As many cities face the challenges of urbanisation, effective provision of urban green spaces (UGS) is needed. There is an identified need to explore the potential to supply green spaces for municipalities and the challenges they face. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is to look closer at the potential and challenges of supplying UGS from a social sustainability perspective in Stockholm municipality. The focus is to examine how the municipality can achieve their goal of supplying good access to UGS, that meets the diverse needs of people. To do so, the implication of good access for all people was first explored on a theoretical level with a literature review. Secondly, to establish a link from the theory and policy to the practical work, the experiences and knowledge of practitioners and consultants in the Stockholm context was explored with an interview study. Specifically, how planning tools and way of working can support, which was the main focus of the study. The results from the literature review indicates that different social factors may influence the perceived access and usage of UGS. Safety issues was the most noted factor that could have a negative effect for the perceived access to UGS. The interview study indicates that planning tools that are used within Stockholm municipality can enable to achieve the goal of good access for all people by a more intentional planning. However, the way of working in the planning process is critical. It requires a holistic mindset and the social perspectives needs to be integrated throughout the whole planning process. Social factors, such as safety concerns, are considerable for UGS planning, but also challenging to capture and incorporate into the planning process. To be able to reduce the gap between theory and practice, more unified research has to be done, to know more about what factors that influence perception of access, and the diverse preferences and needs that exists for UGS. This is needed to enable for practitioners to have a more solid knowledge ground for their work in providing UGS that can contribute to social sustainability in cities. / När många städer står inför utmaningarna med urbanisering, krävs det effektiv tillhandahållande av grönområden i urbana områden. Det finns ett identifierat behov av att utforska möjligheten för kommuner att tillhandahålla grönytor och de utmaningar de står inför. Därför är syftet med denna avhandling att titta närmare på möjligheterna och utmaningarna med att tillhandahålla urbana grönområden från ett socialt hållbarhetsperspektiv i Stockholm kommun. Fokus är att undersöka hur kommunen kan uppnå sitt mål om god tillgång till urbana grönområden, som möter människors olika behov. För att göra det undersöktes först implikationen av god tillgång för alla människor med en litteraturstudie. Därefter, för att förankra teorin och policyn till det praktiska arbetet, utforskades planerares erfarenheter och kunskaper i Stockholms med hjälp av en intervjustudie. Specifikt, hur olika planeringsverktyg och arbetssätt kan stödja att uppnå målet, vilket var studiens huvudfokus. Resultaten från litteraturstudien indikerar att olika sociala faktorer kan påverka den upplevda tillgången och användningen av urbana grönområden. Säkerhetsfrågor var den mest noterade faktorn som kan ha en negativ effekt på den upplevda tillgången. Intervjustudien indikerar att planeringsverktyg som används inom Stockholm kommun kan göra det möjligt att uppnå målet om god tillgång för alla genom en mer avsiktlig planering. Men sättet att arbeta i planeringsprocessen är avgörande. Det kräver en helhetssyn och de sociala perspektiven måste integreras i hela planeringsprocessen. Sociala faktorer, som säkerhetsproblem, är betydande för grönplanering, men också utmanande att fånga och integrera i planeringsprocessen. För att kunna minska klyftan mellan teori och praktik måste mer enhetlig forskning göras, för att veta mer om vilka faktorer som påverkar uppfattningen av tillgång och de olika preferenser och behov som finns av urbana grönområden. Detta behövs för att planerare ska kunna ha en mer solid kunskapsgrund för sitt arbete med att tillhandahålla urbana grönområden som kan bidra till socialt hållbara städer.

This research seeks to investigate the impact of equitable development strategies on urban environmental justice. I focused on the extent to which the processes that accompany the highly visible large-scale park planning projects promote equity and inclusion in the Rail Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and the 11th Street Bridge Park in Washington D.C. This research focuses on natural urban environment settings, with attention given to the development of highly visible parks projects that take at least partial inspiration from New York City’s High Line Park. Park development in underserved neighborhoods can lead to green gentrification. Thus, equity concerns are raised, as the very residents that would benefit the most from environmental improvements such as green space remediation and expansion are more likely to be excluded due to their development. I employed a qualitative methodology utilizing content analysis and 33 in depth interviews were conducted at two park project sites in Philadelphia and Washington D.C. Based on grounded theory, I explored stakeholder attitudes, feelings, and perceptions tied to varied notions of equity and the engagement levels of planning processes connected to park project development. Trust capital emerged as a major theme in the perceived efficacy of development processes that pursue equitable goals. This factor fluctuates with stakeholder perceptions of equity and the legitimization of socioeconomic concerns expressed by the community in urban green infrastructure development. This research concludes that the inclusion of an equitable development (ED) process impacts greening project implementation and the individuals involved. / Geography

Sweden has made a legal commitment to the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and, as such, should ensure children’s rights in urban planning. A vital aspect of a child-friendly city is access to urban green space. However, children’s access to green spaces is threatened by challenges in implementing the CRC in practice; children’s limited opportunities to explore public space; and the general trend of decreasing green spaces in cities. The purpose of this study is threefold: to examine Malmö’s urban planning strategies and their effectiveness in ensuring children’s access to green spaces; to analyse the current state of spatial accessibility; and to identify factors contributing to the perceived child-friendliness of green spaces. A mixed methods approach of content analysis, spatial analysis, observations and in-situ interviews with parents is used to examine children’s access to urban green spaces through various angles. This is further explored through the use of concepts related to spatial justice, children’s right to the city and attributes of a child friendly city. The thesis found ambiguity in the support from Malmö’s plans and strategies related to children’s access to green space and promotion of the child perspective. There seems to be an ambition to work with the child perspective, but challenges in translating this ambition into clear strategies and methods for including children in decisions beyond those relating to schools and kindergartens. Additionally, children were merely implicitly mentioned in relation to green space specifically, which lowers the support for children’s specific access to these spaces. The spatial analysis displayed that neighbourhoods in Malmö have access to some green space, but that the amount of green space differs. The amount of green space was higher in neighbourhoods with a high socioeconomic status and lower in child-dense neighbourhoods, which indicates spatial inequality and displays that children’s access to green space might differ depending on where they live. The perceived child-friendliness of the observed green spaces was largely dependent on the presence of the parents or other trustworthy adults. Additionally, the playground was central in green space usage and perceptions of child-friendliness. Lastly, there was a widespread fear among parents of letting the children visit the green spaces independently. This was related to traffic safety and revealed a duality related to ‘other people’ - strangers were seen as potential threats to their children’s safety, while certain strangers, especially other parents, were seen as increasing the safety of the green space.

With the global population becoming more urban and less rural, increasingly research has argued for concepts such as establish Green Infrastructure (GI) as a tool for enhancing wildlife survival and human’s living quality (e.g. Harrison et al., 1995; Benedict and McMahon, 2006). However, an interdisciplinary planning approach underpinned by ecological and social evidence has not yet been fully developed. This research therefore seeks to integrate an ecological network with a green space planning standard by exploring the use of biotope and sociotope mapping methods. Seeking a comprehensive planning that takes all green resources into account, a green space typology is firstly developed according to Taiwanese contexts for identifying green spaces from land use maps. In order to specify effective features of these green spaces to bird survival and user preferences, an insight was conducted into the relationship of ‘birds and urban habitats’, as well as ‘human preferred urban green spaces’ in Taipei City. Important environmental factors influencing bird distribution and influencing human experiences in urban green spaces are respectively specified and developed into an ecological value index (EVI) to detail potential habitats and a social value index (SVI) to evaluate recreational green space provision. Interestingly, proximity to green space appears to plays a more critical role in human preferences than bird survival in Taipei city; size is important both as a habitat and for creating an attractive green space; and green space quality tends to be a more significant factor than its structure for both wildlife and people. Utilising the bio-sociotope maps, this thesis argues for a number of strategies: conserving, enlarging, or creating large green spaces in green space deficient areas; increasing ecological and recreational value by enhancing green space quality of specific characteristics; and tackling gravity distance by combining green space accessibility and attractiveness in optimising urban green structure. As these suggestions are a challenge to apply in intensively developed urban areas, barriers from land use, political mechanisms, technical shortages, and cultural characteristics are also explored with possible resolutions presented for facilitating implementation. It is clear that optimising a multifunctional GI for both wildlife and people requires interdisciplinary knowledge and cooperation from various fields. The EVI and SVI developed within this thesis create the potential for a more place-specific and quantifiable green spaces strategy to help better link ecological and social functions in urban areas.

Public urban green spaces are crucial parts of cities due to the many connections existing between urban greenery and well-being. Additionally, public urban green space represents a wide range of spatial concepts, such as parks, urban forests, commons, in-between-spaces, and gardens. This study explores challenges for contemporary public urban green space in an increasingly urban world, with high demands on urban growth, and simultaneously the need for more sustainable societies and cities. The aim is to problematize the complex reality for contemporary public urban green space from an urban planning perspective in times of urban densification strategies, global competitiveness between cities and trends of ‘re-naturing’.   The scope of this thesis is based on four high profile case studies. The Green Walkable City in Stockholm and The Green Living Spaces in Birmingham constitute planning strategies with a holistic approach to urban green space, including a strong focus on well-being. The High Line in New York and Parklets in San Francisco represent urban green space concepts, influential both at the local level and in the larger urban planning debate. The results point to a need to acknowledge the complexity inherent to urban green space provision, design, and management. This study contributes with insights of direct connections between narratives of nature, materialized urban greenery projects and conceptualizations of functionality of nature in urban planning projects. From the post-industrial, pristine flirting, crafted wilderness of the High Line; a symbolic but cosmetic scrambling with planters and narratives of parks of parklets; dualistic argumentations of natural values connected to quality over quantity of nature in a densifying and growing Stockholm; to pragmatic yet emotional and ambitious conceptualizations of human nature in biohilic urbanism and green space planning in Birmingham. Gentrification, publicness and production of public space and densification strategies are central themes in urban studies – and public urban green space can play an active role in these processes. / <p>QC 20160518</p>

This exploratory research project explores the production and use, and subsequent closure and eviction of the community-designed and managed Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford – a predominantly working-class area in south-east London. This community garden played a key role in the lives of many local residents and its closure and subsequent demolition to make way for a large housing project drew a significant backlash from local residents which included protests, law-suits, and the occupation of the garden itself. Why this small, half-acre community garden garnered such a notable response is the main focus of and motivation for this research project. Using a combined-methods approach consisting of semi-structured interviews and participant observation, this research investigates what it was about Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden which resulted in this backlash, and why the local council’s decision to close it drew such a militant revolt from local community members. Combining the empirical results of this research with a deep inquiry into the concepts of space and power within urban theory, this thesis seeks to understand the rights working-class communities have to contribute to the production of public green space, and how such community-led contribution can impact on the space produced, both inside and outside the context of Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden and its former users.

We insist upon “green space”, but the term’s vague cast brings little into focus. In this thesis I search out what it is that we look for in green space. I consider some ways, within our North American context, that we interact with it, represent it, speak about it and write about it. Drawing together evidence from a diverse range of sources in myth and mapping, poetry, classical philosophy, feminist theory, language, and personal experience, I find enigmatic but persistent geometries of desire binding us to the notion of green space. These desires for green space manifest themselves in relationships of practical dependence, imaginative dependence, violence, and love. But most of all green space is at work, wherever it emerges, at the core of our becoming-other.

Schrumpfungsprozesse bestimmen seit Ende der 1990er Jahre zunehmend die Stadtentwicklung in den Neuen Bundesländern. Demografischer und ökonomischer Wandel gelten als wesentliche Ursachen für einen massiven Nachfragerückgang und erhebliche Leerstände im Wohnungsbestand. Im Zuge des Programms "Stadtumbau Ost“ werden die ungenutzten Wohngebäude abgerissen. Sowohl in Stadtzentren als auch in Randlagen erstrecken sich nicht mehr bebaute Areale, da sich nur für wenige Freiflächen eine bauliche Nachnutzung findet. Freiraumplanerische Konzepte und Maßnahmen werden möglich, aber auch notwendig für den Umgang mit den frei gewordenen Flächen und bieten gleichzeitig Potenziale zur Verbesserung der städtischen Umwelt- und Lebensqualität. Die vorliegende Forschungsarbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, welche Bedeutung Freiräume im Umgang mit räumlichen Schrumpfungsprozessen haben und wo die Chancen und Grenzen der Freiraumplanung beim Stadtumbau liegen. Die Autorin legt die gegenwärtigen Rahmenbedingungen der Freiraumplanung dar und setzt sich mit Stadtmodellen, städtebaulichen Leitbildern und dem Verständnis von Natur und Landschaft in der schrumpfenden Stadt auseinander. Am Beispiel der Großstädte Chemnitz, Halle und Leipzig werden die Strategien, Entscheidungen und Handlungsansätze der Freiraumplanungspraxis schrumpfender Städte analysiert. Die Ansätze werden beschrieben und mit Blick auf ihre Eignung und Zukunftsfähigkeit für die Gestaltung des Stadtumbauprozesses diskutiert. / Since the second half of the 1990’s, the new federal states of Germany have undergone dramatic demographic and economic change, which, among other things, has led to the ongoing phenomenon of shrinking cities. The work at hand deals with the issue of what the relevance of urban green spaces is in light of the spatial shrinking processes and where the opportunities and limitations are concerning green space planning within urban restructuring.

We insist upon “green space”, but the term’s vague cast brings little into focus. In this thesis I search out what it is that we look for in green space. I consider some ways, within our North American context, that we interact with it, represent it, speak about it and write about it. Drawing together evidence from a diverse range of sources in myth and mapping, poetry, classical philosophy, feminist theory, language, and personal experience, I find enigmatic but persistent geometries of desire binding us to the notion of green space. These desires for green space manifest themselves in relationships of practical dependence, imaginative dependence, violence, and love. But most of all green space is at work, wherever it emerges, at the core of our becoming-other.

The Power of a Small Green Place is an ethnographic case study among the volunteers and urban wilds of Ottawa’s Fletcher Wildlife Garden (FWG). Through the conceptual lens of the geographical concept of place – with its wide range of physical, relational and deeper meaningful considerations – this urban wildlife habitat project emerged as a place of profound significance. Volunteers working to create and maintain the FWG’s diverse habitats benefit from opportunities to engage in physical outdoor activity, establish social connections, make contact with the natural world, find deep personal satisfaction and meaning, and experience healthier and mutually beneficial relations with nature. This case study fills a knowledge gap in geography regarding the significant relationships that can emerge between people and the land they work with, thereby contributing to geography’s “latest turn earthward” examining practices and relationships of cultivation with the land. The case study also contributes to a growing interdisciplinary dialogue on human-nature relations and their implications in the context of future environmental and societal uncertainties.