contexts, we analyse the process of subjectification as a performative effect of the dialectical relationship between governmental organizations and citizens' initiatives. We argue that discourses produced by governmental organizations on what it entails to be an active citizen have a performative effect on citizens' initiatives, which adapt themselves, anticipate on what is expected from them and act strategically towards these discourses. As a consequence, some people become ‘good’ citizens meeting the expectations of the governmental discourse. The process of subjectification shows that this not a unilateral act, but mutually activated by both governmental organizations and citizens' initiatives.
We conducted an exploratory study to determine the motivations of volunteer oyster gardeners in New York City (NYC), and the memories, meanings, and sense of place they associate with their work. Oyster gardeners are volunteers who place cages with young oysters at agreed upon locations, and monitor the oysters’ growth and survival. Open-ended interviews were conducted with 10 oyster gardeners and transcripts were coded to understand specific motivations, social–ecological memories and meanings, and sense of place, and how these relate to oyster gardening. Oyster gardeners’ social–ecological memories of and meanings related to oysters and the NYC estuary were tightly intertwined with their sense of place and motivations. These links suggest that whereas altruistic concern related to improving the environment is an important motivation for environmental volunteerism, the specific focus of environmental volunteerism may be driven by social–ecological memories, meanings, and sense of place derived from experiences with and the features of local places and species. In some cases, this process may rise to the level of creation or recognition of iconic species, which implies additional motivations for environmental volunteerism, including ecological and socio-cultural meanings attributed to species as well as fascination and related aspects of biophilia. The results suggest that government agencies and non-profits might consider a broader suite of functions that environmental stewardship serves for the volunteers, including attachment and memories related to particular species and places and their ecological, historical, and cultural values.
Policy instruments can help put climate adaptation plans into action. Here, we propose a method for the systematic assessment and selection of policy instruments for stimulating adaptation action. The multi-disciplinary set of six assessment criteria is derived from economics, policy, and legal studies. These criteria are specified for the purpose of climate adaptation by taking into account four challenges to the governance of climate adaptation: uncertainty, spatial diversity, controversy, and social complexity. The six criteria and four challenges are integrated into a step-wise method that enables the selection of instruments starting from a generic assessment and ending with a specific assessment of policy instrument mixes for the stimulation of a specific adaptation measure. We then apply the method to three examples of adaptation measures. The method’s merits lie in enabling deliberate choices through a holistic and comprehensive set of adaptation specific criteria, as well as deliberative choices by offering a stepwise method that structures an informed dialog on instrument selection. Although the method was created and applied by scientific experts, policy-makers can also use the method.
Although a number of comprehensive reviews have examined global ecosystem services (ES), few have focused on studies that assess urban ecosystem services (UES). Given that more than half of the world’s population lives in cities, understanding the dualism of the provision of and need for UES is of critical importance. Which UES are the focus of research, and what types of urban land use are examined? Are models or decision support systems used to assess the provision of UES? Are trade-offs considered? Do studies of UES engage stakeholders? To address these questions, we analyzed 217 papers derived from an ISI Web of Knowledge search using a set of standardized criteria. The results indicate that most UES studies have been undertaken in Europe, North America, and China, at city scale. Assessment methods involve bio-physical models, Geographical Information Systems, and valuation, but few study findings have been implemented as land use policy.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0504-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Within-city green infrastructure can offer opportunities and new contexts for people to become stewards of ecosystem services. We analyze cities as social–ecological systems, synthesize the literature, and provide examples from more than 15 years of research in the Stockholm urban region, Sweden. The social–ecological approach spans from investigating ecosystem properties to the social frameworks and personal values that drive and shape human interactions with nature. Key findings demonstrate that urban ecosystem services are generated by social–ecological systems and that local stewards are critically important. However, land-use planning and management seldom account for their role in the generation of urban ecosystem services. While the small scale patchwork of land uses in cities stimulates intense interactions across borders much focus is still on individual patches. The results highlight the importance and complexity of stewardship of urban biodiversity and ecosystem services and of the planning and governance of urban green infrastructure.
Electronic supplementary material
The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13280-014-0506-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Localism is an active political strategy, developed in a period of austerity by the UK's coalition government as a justification for the restructuring of state-civil society relationships. The deprived neighbourhood has long been a site for service delivery and a scale for intervention and action, giving rise to a variety of forms of neighbourhood governance. Prior international comparative research indicated convergence with the US given the rise of the self-help conjuncture and the decline of neighbourhood governance as a medium of regeneration. The subsequent shift in the UK paradigm from ‘big’ to ‘small state’ localism and deficit-reducing cuts to public expenditure confirm these trends, raising questions about the forms of neighbourhood governance currently being established, the role being played by local and central government, and the implications for neighbourhood regeneration. Two emerging forms of neighbourhood governance are examined in two urban local authorities and compared with prior forms examined in earlier research in the case study sites. The emerging forms differ significantly in their design and purpose, but as both are voluntary and receive no additional funding, better organised and more affluent communities are more likely to pursue their development. While it is still rather early to assess the capacity of these forms to promote neighbourhood regeneration, the potential in a period of austerity appears limited. Reduced funding for local services increases the imperative to self-help, while rights to local voice remain limited and the emerging forms provide little scope to influence (declining) local services and (still centralised) planning decisions, especially in neighbourhoods with regeneration needs which are likely to lack the requisite capacities, particularly stores of linking social capital. Initial conclusions suggest greater polarity and the further containment of deprived neighbourhoods.
Sustainable development requires changes in socio-technical systems and wider societal change - in beliefs, values and governance that co-evolve with technology changes. In this article we present a practical model for managing processes of co-evolution: transition management. Transition management is a multilevel model of governance which shapes processes of co-evolution using visions, transition experiments and cycles of learning and adaptation. Transition management helps societies to transform themselves in a gradual, reflexive way through guided processes of variation and selection, the outcomes of which are stepping stones for further change. It shows that societies can break free from existing practices and technologies, by engaging in co-evolutionary steering. This is illustrated by the Dutch waste management transition. Perhaps transition management constitutes the third way that policy scientists have been looking for all the time, combining the advantages of incrementalism (based on mutual adaptation) with the advantages of planning (based on long-term objectives).
Research on urban forest governance is scarce, despite the current high level of interest in urban forestry.This paper addresses one of the main reasons for this scarcity – poor understanding of what governance is,and how it can be described. We propose a systematic approach to researching urban forest governance,based on a case study framework which provides a way to describe examples clearly, and to comparethem robustly. The paper briefly reviews definitions and debates around governance, before using adescriptive definition as the basis for developing a framework. It then uses five examples from acrossEurope, to illustrate the use of the framework for describing urban forest governance. The analysis reflectson the experience of writing and sharing case studies, to distill out the framework as a research tool, anddiscusses issues arising from the application of the framework and the challenges of standardisation.The paper concludes with reflections on the role of this framework in stimulating comparisons whilemaintaining the flexibility to contribute to individual research needs and traditions.
This paper focuses on the fifth dimension of social innovation—i.e. political governance. Although largely neglected in the mainstream 'innovation' literature, innovative governance arrangements are increasingly recognised as potentially significant terrains for fostering inclusive development processes. International organisations like the EU and the World Bank, as well as leading grass-roots movements, have pioneered new and more participatory governance arrangements as a pathway towards greater inclusiveness. Indeed, over the past two decades or so, a range of new and often innovative institutional arrangements has emerged, at a variety of geographical scales. These new institutional 'fixes' have begun to challenge traditional state-centred forms of policy-making and have generated new forms of governance-beyond-the-state. Drawing on Foucault's notion of governmentality, the paper argues that the emerging innovative horizontal and networked arrangements of governance-beyond-the-state are decidedly Janus-faced. While enabling new forms of participation and articulating the state – civil society relationships in potentially democratising ways, there is also a flip side to the process. To the extent that new governance arrangements rearticulate the state-civil society relationship, they also redefine and reposition the meaning of (political) citizenship and, consequently, the nature of democracy itself. The first part of the paper outlines the contours of governance-beyond-the-state. The second part addresses the thorny issues of the state –civil society relationship in the context of the emergence of the new governmentality associated with governance-beyond-the-state. The third part teases out the contradictory way in which new arrangements of governance have created new institutions and empowered new actors, while disempowering others. It is argued that this shift from 'government' to 'governance' is associated with the consolidation of new technologies of government, on the one hand, and with profound restructuring of the parameters of political democracy on the other, leading to a substantial democratic deficit. The paper concludes by suggesting that socially innovative arrangements of governance-beyond-the-state are fundamentally Janus-faced, particularly under conditions in which the democratic character of the political sphere is increasingly eroded by the encroaching imposition of market forces that set the 'rules of the game'.
The reallocation of authority upwards, downwards, and sideways from central states hasdrawn attention from a growing number of scholars in the social sciences. Yet beyondagreement that governance has become (and should be) multi-level, there is no consensusabout how it should be organized. This paper draws on several literatures to distinguish twotypes of multi-level governance. One type conceives of dispersion of authority to a limitednumber of levels. A second type of governance conceives of a large number of functionallyspecialized, intersecting, and flexible jurisdictions. We conclude by specifying the virtues ofeach type of governance.
Studies show that municipalities often develop a type of urban greenspace that is rather uniform in its shape and use. Citizens’ initiatives develop different types of greenspace. This article uses concepts from transition studies and identifies what happens during a citizens’ initiative in urban greenspace in the Netherlands in terms of transition of municipal management and development and how these initiatives can lead to a change of practices of the municipality. A single, qualitative study of Diepenheim Inside-Out-Forest in the Netherlands as a critical case is presented, based on 8 semi-open interviews. The study gives insight in how the municipality has changed in relation to this one case, and how such transition of ‘regime’ takes place. The study explains how the different benefits that arise in a greenspace development and management initiative relate to the ‘critical knowledge’ and ‘situated knowledge’ of the actors involved and that the quality of urban greenspace is very much the result of that knowledge. ‘Fit and conform’ and ‘stretch and transform’ are usable strategies for the empowerment of such initiatives through sharing of resources, and policy advocacy by ‘critical niche’ innovators.
‘Regime’ is not uniquely a feature of the local state but also of market parties and citizens themselves with their own values and routines. A change among all parties seems needed if greenspace is to be developed, managed and used differently.
Green spaces are an integral part of a vibrant urban landscape. In this paper, we discuss the potential for social innovations to transform urban green space and cities. By introducing the concept of socio-ecological practices and applying it to the analysis of urban and guerrilla gardening in the cities of Groningen and London, we examine links between behavioural drivers, social innovation and green space governance. Based on document analysis, in-depth interviews and observation of gardens, we bring about an understanding of the motivations behind involvement in socio-ecological practices as an interface between people and their cities. We show how underlying motivations, including values and self-efficacy, offer insight on current place-keeping transformations and, by doing so, contribute to fostering sustainable, long-term governance dynamics. It emerges from this research that socio-ecological practices have the potential to generate socially innovative physical, social and policy transformations within the governance of urban green space.
Urban green infrastructure (UGI) planning, based on certain principles, has emerged as a way to conceptualise connected greenspace in urbanised environments. This is achieved through the application of processes and approaches linked to policy themes to which the concept can significantly contribute. Taken together the processes , approaches and policy themes constitute the principles of UGI, which when adopted can promote, maintain and enhance quality of life in resource-efficient, compact and climate-resilient cities. In this study we explore the extent to which strategic greenspace planning in Europe is UGI compliant, as we hypothesised that the above principles are presently under-represented in planning documents and policies. This was accomplished by conducting a comparative analysis of the adoption of UGI principles in current practices of greenspace planning across European city-regions based on a systematic review of previous data and reports. The study found that many UGI principles and related concepts are present to some degree in strategic greenspace planning in Europe. However, gaps exist with regard to their scope and level of consideration. Presently, conservation emerges as the predominant task in strategic urban greenspace planning. However, enhancing network con-nectivity is key to the development of UGI, hence a greater focus on the restoration and creation of greenspace is required in the future. Based on our analysis it can be concluded that the advancement towards UGI planning is well established and progressing, although some areas are markedly under-represented. Strategic greenspace planning in Europe, with a few exceptions, requires further development to be effectively considered as UGI compliant.
This paper discusses the long-term management or ‘place-keeping’ of urban green space by citizens and highlights enabling and constraining factors that play a crucial role in this continuity. While authorities have historically been in charge of managing public green spaces, there is an increased involvement of citizens in green space management. It is therefore relevant to study how citizens can contribute towards place-keeping and realize a continuity in managing and conserving the qualities of urban green spaces.
Active citizens may contribute to the environmental, social, and institutional resilience of cities. This review discusses how citizen initiatives protect biodiversity hotspots, contribute to social cohesion, institutional innovation, and diversity in urban green space management. Challenges related to social inclusiveness, ecological connectivity and continuity suggest government involvement is pertinent, but needs to be refocused. To maximise environmental outcomes of active citizenship, governments may adopt an enabling and stimulating governance style that harnesses the transformative potential of active citizenship. This paper argues for mosaic governance to work with the heterogeneous array of people, institutions, and spatial practices associated with active citizenship. Mosaic governance aims for a context-sensitive way of urban green infrastructure planning, enhancing relationships between the diversity of landscapes and communities across cities.
Energy conservation in residential and commercial buildings is considered a key challenge and opportunity for low-carbon urban development. In cities worldwide, energy conservation initiatives have been realized that demonstrate the social, financial, and environmental benefits that energy conservation can generate. However, in order to accomplish international goals pertaining to climate mitigation, these initiatives need to go to scale and reach a greater and broader audience. To accelerate the scaling-up of such initiatives, an in-depth understanding of barriers hampering this process and local strategies that can be applied to address these barriers is required. While scholars and practitioners underline the importance of local solutions to the global problem of climate change, little is known about strategies that can be applied at the local level to overcome barriers. This paper has three general findings that can make a valuable contribution to theory and practice on urban climate governance. First, it sketches the context-specificity of barriers to scaling-up energy conservation initiatives and reflects on similarities and differences in barriers to energy conservation in residential and commercial building stocks in two European cities: Utrecht and Valencia. Second, this paper presents several local strategies that can be applied to overcome barriers, thereby improving our understanding of the relation between barriers and solutions. Finally, the findings of the paper suggest that while many barriers have national or international origins, the local environment appears to be a promising scale to address barriers.