Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces [1st ed.] 9783030444792, 9783030444808

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xv
Why Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect (Julian Dobson, Nicola Dempsey)....Pages 1-7
What Is Urban Nature and How Do We Perceive It? (Helen Hoyle)....Pages 9-36
Naturally Feeling Good? Exploring Understandings of ‘Green’ Urban Spaces in the Global South (Sarah Bradshaw, Brian Linneker, Lian Lundy)....Pages 37-57
Making a Governable, Value-able Nature: Calculative Practices and Eco-system Services (John Henneberry, Jing Ma, Riccardo Privitera)....Pages 59-86
Contesting Longstanding Conceptualisations of Urban Green Space (Meredith Whitten)....Pages 87-116
The Challenges of Changing Governance: Curating New Civic Identities for Health and Wellbeing (Mary Gearey)....Pages 117-142
Mind the Gap: Does What We Know About Greenspace and Wellbeing Change What We Do? (Julian Dobson, Nicola Dempsey)....Pages 143-165
Measuring the Gap Between Rhetoric and Practice: Examining Urban Green Space Interventions Post-implementation (Nicola Dempsey)....Pages 167-187
Realigning Knowing and Doing: An Agenda for Reflection and Action (Nicola Dempsey, Julian Dobson)....Pages 189-196
Back Matter ....Pages 197-201

Citation preview

Cities and Nature

Nicola Dempsey Julian Dobson Editors

Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces

Cities and Nature Series Editors Peter Newman, Sustainability Policy Institute, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia Cheryl Desha, School of Engineering and Built Environment, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia Alessandro Sanches-Pereira , Instituto 17, São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Cities and Nature fosters high-quality multi-disciplinary research addressing the interface between cities and the natural environment. It provides a valuable source of relevant knowledge for researchers, planners and policy-makers. The series welcomes empirically based, cutting-edge and theoretical research in urban geography, urban planning, environmental planning, urban ecology, regional science and economics. It publishes peer-reviewed edited and authored volumes on topics dealing with the urban and the environment nexus, including: spatial dynamics of urban built areas, urban and peri-urban agriculture, urban greening and green infrastructure, environmental planning, urban forests, urban ecology, regional dynamics and landscape fragmentation. More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/10068

Nicola Dempsey  •  Julian Dobson Editors

Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces

Editors Nicola Dempsey Department of Landscape Architecture University of Sheffield Sheffield, UK

Julian Dobson Department of Landscape Architecture University of Sheffield Sheffield, UK

ISSN 2520-8306     ISSN 2520-8314 (electronic) Cities and Nature ISBN 978-3-030-44479-2    ISBN 978-3-030-44480-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44480-8 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

ND: For Mike Dempsey and for my driven friend Neil Jaworkski (1976–2019). JD: For PR and MH, fellow trespassers in green spaces.

Foreword

Last year, I spent 2 days outside as part of a festival of urban nature, Feeling Good in a Green City, to celebrate the end of a research project on urban nature and wellbeing. Being outside for those 2 days reinforced aspects of difference and diversity in one tiny part of a single city. The first day was cold and grey and people didn’t want to linger. On the second day the sun shone, people smiled and were prepared to stop and find out what was going on. We learned how the history of different spaces, and different parts of the same space, influenced their use. We discovered the range of bird and plant life that had made these spaces their home. We saw how people related to the green spaces around them through music and poetry, through walking, and through eating and socialising. And we saw how the way the space was managed, and the facilities provided, changed people’s perceptions of whether the space was good, bad or indifferent. The festival was held to mark the conclusion of the NERC-funded IWUN  – Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature – project, which I had been leading for 3 years. What we saw on those 2 days reinforced my academic focus on the importance of urban nature for our health and wellbeing. So it is with great pleasure that I am introducing this book. In the IWUN project we have worked with the editors and some of the contributing authors to this book, as well as colleagues outside academia. This work made us all question our perceptions of urban nature. It required us to challenge our own perceptions of what nature is, to challenge what we think we know about how it is perceived by others, and how those perceptions change over time. Examining one city – Sheffield – in detail, allowed us to get to get under the skin of the political context and how that affects the decisions that influence the landscapes throughout the city. Sheffield is well known for being on the doorstep of the Peak District national park, but there is real diversity of urban nature to be found within its urban footprint, shaped by its industrial heritage. River valleys, Victorian parks, nature reserves, pocket parks, community gardens and thousands of individual allotment plots all provide habitats for biodiversity while its citizens walk, garden, jog, play and hang out. The sheer breadth of human and non-­ human users and uses in urban nature is staggering – this is just when we look at one city in one country! When we extend our lens beyond one city, as this book does, the vii

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Foreword

myriad of experiences, perceptions and interpretations in and of urban nature continues to excite and enthral. But we also know that urban nature is not where everyone chooses to spend time. Such choices relate to people’s perceptions and experiences when they encounter nature, and also depend on people’s own histories which influence how they value and connect with nature. This book provides a range of fascinating explorations which demonstrate the importance of both the local context and how the individual navigates that context. The origins of this book stem from two sessions at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG) Annual conference in 2018 which I was lucky enough to attend. Sponsored by the Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group, Nicola and Julian chaired these paired sessions which explored the variation in ‘value’ and ‘worth’ when considering urban nature and health. I am proud to have helped bring together the contributors of this book through IWUN activities to provide intellectual insight and shared expertise through different empirical studies from a range of urban contexts. I hope that this book will provide insights and inspiration to its readers to continue the ongoing exploration of how we can better understand the contested perceptions and practices in urban green spaces. Chair in Urban Natural Environments, Health and Wellbeing Department of Landscape Architecture University of Sheffield Sheffield, UK

Anna Jorgensen

Preface

Research has already amply demonstrated multiple benefits of urban green spaces for health and wellbeing, culture and identity, biodiversity and a sense of place. Political rhetoric and planning strategies make well-meaning and eloquent statements about the importance of urban green space, but this is seldom followed up by meaningful action. Combining global and UK perspectives, this book probes the gap between what we know and what we do, investigating and challenging the logics and decision-making processes at work. This book aims to reveal how the wellbeing benefits of urban nature are analysed and valued and why they are interpreted and translated into action or inaction. The chapters each examine the misalignments between how we think of urban nature, the evidence we gather, the conclusions we draw from the evidence, and what we then do in terms of policy and practice. We show how the neat but suspect theories of change often favoured by policymakers rely on a simplistic problem-intervention-solution mindset, which prioritises ‘best practice’. However, this does not allow us to learn from evaluating ‘less good’ practice or what happens when initiatives are not followed through. The book illustrates why we must examine the discursive contexts in which policy is shaped and be prepared to learn from the messy and uncomfortable relationships between evidence, policy and practice. Sheffield, UK 

Nicola Dempsey Julian Dobson

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Acknowledgements

This book is a result of two sessions at the Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG) annual conference held in Cardiff, 2018, which we chaired. The sessions were sponsored by the Geographies of Health and Wellbeing Research Group and explored how we can understand and amplify the worth of urban nature. We would like to thank those academics and practitioners who formed the audience at the conference and who helped spark ideas that contributed to this book, particularly Anna Jorgensen, Jo Birch, Rosita Samsudin, Puay Yok Tan, Lauriane Chalmin-Pui, Clive Davies, Christoph Rupprecht and Clair Cooper. We chaired these sessions as part of our involvement on the NERC-funded IWUN – Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature – project [NERC grant NE/ N013565/1]. We are grateful for the intellectual debate and challenging of ideas that IWUN has permitted over the last 3 years and would particularly like to thank Ross Cameron, Clare Rishbeth, Paul Brindley, Jo Birch, David Sheffield, Kirsten McEwan, Meghann Mears, Miles Richardson and Kevin Thwaites. Nicola would also like to thank Karen Lewis, Luke Wilson and Stuart Turner at Sheffield City Council. Our special thanks go to IWUN project manager Aisling Cooling for keeping us all in order and getting us to Cardiff, making all this possible! All Figures are produced by the chapter authors unless otherwise stated.

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Contents

1 Why Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect��������������������������������������������������������    1 Julian Dobson and Nicola Dempsey 2 What Is Urban Nature and How Do We Perceive It? ����������������������������    9 Helen Hoyle 3 Naturally Feeling Good? Exploring Understandings of ‘Green’ Urban Spaces in the Global South ����������������������������������������   37 Sarah Bradshaw, Brian Linneker, and Lian Lundy 4 Making a Governable, Value-able Nature: Calculative Practices and Eco-system Services ��������������������������������������   59 John Henneberry, Jing Ma, and Riccardo Privitera 5 Contesting Longstanding Conceptualisations of Urban Green Space�������������������������������������������������������������������������������   87 Meredith Whitten 6 The Challenges of Changing Governance: Curating New Civic Identities for Health and Wellbeing����������������������  117 Mary Gearey 7 Mind the Gap: Does What We Know About Greenspace and Wellbeing Change What We Do?������������������������������������������������������  143 Julian Dobson and Nicola Dempsey 8 Measuring the Gap Between Rhetoric and Practice: Examining Urban Green Space Interventions Post-implementation ����������  167 Nicola Dempsey 9 Realigning Knowing and Doing: An Agenda for Reflection and Action ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  189 Nicola Dempsey and Julian Dobson Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  197 xiii

Contributors

Sarah Bradshaw  Middlesex University, London, UK Nicola Dempsey  Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Julian  Dobson  Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Mary  Gearey  School of Environment and Technology, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK John Henneberry  Department of Urban Studies and Planning, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Helen Hoyle  Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments, Department of Architecture and Built Environment, UWE, Bristol, UK Brian Linneker  Middlesex University, London, UK Lian Lundy  Middlesex University, London, UK Jing Ma  Department of Urban Studies and Planning, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK Riccardo Privitera  Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, Catania, Italy Meredith Whitten  Department of Geography & Environment, London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE), London, UK

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Chapter 1

Why Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect Julian Dobson and Nicola Dempsey

Abstract  There is already a plethora of research which amply demonstrates multiple benefits of urban nature for health and wellbeing, culture and identity, biodiversity and a sense of place. Alongside this, political rhetoric and planning strategies make well-meaning and eloquent statements about how important urban green space is, but this is not followed up by meaningful action. This chapter posits the global and local challenges that we face around urban nature and health and outlines how the book contributes to the gap between what we know and what we do, by investigating and challenging the logics and decision-making processes at work. This chapter – like the rest in the book – aims to address an overarching question: Why is there a misalignment between what we know about green space and what we do in practice? This chapter outlines the book’s aim to understand how the wellbeing benefits of urban nature are analysed and valued and why they are interpreted and translated into action or inaction, into ‘success’ and/or ‘failure’. It sets out why we propose to abandon the problem-intervention-solution mindset that prioritises seeking out what works well to produce policy fixes. The book will explore the validity of the assumptions that such policy fixes are not only available but also effective in improving the wellbeing of urban citizens and the natural environments they inhabit and encounter. We show how and why attention must be paid not only to policies but also  to the discursive, complicated and messy contexts in which policy is shaped. Keywords  Urban nature · Wellbeing · Policy misalignment · Logics · Policy decisions · Evidence gaps

J. Dobson (*) · N. Dempsey Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 N. Dempsey, J. Dobson (eds.), Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44480-8_1

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1.1  The Global Scale of the Challenges We Face In the throes of the sixth great extinction of living beings, we face challenges that are both enormous and mundane. We are confronted with ‘nature’ – which includes ourselves - in a situation of turmoil: the top predator, homo sapiens, busily consuming its own future. As the author Robert Macfarlane notes in his recent book, Underland, ‘our modern species-history is one of remorselessly accelerated extraction, accompanied by compensatory small acts of preservation and elegiac songs’ (Macfarlane 2019). As this book was being drafted, an intergovernmental panel set out in stark detail the effect of humans on landscape and environment, and it made disturbing reading. The Inter-Governmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IBPES) released a global assessment of the state of the natural world which found that one million animal and plant species were threatened with extinction. Three quarters of the planet’s land and two-thirds of oceans had been significantly altered by human action. Humans are, literally, eating their own futures: while the value of agricultural crop production has increased 300% since 1970, 23% of global land has been degraded and become less productive, while habitat loss has exposed between 100 million and 300 million people to increased risks of floods and hurricanes (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services 2019). Alongside such global challenges, the future of parks in Sheffield, wetlands in rural England, or the contested natural spaces on the peripheries of Belo Horizonte or Managua, may appear insignificant. Yet it is our contention in this book that to ignore the apparently insignificant is to contribute to the global emergency. Our lack of attention to the mundane fabric of urban life, with its everyday contests over what is valued and valuable, is reflected in a worldwide crisis of priorities. And in a micro-reflection of the global environmental crisis, localised failures to value what really matters are reflected in degradation and disinvestment in the spaces and places that help to make urban life worth living, for humans and non-human species alike. The crisis facing the natural environment, whether our scale is global or local, poses the question of why it is apparently so difficult to do what appears so obviously necessary. It raises questions of governance, priority-setting, and the taken-­ for-­granted assumptions and practices of everyday life. It highlights the creaking connections between evidence  – whether academic or practice-based  – decision-­ making, and ground-level consequences. It raises questions that reach beyond inquiries about the quality and quantity of evidence, and interrogate the choices and processes that determine whether or not appropriate action is taken. In short, it asks whether what we know changes what we do. The contributions to this book disturb in different ways the assumptions that have long governed policies and practices on urban greenspace. They disturb the idea of ‘nature’ as something distinguishable from, and benignly stewarded by, human activity – highlighting the contingencies and entanglements of engagements

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between humans and the rest-of-nature in urban contexts. They disturb the idea of ‘natural’ and ‘built’ environments as separate entities demanding different rules and professional skills. They disturb, too, some traditional ideas of how humans should intervene to maximise the benefits of ‘natural’ spaces, and how decisions about these spaces are made. While the majority of the contributions are set within the UK and are mostly by UK-based authors, the issues raised are of international importance. They concern how we view the relations between humans and the rest of nature in urban settings; how we construct policy and conduct professional practice; and how we balance competing demands and values. By situating this book within locations, predominantly urban, that have been shaped by sustained human activity and construction, we emphasise nature as connected to rather than separate from human identities and actions. Hoyle (Chap. 2) distinguishes the ‘mundane’ character of urban nature from the ‘wild’ connotations of wilderness. As Cox et al. (2017) observe, ‘nature’ is often mediated by glass: it is seen through windows from the comfort of domestic dwellings or the temperature-­ controlled and artificially-lit environment of the workplace. The senses of hearing, touch, smell and taste are suspended: sight dominates. Bradshaw, Linneker and Lundy (Chap. 3), describing the gaudy metal ‘Trees of Life’ in Managua, shows this visual construction of nature taken to a de-natured extreme. Even a diminished visual experience of ‘nature’ can make a difference to human wellbeing. But we need not make do with a diminished experience. Whitten (Chap. 5) highlights the long legacy of the Victorian park tradition in the UK, where urban green spaces were provided in order to improve public health, offer approved forms of leisure activity and encourage conformity to social norms of morality and behaviour. Hoyle and Whitten both make the case for a richer, more nuanced understanding of urban nature that recognises the many ways in which people perceive and interact with the more-than-human world around them. Hoyle highlights the need to ensure that policy on urban green spaces is not straitjacketed by a ‘western wilderness view of nature’, while Whitten’s research shows how policies and practices established more than a century ago still set the tone for the management of green spaces in very different cultural and environmental circumstances. Bradshaw et al., focusing on disadvantaged communities in peri-urban locations in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, and Managua, Nicaragua, shows that understandings of urban nature are often complex and contested, and that urban dwellers have ambivalent relationships with the ‘nature’ on their doorsteps and the human activities (such as drug-taking) that might be associated with natural spaces. Together, these chapters underline the intertwined relationships between humans and the world of plants, insects, birds and animals that we encounter in and beyond our urban environments. Urban nature is unruly and unpredictable, altering and enhancing our lives in ways that extend beyond the assumptions that govern public policy and urban planning.

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1.2  Urban Nature and Human Wellbeing Yet some of the assumptions of the creators of the Victorian parks remain valid. Urban nature, however we conceive of it and perceive it, is good for us. The literature is extensive, as Hoyle’s review illustrates. Much of it is reflected in the knowledge gained by practitioners in their years of experience in managing urban green spaces, as Whitten’s contribution shows; and residents of poor communities in Belo Horizonte and Managua, as Bradshaw et al. recognise, are equally able to appreciate the wellbeing effects of the natural environment, even though the pressures to use urban land for domestic purposes can be overwhelming. The point here is not simply to repeat the familiar trope that humans need ‘nature’ for their physical and mental health, true as this is. It is to emphasise that human wellbeing is nurtured by and embraces the wellbeing of the rest of the natural world. However, as Henneberry and colleagues show (Chap. 4), huge volumes of cultural, political and economic labour are devoted to the practice of valuing nature for policy purposes. This practice subjects nature to ‘calculative techniques’, making nature governable for a particular range of human ends. In recognising the value of nature as a resource for humans, difference and complexity is erased in favour of standardisation and measurability. The numbers then take on lives of their own as they are produced and consumed by different actors in order to inform and implement decisions. Evidence is created and digested at one remove  – or several removes – from the world it purports to describe and define. So not only the natural world, but human wellbeing too, become subjected to computations of value that may be driven by considerations well beyond the physical and social needs of the humans or other species they relate to.

1.3  Alignment and Misalignment Together, the contributions to this book foreground the disjunctures and misalignments between how we think of urban nature, the evidence we gather, the conclusions we draw from the evidence, and what we then do in terms of policy and practice. Assumptions on the purpose and function of urban green spaces (Hoyle, Whitten) are played out in complex and contested understandings of who has access to urban nature, in what circumstances and for what purposes (Gearey, Bradshaw et al. and Whitten). These feed into calculative practices that define what is of value and how it is valued (Henneberry et al.). Dobson and Dempsey’s chapters (7 and 8) trouble the taken-for-granted view that better knowledge leads to better action and improved spaces. Dobson’s examination of ‘logics of inaction’ uncovers some of the many reasons why what we know is not translated into what we do; Dempsey

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focuses on why the long term effects of action are often very different to those intended, and sometimes hardly distinguishable from the status quo ante. In these chapters we highlight that the complex relationships between humans and ‘urban nature’ are further complicated by the contests between humans over land – the spaces for other species in our cities; labour – the professional and voluntary work of caring for those spaces; and capital – the resources available to invest in these urban spaces, and the politics of deciding where such resources should come from and the criteria on which they may be deemed justifiable. We try not to offer simplistic solutions to these dilemmas. We do, however, emphasise the importance of recognising the value of the mundane; and of the complex interrelationships and contests that determine what a space may become, who may use it, and how it may be used. In doing so we stress that all change is the outcome of an interplay between competing logics, values and practices. Max Weber’s notion of ‘value spheres’ (Bruun 2008) and Boltanksi and Thévenot’s (2006) concept of ‘orders of worth’ underline that even where we share a common language, our ideas of value may rest on very different premises and lead to very different conclusions. Similarly, Thornton and colleagues’ theory of ‘institutional orders’ (Thornton et al. 2012) reveals the embeddedness of decision-making and choices within cultural norms and practices that will vary depending on whether a person calls on commercial, civic, community or domestic values. The contributions to this book, in various ways, expose the effects of such institutional logics, from the calculative techniques of UK policymakers to the choice in Belo Horizonte or Managua between extending a home or keeping a vegetable garden.

1.4  Beyond Success or Failure While policymakers typically ask for evidence of ‘what works’, the contributions to this book emphasise that the answer to that question looks very different for a retired volunteer, a city parks manager or an urban planner. This book is a call to abandon the problem-intervention-solution mindset, an attitude that assumes that policy fixes are both ready to hand and effective in improving the wellbeing of urban citizens and the natural environments they inhabit and encounter. Instead, we argue, we should pay attention not only to policies but to the discursive contexts in which policy is shaped; and not only to measures of success or failure but the learning that can be obtained by evaluating ‘less good’ practice or what happens when initiatives are not followed through. There is more to learn, we believe, from the messy and uncomfortable relationships between evidence, policy and practice than from the neat but suspect theories of change often favoured by policymakers.

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1.5  The Structure of the Book This book takes us on a journey through different spaces and places in which humans and the rest of nature coexist, coevolve and frequently conflict. It is a journey through landscape, but it is also a journey through mindscape: the attitudes, logics and policy decisions that shape material place and social life. The journey starts in a garden. Helen Hoyle’s investigation in Chap. 2 of the effects on observers of colourful planting at the Royal Horticultural Society’s garden in Wisley highlights the slippages between landscape and mindscape, showing how delight at the aesthetics of horticultural design may create misleading perceptions of biodiversity. What is good for humans, when it comes to horticulture, may not be best for the rest of the natural world. In Chap. 3 we move to the urban fringes of Belo Horizonte and Managua, where Sarah Bradshaw, Brian Linneker and Lian Lundy find that the experience of urban nature is significantly affected by the activities of other humans: a walk in the woods is less appealing if one consequence might be an encounter with a stray bullet. Similarly, the manufactured landscape of the Trees of Life in Managua may be regarded as a highly artificial environment, but for park users the ability to access free wi-fi may be regarded as sufficient compensation. Slippages between landscape and mindscape are particularly striking when it comes to questions of value. Examining the proposed installation of a café and toilets in a Sheffield park in Chap. 4, John Henneberry, Jing Ma and Riccardo Privitera find that the quest to put a price on nature by valuing ecosystem services leads to conclusions that the greatest economic value lies in the effects of greenspace on the price of nearby property. Environmental necessities such as pollination and carbon sequestration, valued in economic terms, turn out to be insignificant. Such slippages solidify with the passing of time. In Chap. 5 Meredith Whitten takes us to London’s parks, where she finds a sedimented Victorian ideal of the public park has established a path dependency in practice: London’s green spaces continue to be managed for physical health and visual amenity rather than for biodiversity and climate change adaptation. Politics and policy, too, create and exacerbate slippages. In Chap. 6 Mary Gearey takes us to wetlands in north London and rural Sussex in the south of England, describing how new forms of environmental citizenship are emerging in gaps vacated by the traditional public custodians of natural spaces. As local communities engage with, and increasingly become responsible for managing wetland landscapes, individuals adopt new civic identities but also become burdened with unrequested responsibilities. In Chaps. 7 and 8 the editors of this book delve deeper into the slippages between landscape and mindscape, highlighting the gaps between evidence, action and consequence. Returning to Sheffield’s parks and green spaces, Julian Dobson discusses why decision-makers fail to act on the evidence they say they need. He suggests that evidence-seeking may be part of the ‘myth and ceremony’ of governance but, in practice, is often outweighed by ‘logics of inaction’  – reasons for not taking the

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action that practitioners know is required. In Chap. 8, Nicola Dempsey looks at two case studies to problematise the links between rhetoric and action. The chapter highlights the discontinuities between successive versions of one city’s open space strategy and a European urban green space regeneration project as well as the disconnections between policy promises and indicators of achievement. The journey in this book takes us from the immediate reactions of park visitors to bright flowers and colourful planting into the grey mists of policymaking and decision-taking. It moves from the landscapes in which humans encounter the rest of nature to the mindscapes that influence how humans and the rest of nature survive or thrive. It does so in the belief that while the complexities and nuances of policy matter and demand our attention, it is within our power to do better – and that to respond adequately to the existential challenges of our age demands attention to detail and an acknowledgement of the importance and vitality of the mundane.

References Boltanski L, Thévenot L (2006) On justification: economies of worth. Princeton University Press, Princeton Bruun HH (2008) Objectivity, value spheres, and “inherent laws”: on some suggestive isomorphisms between Weber, Bourdieu, and Luhmann. Philos Soc Sci 38(1):97–120 Cox DTC, Shanahan DF, Hudson H et al (2017) Doses of neighborhood nature: the benefits for mental health of living with nature. BioSci 67(2):147–155 Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (2019) Media release: nature’s dangerous decline ‘unprecedented’. https://www.ipbes.net/news/Media-­ Release-­Global-Assessment. Accessed 28 Jun 2019 Macfarlane R (2019) Underland: a deep time journey. Penguin Random House, London Thornton PH, Ocasio W, Lounsbury M (2012) The institutional logics perspective: a new approach to culture, structure, and process. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Chapter 2

What Is Urban Nature and How Do We Perceive It? Helen Hoyle

Abstract  This chapter discusses the complexities and apparent contradictions in defining ‘nature’ and ‘urban nature’ in the context of human-nature interactions. It explains why urban nature is so important to human health and well-being at this point in the twenty first century, focusing particularly on why considering nature perception is crucial if we are to plan, design and manage urban nature to prioritise people’s aesthetic appreciation, health and well-being. Nature-perceptions are then framed in relation to diversity in nature: the role of varying biodiversity, perceived biodiversity and different aesthetics of nature (specifically flowering and colour, structure and care). The significance of varying socio-cultural and geographical contextual factors in nature perception is then highlighted. The chapter closes by addressing implications for policy and practice and future research directions in relation to urban nature perception. The author draws extensively from her own and related research. Keywords  Aesthetic appreciation · Perceptions · Health and well-being · Cultural context · Biodiversity · Nature interaction

2.1  Defining Urban Nature In recent years there has been an exponential increase in scientific interest in the relationship between people and nature, with a new British Ecological Society journal launched with the same name (People and Nature, December 2018) and a proliferation of studies providing evidence for the physiological, social and

H. Hoyle (*) Centre for Sustainable Planning and Environments, Department of Architecture and Built Environment, UWE, Bristol, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 N. Dempsey, J. Dobson (eds.), Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44480-8_2

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Socio-cultural and Geographical context

Aesthetics

Flowering and colour

Biodiversity

Structure and care

Fig. 2.1  Urban nature perception: The roles of diversity in nature (biodiversity and aesthetics), socio-cultural and geographical contextual factors in people’s perceptions of urban nature

psychological benefits of contact with nature (for reviews see Clark et  al. 2014; Hartig et al. 2014; Frumkin et al. 2017). Many of these studies do not seek to define ‘nature’ (for example Soga and Gaston 2016; Cox et al. 2017a), perhaps needing to circumnavigate the extensive discourse on nature as a social construction (for further discussion see Cronon 1996; Proctor 1998) and questions about a human-nature binary, when other interpretations place humans ‘in nature’. Nassauer (1995, p. 161) emphasises nature as a ‘cultural concept’ distinct from the ‘scientific concept of ecology’, arguing that the definition of nature is clearly highly contested. Frumkin et al. (2017) suggest that diverse definitions of nature are appropriate according to the type of nature contact being studied. For example, people may engage with nature through an immersive wilderness experience, or may view it through a window, in a photograph, film or virtual reality simulation. Nature interaction may range from experience at the wide landscape scale (Purcell et  al. 2001) to direct contact with a single species (Palliwoda et al. 2017). Bratman et al. (2012, p. 120) provide a pragmatic and flexible definition of ‘nature’ describing it as “areas containing elements of living systems that contain plants and nonhuman animals across a range of scales and degrees of human management, from a small urban park through to relatively ‘pristine wilderness’” (Fig. 2.1). The term ‘urban nature’ itself may appear contradictory. Indeed, many studies emphasising the psychologically restorative benefits of contact with nature have

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compared participants’ responses to natural and built environments as polar opposites (for example Herzog et al. 2003; Staats et al. 2016). Yet over half the world’s population now lives in urban areas, rising to 70% by 2050 (United Nations 2018) and most people’s nature contact and experience occurs within the highly managed built environment context. Here nature experience is enabled by access to deliberately planned, designed and managed green infrastructure (GI) (Hoyle et al. 2019). These intra-urban, multifunctional networks of GI including parks, gardens, rivers and street trees, provide opportunities for people to engage with nature which is managed and remote from the relatively pristine wilderness. Newman and Dale (2013, p. 1) describe ‘urban nature’ as ‘mundane’ and ‘very different from our collective conception of “wild”’ yet worthy of celebrating’. Three forms of urban ‘mundane nature’ are presented: first the ‘remnant nature’ of spaces which defies development due to topography and geomorphology, such as cliff faces and river banks, as well as ‘buffer’ zones, often along railway lines. Within ‘remnant nature, we find ‘accidental nature’ such as the prolific Buddleia which spontaneously colonises derelict city centre brownfield sites. This type of nature is often depicted negatively by the media (Jorgensen and Keenan 2012), recently being described as ‘a symbol of national neglect’ in the UK (Chiles 2019) and may be short-lived as new development transforms urban brownfield sites. Secondly, mundane nature may be ‘cultivated nature’ in the form of living walls, green roofs and roof gardens, allotments and living sewage plants. Finally, Newman and Dale (2013) describe ‘nature on display’ which includes ‘highly mediated spaces’ such as formal parks and gardens, allowing an interactive (and controlled) relationship between people and nature. Parallels can be drawn with the three ‘management classes’ identified by the City of Lyon, France, Green Space Division which distinguish between a) ‘nature spaces’, where biodiversity is prioritised; b) ‘living spaces’, where human recreation is facilitated, such as along the wide reclaimed riverbanks; and c) high profile ‘flowered spaces’ where resources are targeted to create ‘the wow factor’ (Hoyle et al. 2017a) with colourful flowering herbaceous planting (Fig. 2.2).

a) Nature spaces

The rivers’ confluence, where biodiversity is prioritised

b) Living spaces

The Rhone riverbanks reclaimed (from a car park) for public use

c) Flowered spaces

Place Bellecour, where flowering displays are prioritised

Fig. 2.2  The City of Lyon, France Green Space Division Management Classes (2018). Images (a, b) and (c) courtesy of Daniel Boulens, City of Lyon

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2.2  W  hy Is Urban Nature So Important for Human Health and Well-being? The increasing proportion of the world’s population living in urban areas means that global health problems are concentrated in cities. Although urban populations can enjoy higher quality of life than those in rural areas, and living in cities has benefits such as greater access to employment, health inequalities are starker in urban areas (Dye 2008), with less affluent disadvantaged groups suffering the greatest burden of ill health. Urban areas have also been associated with specific mental health challenges including depression and anxiety disorders (Peen et al. 2010; Lederbogen et al. 2011). In Europe, the economic cost of this mental ill-health has been estimated at €187.4 billion per year (Olesen et al. 2012) and in 2015 mental ill-­health cost the UK economy alone an estimated £94bn (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development 2018). The causal link between urban living and compromised mental health is complex and not well understood (Bratman et  al. 2015), yet sedentary urban lifestyles with diminished nature contact, ‘the extinction of experience’, are a likely contributor (Soga and Gaston 2016; Cox et al. 2017a). Results of a recent study involving 1023 urban residents in Bedfordshire, UK indicated that the most common form of ‘nature experience’ involved viewing nature through a window at work and at home, that is, not being physically present in nature (Cox et al. 2017b). In the USA the disconnection of urban residents from nature may be more extreme, with evidence that Americans spend over 90% of their time inside buildings and vehicles (Klepeis et al. 2001, cited in Frumkin et al. 2017). In 2016, total daily ‘media consumption’ amongst adults in the USA was 10  h 39 min and increasing (Nielsen 2016) and more concerning, the daily screen time of children under 8 had reached 1 h 55 min (Rideout 2013). There is still a need for greater understanding of the pathways between nature and human health and well-being (Clark et al. 2014). Hartig et al. (2014) highlight evidence of four key pathways by which nature might impact positively on people; one indirect pathway, through air quality, and three direct pathways involving being within nature: physical activity, social cohesion and stress reduction. There have been significant additions to the evidence base since 2014, yet the model still provides a useful framework.

2.2.1  Air Quality Urban vegetation such as street trees and shrubs may enhance ambient air quality and reduce the risk of respiratory problems by absorbing gaseous air pollutants such as ozone and nitrous oxides (Fowler 2002). Nevertheless, some species are the source of problematic hydrocarbons and others produce allergens, making careful species selection important. A recent study (Laia and Kontokostab 2019) used tree census data for the 652,169 street trees in New York City, integrating this with data

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on air quality and neighbourhood asthma hospitalisation and emergency department visit rates. Results indicated that although a greater concentration of trees contributed to higher local air quality, localised asthma hospitalisation rates were greater in areas where tree species with severe allergenicity were located. This pathway is described as ‘indirect’ because benefits or disbenefits are brought about by air quality characteristics, and no direct contact with nature per se is involved.

2.2.2  Physical Activity There are 11.5 m people (25.7%) in the English population who are currently ‘inactive’, meaning they do less than 30 min of physical activity a week (Sport England 2018). Physical inactivity in the population is thought to cost the healthcare system over £1 billion annually (Scarborough et  al. 2011). Urban parks, woodlands and river corridors provide the opportunity for physical activity such as walking, cycling and running, with research in the UK and across Europe highlighting walking as the most popular form of active recreation in public parks, and the need to prioritise natural walking environments to support human health. A recent population-based cross-sectional study in England (White et al. 2016) revealed the total annual financial value of England’s parks, woodlands and beaches at £2.18 bn. Using data from the Monitor of Engagement with the Natural Environment (MENE) Survey (Natural England 2015) the study assigned Quality of Life Adjusted Years (QALYs) to individuals in relation to their number of active visits to natural environments. A single visit per week was estimated to generate 0.010677 QALY, with the social value of one QALY assumed to be £20,000. This study included physical activity in the countryside and in coastal areas as well as in urban parks and other green and blue spaces, yet as outlined above, the need for high quality GI to support physical activity within urban areas is particularly acute because urban populations are often remote from the countryside or coastal areas. Working specifically in urban parks, Fischer et al. (2018a) focused on park uses of 3487 urban park users across five European cities (Malmo, (Sweden); Berlin (Germany); Edinburgh (UK); Bari (Italy); Ljubljana (Slovenia)). This extensive Europe-wide study indicated that park use varied across the cities, yet physical park uses dominated at the European level (60%) and in each of the five cities walking was the most frequently reported participant response at the European level (28% of overall sample, and 47% of physical uses).

2.2.3  Social Cohesion ‘Social cohesion’ relates to ‘shared norms and values, the existence of positive and friendly relationships and feelings of being accepted and belonging’ (Hartig et al. 2014). Social relationships have been associated positively with both health and

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well-being (Nieminen et al. 2010) and natural environments (Maas et al. 2009). In the study of recreational uses of parks in European cities cited above (Fischer et al. 2018a) the use of parks for social reasons including meeting friends and relatives was 25% across the five cities. This varied considerably across the cities, with the highest social use in Bari, Italy (36%) and lowest in Edinburgh, UK (10%). Different socio-cultural groups with different backgrounds and values have contrasting needs and expectations in terms of the specific characteristics of urban nature. These points are discussed in more depth later.

2.2.4  Stress Reduction There is a significant body of evidence demonstrating the psychologically restorative value of spending time in natural environments, with much of this research (for example Herzog et  al. 2003; Hoyle et  al. 2017a) drawing on Attention Restoration Theory (Kaplan and Kaplan 1989). This proposes that spending time in nature provides an antidote to urban living and working, where the pressures of directed attention on a focused task are fatiguing. Nature provides a ‘soft fascination’ and a sense of escape or ‘being away’ from work and mundane routines, allowing the transformation of negative thought processes to more positive ones (Bratman et al. 2015). Much research in this area has focused on comparing human reaction to natural and built environments (For example Staats et al. 2016; Bratman et al. 2015) yet a significant body of research has considered reactions to varying natural environments at different scales within urban areas (see Qiu et al. 2013; Van den Berg et al. 2014; Carrus et al. 2015; Hoyle et al. 2017a, b). Bratman et al. (2015) offer physiological evidence for the effects of ‘soft fascination’ and the pathway between nature experience and improved mental well-being. Research conducted in the USA indicated that a 90-minute walk in a greenspace including grassland, oak trees and shrubs resulted in a decrease in activity in the subgenual prefrontal cortex of the brain. Activity in this area is associated with sad or negative thoughts and is considered a risk factor for depression. Participants also self-reported experiencing fewer negative thoughts and emotions. Conversely, decreased nature experience was associated with negative, self-directed thoughts leading to increased risk of developing mental illness. Other participants undertaking a 90-minute walk in a busy 3–4 lane urban thoroughfare experienced no improvement in physiological or psychological state. These contrasting reactions reinforce the importance of including spaces with natural features such as grassland and trees within dense urban centres where traffic and commercial activities otherwise dominate. It is important to recognise that these three direct pathways are complex and interrelated (Hartig et  al. 2014), for example physical activity in an urban green space may facilitate long term physical health benefits (White et al. 2016), yet the immediate stress relief (White et  al. 2017) and social benefits of exercising with friends ( Maas et  al. 2009) might be the primary and secondary motivators. One example of this in practice is parkrun. Founded in Bushy Park, UK, in 2004, there

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has since been an explosion of interest in parkrun, a weekly, free-to enter timed run through varied green and blue spaces. This now operates in 20 countries including Namibia, eSwatini and Malaysia. In 2018, 323 new events were launched globally, and the 5 millionth runner registered. Its founder, Paul Sinton-Hewitt, acknowledged that ‘parkrun is “now widely viewed as an innovative health intervention with an impact that reaches far beyond our parks and open spaces” (parkrun 2019). 

2.3  W  hy Is Human Perception of Urban Nature So Significant? The Nature Dose There is a clear distinction between ‘objective nature’, physical features and processes including plants and animals, lakes, rivers and landscape features, and ‘subjective nature’, perceived and experienced by people (Hartig et al. 2014). Objective urban nature (or urban GI) has clearly definable vegetation type, biodiversity, structure, density and aesthetics. If this is to be planned, designed, managed and funded to prioritise people, diversity and equity, it is essential to understand the subjective nature experience of potential users in different socio-cultural and geographical contexts. What a person experiences or perceives during a period of nature contact or exposure has been referred to as the “dose” of nature. The nature “dose” or subjective nature experience can vary according to different natural stimuli (referred to below as “diversity in nature”) and socio-cultural factors as discussed below. The interplay of different socio-cultural influences means that reactions or perceptions may vary dramatically between individuals experiencing (objectively) the same woodland or parkland walk (Frumkin et al. 2017). As an example, there is considerable evidence that nature experience and dose may be related to individuals’ existing “nature-connectedness” (Lin et al. 2014). Researchers have long recognised the role of our underlying values in shaping perceptions (Fishbein and Ajzen 1975). Ives and Kendal (2014) highlight the relationship through discussion of the Cognitive Hierarchy (Fulton et  al. 1996) (Fig. 2.3). Whereas attitudes (perceptions) are often fleeting, fickle or changeable, the deeply held underlying values which inform these perceptions are more stable, and less likely to fluctuate. The distinction can be made between different value-orientations: ‘Biospheric’, (nature-centred); ‘Social Altruistic’ (human-centred) and ‘Egoistic’ (self-centred). People with different value-orientations might perceive and value urban nature in contrasting ways, linked to their value orientation. Significantly, the same urban park may be appreciated for different reasons by people with contrasting value orientations. Those with a biospheric value orientation might value it for its biodiversity, those with a social altruistic orientation might appreciate opportunities to socialise there, whereas people with an egoistical orientation might appreciate the recreational facilities they or their children use (Ives and Kendal 2014). People may also hold multiple orientations. This emphasises the need to provide diverse

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Fig. 2.3  The cognitive hierarchy. Values are more stable and fewer in number than perceptions, attitudes, norms and behaviours. (Adapted from Ives and Kendal 2014)

environments and stimuli (either within one park or via smaller green spaces) to support well-being across diverse communities with contrasting values and needs. Awareness of the potentially negative mental well-being consequences of the nature ‘deficit’ in urban areas described above has led to a recent increase in ‘green prescribing’, one form of social prescribing, or non-medical referral option. Green prescribing involves ‘a prescription for a monitorable activity that involves spending time in natural environments for the benefit of human health and well-being’ (Robinson and Breed 2019). Activities might include: care farming (the use of farming practices for health, socialising and education); green exercise (e.g. nature walks, biking, climbing); therapeutic horticulture; biodiversity conservation and wilderness arts and crafts. Advocates of green prescribing have been criticised for reductionist approaches which underestimate the challenges faced by some patients, particularly those with multiple conditions. However in the UK, NHS England are now promoting the support of social prescribing through new Primary Care Networks (PCNs). Since April 2019 PCNs (envisaged as collaborations between different GP practices) have had the mandate to deliver social prescribing, offering different care models for different population groups, such as frail older people, adults with complex needs and children. (British Medical Association 2019). Positive support for social and green prescribing should be celebrated. As well as focusing on the health and well-being needs of specific groups, there is evidence that green prescribing can produce associated benefits such as helping to enhance biodiversity in urban areas (Robinson and Breed 2019).

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2.4  Perceptions of Urban Nature: Diversity in Nature Attention restoration studies (Herzog et al. 2003; Staats et al. 2016) and early studies of aesthetic preference (Berlyne 1971; Ulrich 1986) treated natural spaces as homogeneous, comparing these to built urban scenes. An awareness of the growing ‘extinction of experience’ in urban areas has prompted an urgency amongst policymakers to create high quality urban nature (GI) to prioritise both human well-being and biodiversity conservation. This has been a stimulus for research at the people-­ biodiversity interface (Botzat et al. 2016), including an increasing body of research focusing on response to varying natural environments (for examples see Martens et al. 2011; Van den Berg et al. 2014; Qiu et al. 2013; Carrus et al. 2015; Hoyle et al. 2017a, b; Southon et al. 2017; Hoyle et al. 2018; Hoyle et al. 2019). “Diversity in nature” acknowledges that varying (objective) characteristics of urban nature such as biodiversity, and aesthetic qualities such as flowering and colour, structure and tidiness influence subjective experiences of nature, or the nature “dose”.

2.4.1  D  iversity in Nature: Biodiversity Perception and Preference at Different Scales A significant body of research now highlights the specific role of biodiversity and biodiversity perception in delivering health and well-being benefits to urban populations. A recent review of 200 studies focusing on ‘urban biodiversity perception and valuation’, between 1972 and 2014 indicated that before 1990, only 4 research papers were published on the theme, increasing to 19 in 2012 and 37 in 2014 (Botzat et al. 2016). The number has continued to grow. These studies have addressed biodiversity perception at different scales from the broad habitat/ecosystem (Carrus et al. 2015), through species communities (Fuller et al. 2007; Dallimer et al. 2012; Qiu et al. 2013; Fischer et al. 2018b), where a notable proportion of the research has considered perception of (urban) meadows (Lindemann-Matthies and Bose 2007; Graves et  al. 2017; Southon et  al. 2017; Hoyle et al. 2018; Southon et al. 2018). Carrus et al. (2015) identified a positive relationship between biodiversity at the broad habitat scale and urban residents’ subjective well-being in four medium-large sized Italian cities (Bari, Rome, Florence and Padua). ‘Broad support for biodiversity’ has since been confirmed across five multicultural European cities: Bari (Italy); Berlin (Germany); Edinburgh (UK); Ljubljana (Slovenia); Malmo (Sweden) in an extensive study of diverse respondents (N  =  3716) in different greenspace types (parks, wastelands, streetscapes and forests) (Fischer et  al. 2018b). The research

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showed that in the case of parks, wastelands and streetscapes, people largely preferred higher plant species richness and agreed that this quality facilitated a more ‘liveable city’. This study was one of the first to consider perceptions and preferences in relation to biodiversity characteristics of wastelands showing that people value the mundane ‘remnant nature’ such as Buddleia on brownfield sites mentioned earlier. In contrast Qiu et al. (2013) revealed that recreational preferences were negatively correlated with biodiversity values. Here four different habitat zones were identified: an ornamental park; transition area between a residential area and nature woodland; moist multi-layered woodland and a dry single-layered woodland on a ridge. The ornamental park, graded as the least biodiverse habitat by the researchers’ biodiversity assessment, was preferred to the other more complex habitats. Apparent divergence in findings from those of Carrus et al. (2015) and Fischer et al. (2018b) might be explained by the biodiversity grading system employed by Qiu et al. (2013) which recognised native rather than overall plant species diversity. The parkland with its large percentage of exotic biodiversity was the most preferred, yet because it contained a high percentage of ‘alien’ or exotic species it rated low for biodiversity. These findings, i.e. aesthetic preference for areas of parkland dominated by non-native species, are in line with UK research by the author (Hoyle et al. 2017b). This study revealed broad support (75.3% participants) for non-native planting in designed urban greenspaces, with climate change identified as a key driver of acceptance. Fewer studies have addressed human biodiversity perception or valuation at the individual species level. An exception, (Palliwoda et al. 2017), highlighted as the first study of direct human-biodiversity interaction in relation to other activities, indicated that 17% of visitor activities on park grasslands in Berlin were biodiversity interactions, with wild or cultivated plants from local species pools targeted. Particular species were important to participants for consumption (60%), decoration (21%) and biodiversity experience (17%). Kendal et al. (2012) illustrated that people’s biodiversity preferences are relevant at the level of specific non-visual plant traits such as nativeness and drought-tolerance, as well as flower size, leaf width and foliage colour, yet it can be argued that these are aesthetic qualities of individual species, rather than biodiversity per se.

2.4.2  Biodiversity: Can People Recognise It? The scale at which positive biodiversity-human well-being relationships operates, and if and at what scale biodiversity recognition occurs, is important because if urban nature is to be designed and managed to prioritise people, it is important to understand how and at what scale improvements in actual biodiversity can be made which are evident and observed by people (Hoyle et al. 2018). If people can recognise biodiversity, is this at the broad habitat or species scale? A further question also arises: Do people need to recognise biodiversity for it to be effective and meaningful

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in enhancing their well-being? The positive relationship between biodiversity and well-being may be subconscious, likely mediated by reactions to the aesthetics of urban nature, for example visual plant traits linked to biological functionality such as large colourful flowers, which attract pollinators. To date there has been conflicting evidence about people’s biodiversity-recognition skills. However, the evidence suggests that recognition by the lay-person is better at the broad visual scale and less-honed at the species level, and that recognition skills vary according to education and income (Hope et  al. 2003) as well as ecocentricity/nature orientation (Dallimer et al. 2012; Southon et al. 2018). Several studies have indicated that lay-people can identify broad habitat types. In a previously cited study (Qiu et al. 2013), participants recognised broad levels of biodiversity in urban green spaces, and in the author’s research (Hoyle et al. 2017b) on public perception of non-native planting, respondents recognised the three broad levels of nativeness (strongly native, intermediate and strongly non-native). At the more detailed community species level, findings vary. In the case of introduced urban meadows, Southon et al. (2018) found that actual and perceived plant species richness were positively correlated, and the accuracy of biodiversity estimates was greater for more nature-connected members of the public. Research conducted in Sheffield focusing on identification of plant, butterfly and bird species generated contrasting results. Fuller et al. (2007) found that greenspace users could recognise species richness, the extent to which they did so depending on the taxonomic group considered. Recognition was best in the case of plants, moderate in the case of birds and poor in the case of butterflies. In contrast, Dallimer et al. (2012) attributed the lack of a relationship between biodiversity and well-being, but positive relationship between perceived biodiversity and well-being, to people’s poor biodiversity-­ recognition skills. Yet biodiversity recognition is not a prerequisite to accessing the benefits of nature. The stronger relationship between perceived biodiversity and well-being than actual biodiversity and well-being showed that perception of diversity based on visual cues (discussed below) was a stronger driver of positive emotions than biological diversity. The extent to which people perceive and respond to biodiversity per se, or to visual cues which they interpret as biodiversity, is debatable. The growing body of research focusing on public perception of urban meadows mentioned earlier highlights this issue. Two studies in different contexts indicate preference for diverse meadows containing more plant species (as well as some structural diversity). The first study (Lindemann-Matthies and Bose 2007) involved visitors (N = 152) to a Swiss botanical garden, creating their own idealised meadow from 25 out of 779 wild plants of 54 species. The second study (Southon et al. 2017; Hoyle et al. 2017c) involved in-situ surveys of users (N  =  300) of urban (and control) sites in Bedfordshire, UK.  In this study, perennial meadows of three levels of structural diversity were crossed with three levels of species (and floristic) diversity and established at five sites (Fig. 2.4). Lindemann-Matthies and Bose (2007) acknowledge that ‘participants favoured plants with large or colourful flowers’. Southon et al. (2017) found that meadows of medium height and high species (and floristic) diversity were most preferred by site

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Fig. 2.4  The nine different meadow mixes defined by three levels of structural diversity (short, medium and tall) and three levels of species and floral diversity (no flowers, some flowers, many flowers). (Source Hoyle et al. 2017c)

users. Subsequent research by the authors revealed flowering and colour to be key to participants’ estimates of meadow biodiversity (Southon et al. 2018). In each of these studies, were people responding to species diversity or aesthetic flower (colour) diversity? Research in the contrasting context of the Southern Appalachian forest trails (Graves et al. 2017) confirmed the dominance of flower colour over species diversity in driving people’s aesthetic preferences in this context. Results showed that aesthetic preference was unrelated to species richness but increased with more abundant flowers, greater species evenness and greater colour diversity. Further UK research (Hoyle et al. 2018) related to that of the previously cited studies (Southon et al. 2017, 2018) tested whether species or flower colour diversity was the main driver of human (and invertebrate) response to urban meadows (Fig. 2.5). Restorative effect was unrelated to either plant species or flower colour diversity. Aesthetic appreciation of attractiveness and interest was related to flower colour diversity, but not to plant species diversity. Results also indicated poor plant and invertebrate biodiversity recognition skills across laypeople and ‘experts’ involved in environmental professions, with participants using flower colour diversity as a cue to estimating plant species diversity. People can therefore gain aesthetic and well-­being benefits from nature without recognising biodiversity, but this raises the question as to whether people actually care about biodiversity, and whether it should be

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Fig. 2.5  Annual meadows in Luton, UK.  Participants used flower colour diversity as a cue to estimating plant species diversity

prioritised in urban contexts. Pragmatically, land managers can prioritise colour diversity over species diversity and vice versa, depending on the specific urban context, as discussed in the case of ‘nature spaces’, ‘living spaces and ‘flowering spaces’ in Lyon, France.

2.4.3  D  iversity in Nature: Varying Aesthetics – Perception and Preference A significant body of research has gauged human reaction to the visual aesthetic qualities of urban nature (for reviews see Hartig et al. 2014; Frumkin et al. 2017). Early studies relied on straightforward preference ratings and used photographic or film stimuli to depict urban or rural nature at the landscape scale (for example Shafer and Brush 1977; Ulrich 1986; Herzog et  al. 2003). At the other extreme, research has occurred at the microscale, focusing on perception of individual plant traits (for example Kendal et al. 2012). Some research has focused on one vegetation community or type, such as woodlands (Jorgensen et al. 2007; Martens et al. 2011; Van den Berg et  al. 2014), street trees (Todorova et  al. 2004), herbaceous planting (Strumse 1996) as well as the urban meadows already discussed. The

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‘extinction of experience’ (Soga and Gaston 2016) of urban nature has gained heightened awareness amongst researchers that the environment is experienced rather than looked at (Ittleson 1973) with an increase in research generated through in-situ surveys of people within urban nature experiencing it first-hand (see for example Fischer et al. 2018a,b; Hoyle et al. 2018). In many preference studies, perceived attractiveness has been taken to represent preference, with the proposition that well-being arises from a positive aesthetic response to the natural environment. This relationship is discussed here, where the focus is on the two key aesthetic drivers of human reaction to urban nature; flowering and colour and structure and care.

2.4.4  Varying Aesthetics – Flowering and Colour That’s just stunning! As soon as you gave me the picture I thought, ‘Wow, that is amazing!’… I just love it, I’d love to see it real and be there. It just really attracts me in so many ways, the colours, the textures, the naturalness, but it’s obviously carefully created … and it, to me that looks like a real artist has made that… Colour has a big impact on me. This particular one, because although you are getting an overall impact of something rather beautiful, you can focus in on individual colours, especially the blues … which is a bit of a rarity in gardening, true blues anyway. Which one is it, the corn cockle?

Research focusing on public perception of designed planting (Hoyle 2015) illustrates the role of colour diversity as a driver of positive reaction to meadows. The participant interviewees quoted above are responding to an image of the annual wildflower meadow at RHS Wisley in Fig. 2.6. There is now considerable evidence for the power of flowers to generate strong emotional responses. Research conducted in contexts abstracted from urban nature showed that flowers could elicit a true or ‘duchenne’ smile (Haviland-Jones et al. 2005). Positive reactions to flowers and colour are reported in the discussion on recognising meadow biodiversity above

Fig. 2.6  Annual wildflowers at RHS Wisley, Surrey, UK

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Fig. 2.7  Azalea planting at ‘The Punchbowl’, Valley Gardens, UK.  This was considered most attractive in May but potentially most relaxing to walk through in August, after flowering had finished

(Lindemann-Matthies and Bose 2007; Southon et  al. 2018; Graves et  al. 2017; Hoyle et al. 2018). Further research in Japan (Todorova et al. 2004) found that participants selected low, ordered, brightly-coloured flowers over taller or subtly coloured flowers and non-flowering ground covers such as bare soil, grass or hedge underneath street trees. Research by the author (Hoyle et al. 2017a) indicated that people found flower cover of 27% or more to be significantly more attractive than a lower percentage flower cover. We explored the relationship between perceived attractiveness and restorativeness with interviewees (N = 34) who were presented with two images of one of the study sites (Fig. 2.7). When asked which area of planting they would find the most attractive, and then the most relaxing to walk through, most interviewees chose the first image as the most attractive. For them, attractive urban nature was colourful, vibrant and demanded their attention. In contrast, most chose the second (green) image as potentially the most relaxing to walk through, as it was a ‘background’ for positive or problematic thoughts. This reaction encapsulates that perception.

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H. Hoyle Arousal System tense

ACTIVATION alert excited

nervous

Attractive landscape stimulus The ‘wow’ factor elated

stressed

happy

upset UNPLEASANT

PLEASANT

sad

Valence System

contented serene

depressed

relaxed bored

calm

Subtle landscape stimulus Relaxation and well-being

DEACTIVATION

Fig. 2.8  The Circumplex Model of Affect (after Russell 1980; Posner et al. 2005). Adapted by Hoyle et al. (2017a) to show the impact of varying urban nature aesthetics on human emotional response I think then, it can be, it can be too stimulating, so then it’s not that relaxing, really … because, to be honest, it’s an assault on the senses … it’s so bright (in May). I think you go there for the ‘Wow factor’, but you don’t go there to relax. Here, I think if you wanted to have a relax and just wanted to sit, maybe listen to the birds of just generally stare into space, this is probably more relaxing (in August). This is really … It’s almost unreal, as though someone’s painted it but used the wrong colours.

We applied the Circumplex Model of Affect (after Russell 1980; Posner et al. 2005) to explain participants’ reactions (Fig. 2.8). Both vibrant and green azalea planting elicited positive yet contrasting affective responses in our participants. The bright, colourful stimulus provoked the ‘wow factor’  – an activated excited response, whereas the lush green induced deactivated, relaxation and a calm state of mind. This model, together with our participant responses, provides a useful tool and guide for planting designers aspiring to create a particular emotional response in resident or visiting publics.

2.4.5  Varying Aesthetics – Structure and Care Vegetation or planting structure refers to the way in which individual plants are arranged spatially to create an assemblage, or community. In the UK the most naturalistic woodland, shrub and herbaceous planting structure is exemplified by multi-­ layered woodland, shrubby woodland edge and herbaceous communities of mixed tall grasses and forb species (Hoyle et  al. 2019). In urban nature contexts, these

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relatively ‘wild’ structures represent ‘mundane nature’, either ‘accidental’ or ‘remnant’, identified by Newman and Dale (2013). A structural gradient occurs between highly naturalistic structures (the ‘nature spaces’ of Lyon discussed earlier) and the highly designed ‘nature on display’ identified in formal parks and gardens (Lyon’s ‘flowered spaces’). In an urban nature context where people experience nature by walking through it in parks, greenspaces and incidental spaces, structure is very important, because it has a direct bearing on the height, density and on visual permeability of the vegetation in relation to the human scale. Varying structural naturalness has been shown to impact significantly on people’s urban nature experiences. Some research revealed negative or ambivalent attitudes towards wilder urban planting structure (Jorgensen et al. 2007; Martens et al. 2011). Ambivalent attitudes towards an ecological woodland style were revealed in Warrington New Town, UK (Jorgensen et al. 2007). Residents both valued woodlands as their favourite places, but feared walking through them would risk exposure to physical or sexual assault. Other research (Martens et al. 2011) generated a stronger increase in positive affect and decrease in negative affect amongst participants walking through ‘tended’ as opposed to ‘wild’ urban forests. Nassauer (1995) stated that people expected to see a ‘look of human intention’ in settled urban environments, signs of human agency or ‘care’. An otherwise ecologically-rich and structurally wild landscape could be sanitised for urban consumption through ‘cues to care’ such as mown verges and bright flowers in prominent locations. A considerable body of recent research has demonstrated some contrasting results. Previously cited research by the author (Hoyle et  al. 2017a) focused on public reaction to three levels of structural naturalness in woodland, shrub and herbaceous designed urban planting (Fig. 2.9). Results across all vegetation communities indicated that participants (N = 1411) considered planting with a moderately and most natural structure significantly more restorative to walk through than that with a least natural structure, although a moderately natural structure was considered the most restorative. Other research in the UK and beyond has confirmed an increasing preparedness to tolerate and appreciate a structurally messier urban aesthetic. Previously cited research (Southon et al. 2017) on perceptions of urban meadows involved a photo elicitation exercise which showed that participants generally preferred meadows to formal bedding and herbaceous borders. Participants were receptive to naturalistic vegetation within different green spaces, although the specific locational context was important. At one site, meadows were introduced in a narrow strip of amenity mown grass with trees, at the front of housing. Some vocal individuals objected to the messier aesthetic, leading to pressure on a local councillor and the withdrawal of the site from the experiment. Local land managers later expressed awareness of an increasing acceptance of less tidy planting in urban areas, but believed locational context must be considered carefully in relation to neighbourhood planting schemes. They related increasing public acceptance of messier urban planting to possible heightened awareness of the pollinator value of wilder meadow areas, as well as a perception that less-frequent mowing might reduce costs for local authority parks departments (Hoyle et al. 2017c). Significantly, these land managers supported the need for ‘cues to care’ in this context (Nassauer 1995), in the form of mown edges

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Fig. 2.9  Woodland case study sites showing the gradient of structural naturalness, showing the three levels: ‘low’; ‘medium’ and ‘high’. Planting at the ‘medium’ level of structural naturalness was considered the most restorative to walk through

and paths through informal planting, to indicate intended stewardship of the space (Fig.  2.10). Findings from the extensive European research in Malmo, Berlin, Edinburgh, Bari, Ljubljana indicated that participants valued wasteland vegetation and wild vegetation in streetscapes. This provides wider evidence of support for wilder, more naturalistic urban nature, and the policy inclusion of valued informal spaces in planning high quality multifunctional green infrastructure networks (Fischer et al. 2018b). Synthesis of these different findings indicates a complex pattern. Although the physical and objective structural qualities of urban nature influence human perception, in the case of structure, tidiness and care, it seems that contextual factors have a significant bearing on human perception.

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Fig. 2.10  ‘Cues to care’ Grassland verge management in Stevenage, Hertfordshire. Diverse perennial meadows are allowed to grow and flower in a roundabout setting, but a section of the sward is mown adjacent to the footway

2.5  Socio-Cultural and Geographical Contextual Factors The concept of Biophilia (Wilson 1984) suggests that humans have a deep evolutionary bond with nature. Evolutionary theories of landscape preference (Heerwagen and Orians 1995) propose that humans are almost ‘hard-wired’ to prefer certain landscape aesthetics such as large flowers, indicating a resource-rich environment, or savannah landscapes providing prospect for hunting. Yet, there is now real understanding that socio-cultural and geographical factors have a huge role to play. Perceptions, preferences and experiences of the same objective urban nature characteristics vary between cultures, places and individuals. The term ‘socio-cultural’ is used here and incorporates aspects of socio-demographic diversity such as gender, education and professional background, and ethnicity, yet it also emphasises the strong influence of culture on these factors. The importance of nature-­ connectedness is considered.

2.5.1  Gender Several recent studies have shown gender differences in responses to urban nature. Female participants found walking through urban woodlands, shrub and herbaceous environments significantly more restorative than men who walked through the same

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environments (Hoyle et al. 2017a). Female participants also perceived significantly higher levels of naturalness than did men (Hoyle et al. 2019). Findings from multicultural European cities concur, as women valued all park scenes and medium and high forest plant species richness more highly than did men (Fischer et al. 2018b). This is interesting, because earlier research reported higher levels of fear amongst women in woodland (Jorgensen et al. 2007) and woodland edge (Jorgensen et al. 2002) environments. As highlighted by Fischer et al. (2018b) these responses might relate to specific scale or context, or traditional role models. In support of this view, several female research participants interviewed by the author (Hoyle 2015) expressed an appreciation of dense, multi-layered woodland, which one described as ‘calming’: Well, I think this one is still the most attractive … because I like the lush planting, I like the close planting, I like … I just like the way different shapes have been put together but it’s very lush, so that’s really nice I think I would go for this one because its more natural, so you are going through a very natural area here, which I think if I was walking through, I would find quite calming and, yes I would like that.

2.5.2  Education Although the author’s research (Hoyle et al. 2017a) revealed no relationship between economic status (employment) and perceptions of designed planting, more highly educated participants recorded lower levels of perceived biodiversity across woodland, shrub and herbaceous sites, after controlling for variability in planting and locational context. More educated participants also recorded lower scores for perceived naturalness, those with a doctorate recording the lowest of all (Hoyle et al. 2019). This is possibly because more educated participants were more familiar with a broader range of plant diversity through exposure to these within their own private gardens, known as the “luxury effect” (Hope et al. 2003). Nevertheless, although less educated people may perceive biodiversity less accurately, there is no evidence that they benefit more from contact with nature in urban spaces more than those who are more educated or affluent. Indeed, Southon et al. (2018) demonstrated the opposite; site users with higher deprivation scores reported greater connection to nature than those with lower deprivation levels. Less educated or affluent residents are also less likely to have access to private gardens, so the need to maintain high quality public green spaces to support their well-being is paramount.

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2.5.3  Professional Background Professional background, specifically involvement in the landscape or environmental professions has been shown to have considerable bearing on landscape perception and preference. Typically, professionals (Ozguner et  al. 2007) or students (Zheng et al. 2011) in fields such as conservation and environmental science have been shown to prefer more naturalistic planting styles to tidier, ordered planting, or to find these more restorative (Hoyle et al. 2017a). The view expressed by this interviewee (Hoyle 2015), sums this up explicitly: I am not a person that’s into gardens, and gardening, and organised planting. I like to be out in the countryside. I go out in the countryside, a lot further from the centre of Stevenage, and I like to see land in its natural habitat, or as close to its natural habitat as you can get. In my experience, plants do not occur in great blocks of mixed colours, they occur all over the place … they don’t occur in blobs, regularly, they occur on a random pattern, and it’s the random pattern that appeals to me more than the organised pattern.

This is consistent with findings from the Europe-wide study (Fischer et al. 2018b) where environmental experts valued wild wasteland sites at all levels of plant species diversity more highly that did non-experts. Interestingly, in the UK annual meadows study (Hoyle et al. 2018), environmental experts rated vibrant, colourful (predominantly non-native) annual meadows as less attractive and interesting than did non-experts. Although naturalistic in structure, these were probably perceived (accurately) as highly designed. Environmental experts are also likely to be more ‘nature connected’ than non-experts, maybe because the time they spend in nature enhances their connection, or maybe because nature connected people choose environmental professions. The relationship is likely to be self-reinforcing, where both pathways apply. When planning designing and managing green spaces professionals therefore need to reflect on the divergence of their own perceptions from those of wider urban publics.

2.5.4  Nature-Connectedness ‘Nature connectedness’ – feeling tied to nature, or belonging in nature – has been shown to promote well-being (Lumber et al. 2017; Zelenski and Nisbet 2012). This is also referred to as ‘nature relatedness’ (Nisbet et al. 2011), ‘nature orientation’ (Lin et al. 2014), ‘ecocentricity’ (Southon et al. 2017) or holding ‘biophilic’ values (Ives and Kendal 2014). Nature-connectedness is a fundamental underlying value, shaping individual or group attitudes, behaviours and norms (see the Cognitive Hierarchy, above). People may have strong ties to nature for different reasons, with positive experiences of nature in childhood being a key factor, as these research participants express (Hoyle 2015):

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H. Hoyle I like that partly because that’s a bluebell wood … for me, bluebell woods is my mum, and when I was a kid, and the smell of bluebells is my mum … and so you will never get me picking anything else that I would like to do more than walk through a bluebell wood I can remember when I was a kid, erm, I mean in those days children were allowed to roam off … Knebworth and everything. We used to come over here, sort of six, seven, eight years old … it would have been early sixties … and the wood was literally completely overgrown. It was like this the whole way through

In this research, more nature connected individuals benefitted more psychologically than others during their walks through woodland, shrub and herbaceous planting. They also gave planting higher naturalness scores than less nature connected participants (Hoyle et al. 2019) and considered the planting more aesthetically attractive, after controlling for the objective planting characteristics (Hoyle 2015). Nature-connected individuals are attuned to noticing nature (Frantz and Mayer 2014) and may have been more receptive to the experience of walking through an area of planting. Because nature-connectedness has an emotional dimension (Mayer and Frantz 2004), more nature-connected individuals may have been more positively responsive to the physical and psychological experience of walking through an area of planting (Hoyle et  al. 2019). There are again parallels. Southon et  al. (2017) found that more nature-connected participants who visited the countryside more regularly were more positive about the introduction of perennial meadows to urban sites. In the recent Europe-wide study (Fischer et  al. 2018b), participants’ biodiversity perception was related to their nature orientation and frequency of greenspace visits.

2.5.5  Migration Background People with a migration background often perceive and experience urban nature differently to native populations (Buijs et al. 2009; Rishbeth and Finney 2006; Jay and Schraml 2009; Kloek et al. 2010; Hoyle 2015; Fischer et al. 2018b; Hoyle et al. 2018). This is important for planners, designers and managers of urban green infrastructure to recognise when prioritising human well-being in the context of a multicultural city (Fischer et al. 2018b). Whereas native European or North American populations may hold a wilderness view of nature, people with a migration background may perceive it more functionally, associating it with rural landscapes and food production (de Boer and Schulting 2002), evident in the case of people with Turkish migration backgrounds in Germany (Jay and Schraml 2009) and the Netherlands (Buijs et al. 2009). Working in Sheffield with people with Asian and African refugee backgrounds, Rishbeth and Finney (2006) found that contact with particular animals, plants, activities and social use of outdoor nature spaces might trigger for migrants feelings of nostalgia for their country of origin. Importantly, nature is not always positive for people with a migrant background. Feelings of fear were found to be related to nature itself, insects in nature, other people and racial

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attacks. Preferences for tidier, managed places amongst people with a Mediterranean or Islamic migrant background are also linked to the portrayal of nature as manicured and ordered, as a ‘cultivated oasis’ (Schouten 2005). The author found a significant association between ethnicity and perceptions of tidiness and care when researching perceptions of woodland, shrub and herbaceous planting (Hoyle 2015). Perception of ‘restorative effect and care’ was also associated with ethnicity in gauging public response to annual meadows in Luton, UK (Hoyle et  al. 2018). Evidence from recent research across five multicultural European cities (Fischer et  al. 2018b) shows differences in nature perceptions between first generation migrants and their children and grandchildren. For first generation migrants, perceptions of whether the green areas depicted in the study contributed to creating a liveable city differed significantly from those without a migrant background, yet there were no significant differences between perceptions of their children and grandchildren and the non-migrant populations.

2.6  U  rban Nature Perceptions: What Do We Know? Implications for Policy, Practice and Further Research We now know that most people respond positively to colourful, flowering planting in urban spaces, finding this attractive and stimulating, while ‘green’ spaces are also highly valued for their ‘background’ calming, restorative qualities. People appreciate diversity in nature, yet are not particularly skilled at identifying biodiversity at finer resolution than the broad habitat scale. This does not however limit their potential to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits. There is also growing evidence of increasing acceptance of a messier urban aesthetic across Europe, with the remnant nature of wastelands and less formal spaces increasingly valued and informal meadows enjoyed within urban spaces. In some locational contexts such as in front of homes and on verges next to footpaths, ‘cues to care’ such as close mown edges offer compromise solutions to land managers forced to prioritise in times of austerity economics. The variety of experiences and responses to natural spaces means that the relationships between the general and particular require further exploration and careful balancing in terms of UGS provision and management. Further research must focus on the diverse perceptions and preferences of different socio-cultural groups in different geographical contexts. Much of the existing literature has addressed urban nature perceptions and preferences in temperate, often western regions, whereas other regions are undergoing the most rapid rates of urbanisation (Botzat et  al. 2016). More understanding is needed of the relationship between people and nature in contexts where people do not hold a developed western wilderness view of nature. Because people with greater nature-connectedness are more likely to spend time in green spaces, existing studies have often consulted self-selecting nature-connected participants recreating in urban nature. Insights from people who do not spend time

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in nature would be valuable, focusing on perceived barriers to accessing the benefits of nature and investigating whether there are alternative pathways to health and well-being in cities which do not involve urban nature contact. This chapter has demonstrated why understanding the way people perceive urban nature is important. The connections and disconnections between aesthetic appreciation of landscapes and their biodiversity need to be recognised, so natural spaces can be planned, designed and managed with both in mind. If green prescribing of nature-based therapeutic interventions becomes mainstream in countries such as the UK, such understandings will be key for healthcare professionals too.

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Chapter 3

Naturally Feeling Good? Exploring Understandings of ‘Green’ Urban Spaces in the Global South Sarah Bradshaw, Brian Linneker, and Lian Lundy

Abstract  This chapter highlights the need to understand more about people’s own lived experience of nature rather than assume Western notions of ‘green is good’ is true in all contexts – in this instance, in the Global South. The authors highlight that ‘good’ is a subjective notion and depends on understandings of ‘green’. Calling on empirical research in Brazil and Nicaragua, the authors discuss how fear as well as attraction can underpin human relationships with nature which are entangled with understandings of climate change and with experience of natural hazards that bring flooding of communities and homes. Nature may also be perceived as a sign of poverty and when unmanaged as ‘dirty’ and dangerous. Biodiversity then may be associated with a sense of threat, leading people to shun particular places and favour others. Making ‘green’ spaces attractive may include concreting them over or painting them bright colours to appeal to potential users. The chapter raises questions around just how accessible and inclusive urban nature is, highlighting how interpretations of ‘nature’ as safe or restorative are fundamentally dependent on human intervention. The chapter explores how users and decision-makers make trade-offs, taming and constructing places to make them safer and more attractive, challenging notions of ‘natural’ and ‘nature’ in urban green spaces. Keywords  Global South · ‘Green’ urban space · Biodiversity · Nature · Safety · Constructions of nature

S. Bradshaw (*) · B. Linneker · L. Lundy Middlesex University, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 N. Dempsey, J. Dobson (eds.), Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44480-8_3

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3.1  Introduction Green spaces are increasingly presented as important in the urban context for improving health and wellbeing, including mental health (Kaplan and Kaplan 1989). By providing a meeting place for people, they also help forge social ties and build social capital. Green spaces are routinely planned into new urban developments or spaces are reclaimed and ‘greened’ in cities, including cities in the Global South (Wolcha et al. 2014). In the Global South housing developments for the rich or middle classes have green spaces planned within gated communities, while shorefront properties command high prices and similarly deny access for non-­ residents. The poor who are pushed to the outskirts of towns often take over and build on countryside, meaning these peri-urban locations can also be ‘close to nature’, or are built on flood plains close to the edges of lakes and rivers. How these green and blue spaces, that the wealthy are prepared to pay to view, are understood by those forced to live there is not well explored. Nor is how nature is understood and valued more generally by the urban poor in the Global South. It has been suggested that Lefevbre’s notion of the ‘right to the city’ (Lefebvre 1996) is often institutionalised in the urban planning systems of developing world countries, where communities emerge from informal appropriations of land, which gradually become formalised/normalised with ownership then legislated for, via a commodification of informally developed properties (Lamarca 2011; Fernandes 2007). In planned low-income settlements, often developed to win votes or as an outcome of election promises, an ‘incomplete urbanisation’ may be the by-product, since civil authorities and planners tend to avoid spending in areas which lack the assets for lucrative capitalist relations (Maricato 1979). This has led to a situation where peri-urban sites see intersecting environmental and social disadvantage (Costa and Costa 2005) in the context of incomplete urbanisation (Juntti et al. 2019). It is these peri-, or semi-urban, sites which are the focus of this chapter as it considers understandings of ‘nature’ in varying degrees of naturalness. All ‘natural’ space is of course constructed both materially and discursively (Harvey 2014) and this occurs under particular social, economic and political conditions and through institutional and cultural practices (Macnaghten and Urry 1998). In this sense, the natural environment needs to be understood as part of wider societal processes and in a neoliberal context increasingly understood as employed as a means of constructing citizens’ sense of themselves and their obligations (Brand 2007). This means care needs to be taken with the current dominant discourse of ‘green spaces bring health benefits’, if this is favoured because it is cheaper for public funders than health service provision, rather than green spaces being considered as a good in themselves (Brand 2003). Moreover, as Dobson (2018) notes, we know that green spaces are good for us, but we also know not all green spaces are good for us, and that not all are good for all of us in the same ways. We might add that not all green spaces that are said to be ‘good’ for us are perceived or recognised by ‘us’ to be good. ‘Good’ is a subjective notion and depends on understandings of ‘green’.

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This chapter asks how those living in low income urban communities in the Global South view green, and blue spaces, of various degrees of naturalness, and what, if any, benefits they see arising from their proximity to ‘nature’. The chapter draws on research conducted in two low income communities – one in Belo Horizonte in Brazil and one in the capital of Nicaragua, Managua. In Brazil, the focus is Nova Contagem (including the communities of Tupã and Solar do Madeira that exist at its fringes) a peri-urban settlement located close to open countryside that surrounds a large reservoir. It was a planned settlement which included patios for the houses as well as parks and small plazas. In Nicaragua, the community studied is also located near the ‘blue space’ of Lake Managua / Lago Xolotlan and its shoreline. While this is not located next to open countryside, it is near the national arboretum and a large open plaza. The informal nature of the settlement means there is no common public space within the community, but as the custom in Nicaragua is to sit outside the front of houses in the evening, on the pavement, the roads themselves become ‘public’ meeting places. The fieldwork in both communities consisted of a questionnaire (400 in Nova Contagem and 200 in Managua) and semi-structured interviews (60 in total) and the focus was on exploring residents’ understandings of nature as an asset and the services, and dis-services, that were understood to be derived from urban green and blue spaces (Bradshaw et al. 2017).

3.2  Nature As Asset…? Two conceptual frames inform the study – the notion of Capital Assets (CA) and of Ecosystem Services (ES). Common to both is the idea that in order to bring health and wellbeing outcomes to people and groups of people, nature must first be understood to be an ‘asset’, and it is this understanding of nature that underpins this chapter. Capital asset frameworks focus on the attributes or strengths that people have or need to move themselves out of poverty and improve their wellbeing (see Moser 1998, 2007, 2016). Initially referring to income flows produced from financial capital, other capitals have been recognized including: Human capital, arising from investment in education or health; Social capital, arising from investing time in building up assets such as networks and friendships which can be drawn on when things are difficult; Physical capital, includes basic infrastructure such as shelter as well as the tools used to make a living. Recognizing that power relations influence access to assets and determine the ability to build stocks of capitals, means that sometimes ‘political capital’ is also included in CA frameworks. Here, this refers to the ability of the poor to press their claims, which depends on how they can build up power in relation to that of others, and deploy it in the face of the exercise of power by others (usually elites) who contest their claims (Baumann and Sinha 2001). Understanding nature as a ‘capital’ comprising of ‘assets’ recognizes that the environment can provide opportunities for investment that will yield benefits in the future, for example through planting a tree to harvest fruit, or to provide shade, with

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less tangible benefits such as absorbing surface water flows. Natural and anthropogenic assets don’t simply provide resources that people can use to improve livelihoods: they give people the capability to be and to act (Bebbington 1999), and as assets have to be acquired, they imply some level of agency (Sen 1997). This highlights that the ability to build stocks of capitals and derive benefits from assets is mediated by issues of access and control. Clearly not all people will have equal access to and control over assets, including natural assets (Fischer and Eastwood 2016). When nature is conceptualized as a public good, with assets such as the atmosphere or biodiversity, it clearly yields more intangible and wide-reaching benefits such as oxygenating the planet. Nature as an asset has been best explored within the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment (MEA 2005) which identifies four key categories of ES: • Supporting services e.g. nutrient cycling, oxygen production and soil formation • Provisioning services e.g. fuel, food, water • Regulating services e.g. climate regulation, water purification and flood protection • Cultural services e.g. education, recreation and aesthetic value These services can be derived from different land use types such as green spaces (the coast and countryside, farmland, public parks and private gardens) or from blue spaces (such as lakes, rivers, canals and streams). There are also grey/green spaces and this term is here used to suggest an urbanised or ‘built environment’ such as a public square or window boxes; spaces with limited vegetation, but still with the potential to provide ES.  The utility of ES is that it captures the fact that neither urban- nor agro-ecosystems are typically considered or classified as ‘natural’ which means despite their importance in terms of land use coverage and population densities, they may be lost in models that focus on ‘nature’ (Peterson et al. 2018). Inherent within ES frames then is the notion of needing to understand the different levels of naturalness in natural landscapes and to be inclusionary in terms of what we see as ‘nature’. Early ES models often made the assumption that the existence of natural resources meant the associated ecosystem services were delivered, received and uniformly appreciated by people, by default (e.g. the services-cascade model of Haines-Young and Potschin 2010). More recent models have refined this view recognising that a tree or forest only offer the potential for ecosystem services, such as producing harvestable products. Unless the benefits of this service (e.g. a fruit) are accessed and consumed, then the tree is not delivering this ecosystem service to individuals or groups of individuals. As the mobilisation of potential ES involves issues of access and control, clearly not all people will have equality of access to and control over ES within communities, or indeed within households. Mobilisation of ES also requires motivation – the willingness to walk to a park, undertake exercise or gardening activities for example, and subjective perceptions of identity, capability and knowledge will influence whether such activities are seen as possible, feasible and desirable (Fischer and Eastwood 2016). With ES discourse of the

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natural environment increasingly influencing the planning and design of urban space and the valuation of environmental features (e.g. TEEB 2010), it is important to understand how people go about appropriating urban green areas in their everyday lives, potentially ‘missing out on’ some ecosystem services but perhaps accessing other, as yet unarticulated benefits and dis-benefits. Different people will have different motives and capacities for ‘appropriation’ of ES and thus different capabilities to benefit from existing natural capital. Access is not determined by personal characteristics alone but is determined by political processes which can determine the location of urban green space, its ‘quality’, maintenance and policing. It might be assumed the poor and marginalised will have less access to natural capital and less capability to mobilise and appropriate natural assets (Bradshaw and Linneker 2015). If capability is in part dependent on motivation then one’s appropriation of natural assets may be in part determined by how nature is understood. It is important also to acknowledge that nature can be seen as much as a threat as an asset. For those with low incomes forced to live on flood plains, for example, a river may not be understood as something beautiful to look at but as a risk: something dangerous which floods their homes, destroys crops, vegetable gardens and patios. Similarly, a wooded area in a local park may not be considered to bring ‘cultural’ ES benefits if it is known to be dangerous because of the people who congregate there. While co-construction  – assigning meaning  – is particularly relevant when it comes to cultural ES, many provisioning and regulating ES also require human intervention – co-production – to be realized and take on different signifying functions in different contexts. Investment in ‘green infrastructure’ such as developing urban parks or restoring previously drained wetlands, can bring benefits to the planet and to individuals, but only if those individuals can access them and perceive them as an ‘asset’. Understanding how people understand nature is an important first step in understanding if and how people can and do mobilise nature to benefit themselves, their communities and the planet more generally. Through the two communities studied, this chapter will show how understandings of nature/natural need to be understood within the context of where the communities are located and how the communities were formed.

3.3  In the Beginning… “It Was Just Dirt Roads and Overgrown Land” In both the communities studied, the relationship with nature of those who first populated the settlements is related to their arrival at the location. At that time, the community was still under construction (Brazil) or it was informal (Nicaragua). In Brazil the community was being developed on land that we might describe as ‘countryside’, and in Nicaragua close to the shoreline of Lake Managua/Lago Xolotlan. Early residents talk of the area in Managua as feo (ugly) since ‘the roads were of dirt

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and there were lots of trees…’. In Brazil too, respondents remembered in the beginning the community being “… just dirt roads and overgrown land”. In both cases trees and countryside were seen as ‘ugly’ and ‘overgrown’  – not as an asset or something to be enjoyed. The establishment of paved roads emerged as important in the interviews in both communities, but for slightly different reasons. In Nicaragua paved roads were important to let others in – the location of the community meant residents could walk out of the community to a main road and the means of transport to work and shops, and the paved roads let taxis and cars come in. In Brazil it was about people being able to get out – the location meant that, in the beginning, shops and jobs were a long and bumpy bus ride away. The official idea behind the community in Brazil was to build a housing project for underprivileged people living in other regions in Contagem. They were mainly people living in illegal occupations (favelas) in the central and more affluent parts of the city, but also people affected by floods, multiple families cohabiting a single home, and people overburdened with rent. In short it was part of a wider plan to alleviate Contagem’s housing deficit. However, new urban settlements must be understood as political sites, and in this case a local politician used the project for his successful electoral campaign to become the Governor of region, promoting it as bringing great benefits to the people who were moved there. However, many of the early residents of Nova Contagem, especially those who moved in the 1980s, remember it differently. Its peri-urban location meant many of those who first arrived there were unhappy: “[When I first arrived] I hated it here, I couldn’t stop crying wishing to leave. Nowadays, I won’t change Nova Contagem for any other place … You can find everything here, you don’t have to go anywhere….” These sentiments were echoed in Nicaragua. When asked what made the area attractive, the responses did not focus on the accessibility to the lake and shoreline or the arboretum but instead ‘it is close to the market, and there are many options nearby for jobs, it is central’. Proximity to green spaces have been highlighted in a number of studies as important for ensuring people engage with those spaces (WHO 2017) and for perceived general health (Maas 2006). However, it is centrality of (other) services that may take priority when livelihoods are precarious, and in Brazil the questionnaire data shows that when asked what are the ‘top 3 local assets’, the most popular responses were shopping centres (57%) and access to the centre and jobs (38%), as well as services such as water and electricity (32%) health centres (24%) and schools (19%). In terms of ‘nature’, however, a relatively large proportion did mention green spaces in their top three community assets with 20% in Brazil including it in their top three and 14% in Nicaragua. Nature is obviously something valued by respondents but as a Nicaraguan respondent notes it is something people want as well as shops and services: “here we have everything close …[in other places] everything is far away. [There] you are just going to be looking at trees and mountains, that’s all”. While ‘just‘being able to look at trees and mountains was not something desired by respondents, this was not because they did not understand the value of green and blue spaces as ‘asset’ but rather because they wanted a balance between the natural and the built environment. This balance helps determine the nature of the area and

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who can live there but the presence/absence of the built/natural does not always signify the same thing. The lack of a paved road may be seen as a marker of an informal and low-income settlement, and the arrival of paved roads did emerge from the interviews as a sign of consolidation of the community and of an urban and non-­ favela identity. However, the lack of a paved road can also be a sign of status. As one resident living on the outskirts of the area studied in Brazil notes: “But [here] they are residents of a social stratum with higher income, because you need a car to live in this place, there is no bus line. Where I live, for example, every day is three kilometers of dirt road to the asphalt, so that is why there aren’t people who depend on public transportation living in this place”. When the local authority offered the community the chance to have a paved road which would link to the existing road they said no, because: “we do not want to give the appearance of a city over here”. The ‘natural environment’ here then is considered an asset to be protected as it acts as a barrier to others entering unless they are rich enough to own a private car. Thinking back to the comment from the Nicaraguan respondent earlier, people who lived in this area without a paved road and without a car would have little access to shops and services and so would be ‘just’ able to look at trees ‘that’s all’, as there are no urban services nearby so nothing else to do. However, the absence of a paved road for those rich enough to run a car also confirms their identity as non-poor, and the presence of nature keeps the area for those only of a higher economic status (Fig. 3.1).

Fig. 3.1  The community in Brazil set within its wider ‘natural environment’

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3.4  Understandings of ‘Nature’ As Asset “[the natural environment] softens, breaks a little the weight of the concrete and steel of the urban environment, right … I think we, I think even being an urban being, when we enter a greener environment, we feel naturally good.” (Brazilian respondent).

The desire for a ‘green’ urban environment was evident from the quantitative and qualitative findings, and while only 20% of respondents to the survey spontaneously mentioned green spaces in their top three community assets in Brazil, over 50% described green spaces as essential. The majority of the Brazilian sample (88%) reported they would be upset if there were fewer green spaces in their local community. In Nicaragua more respondents considered green spaces to be essential (79%) but fewer said they would be upset if there was less green space (68%) which is interesting and might be related to how ‘green’ space has been constructed in Nicaragua compared to Brazil (see below). Before exploring different constructions of ‘green’ space, first how and why nature is seen to be an ‘asset’ will be explored. The discussion will focus somewhat on trees, as trees emerged as a key theme when discussing the tangible and intangible benefits and dis-benefits of urban nature (Fig. 3.2). In the two communities, the physical and mental health benefits of a non-urban environment were recognized as responding to the stressful nature of urban life, as one Brazilian respondent notes: “The noise and visual pollution is visible [in the urban context], you feel them, you get stressed, here [in the countryside] you don’t… “with another respondent from Brazil noting how the countryside is a place for: “reflecting about life, it’s good there because when you are somewhere entirely different from your natural environment you can stop and think….” This notion of the ‘natural’ is distinct from most people’s natural (read urban) environment is an interesting construction of nature. In Brazil, this can perhaps be explained in relation to the origins of the people who live in the community coming either from urban slums/favelas or having been born in the (urban) community, with the built up and urban environment their norm, and nature considered as ‘other’. In Nicaragua, many of the first residents had migrated from rural areas and so their view of ‘the countryside’ was as a working, not a recreational, environment. For them, however, rural areas were still related to ‘more silence, more tranquility’. Importantly, it was not only the countryside but urban green spaces, especially those with trees that provoked such feelings of tranquility. A Nicaraguan respondent notes how: “the sun provokes a lot of stress, people get annoyed, in contrast when we are in the shade it is tranquil, one feels in control of one’s body’ while another notes that when people go to an area with a tree or green spaces then: “you feel free, you feel tranquil, calmer. When I see a leafy tree that gives shade I feel liberated”. In Nicaragua and Brazil also, it is not surprising that the majority of people associated the benefits of trees with the shade they provide given both are hot countries (e.g. in Managua, temperatures routinely hit 34 °C). However, while trees are valued for shade, and shade in itself is valued, the feelings that arise from being too hot – stress and anger – and the opposite positive feelings that come from entering

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Fig. 3.2  Sitting in a shady spot, Managua, Nicaragua

a shady area – being calm and liberated – are recognized also. The wider benefits that derive from trees were also understood, and, for example, one respondent in Nicaragua noted how trees ‘strengthen the earth’ in that they ‘oxygenate the planet, freshen the climate… and help conserve the lakes’. The respondents in both communities understood the notion of climate change, not least because they were living it, and in Nicaragua it was noted how: “the heat feels more, for example the sun burns more than before … when I leave to work … I wear a jacket because the sun burns my skin” while another suggested the heat was “… more intense. Every year the heat is more intense and there is less rain, less rain” with the first respondent noting how: “obviously I am worried, for the future for my children.” Respondents also understood what was causing the climate to change as explained in Brazil: “it is because as man is cutting down the trees, right, the planet becomes hotter. And the waste also, because of the ozone layer” and similarly in Nicaragua, concern was expressed about what impact human actions were having on the climate: “we need to be caring [for the planet] but we are the same ones who are destroying it”. This said, when asked what could be done to address climate change some suggested nothing could be done and at times this was related

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to how the climate and nature was understood. For example, a Nicaraguan respondent notes: “it is difficult, what are we going to do to change it. All we can do comes from the lord above… God is the only one who can change things”. Others see themselves as able to make changes but also that everyone has to make changes: “In my opinion we need to organise, as much the government, private companies, everyone, and plant trees, plant more trees, because here in Nicaragua … we say come visit Nicaragua because it is a fresh climate. But the majority who come say ha! Nicaragua is burning up…. Why? Because in Nicaragua we don’t plant one tree, instead we cut down five…” While the role of trees was recognised in terms of planetary change, so too were trees recognised as important in themselves as things of beauty. Just because the people were poor does not mean they did not appreciate beauty, as one respondent from Nicaragua demonstrates when talking as they sat outside their home: “The little animals, the birds there. Here it is nice, as you hear now, the wind blows, the trees sway and suddenly there on the tree arrives a [local bird]. Birds are singing. Nice. Really nice to hear”. In Brazil too a love of nature was clear among some respondents, here as someone laments the loss of a tree: “It provided shade here and was also where the birds slept, spent the night, made their nests. After the tree was cut, it was finished…” and when asked if they miss the birds “I do, I miss them”. This appreciation of nature is reflected in a desire to cultivate it in their own homes, if they can.

3.4.1  Growing Natural Assets In the Brazilian community, the houses were part of a planned development and had back patios, a backyard or other private green open space, and the majority (70%) still had land to the back. In Nicaragua there was much less space, if any, at the back and fewer (45%) had a back patio, while the majority of houses had no land to the front with doors opening straight onto the pavement. When there was some land people tended to cultivate it, and in Nicaragua this included planting on the pavement outside the house which, in the absence of any other ‘outside’ space was seen to be part of the property. While the main reason to cultivate land was to supplement diets with fruits, vegetables and herbs, the cultural value (in ES speak) or social capital (in CA speak) that cultivation brought was also highly valued: “[It makes] the backyard more pleasant, right, it is life, to provide some colour, happiness… that moment … contact with the land, weeding, ‘come here, let’s weed.’ it is a moment for us to start talking… it becomes a connecting point, right?” (Brazilian respondent). However, while people liked to cultivate their land, at times tough decisions needed to be made: “… I like vegetable gardens, but my house is small, there used to be a vegetable garden here, but my sister, my daughter built her house, then there’s no more space here, but vegetable gardens are good … But [now], in the backyard, there’s a few mangoes, Acerola trees… I guess that’s it, I had a Surinam cherry tree there, but

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I think the shadow [of the building] killed the tree… ”. These asset trade-offs occur when those who would usually move away to set up their own home cannot do so due to lack of income (financial capital), and then houses are extended (physical asset) with the loss of backyards, trees and plants (natural assets). This may also have consequences for health from the shade lost (human capital), the loss of a tree which is mourned and possible consequences for familial relations (social capital): “Hum, my vegetable garden had everything … before she [their daughter] built her house there, my husband said that today… “Good times, when we used to grow vegetables, we had everything, lettuce, chicory, cabbage, carrot…” He grew everything, then she had to build her house, and it was over.” While physical capital often wins out at the expense of natural assets there comes a point where the desire to maintain some green space overrules this, as one respondent who lives in a house in Nicaragua that is now home to three families and has a tiny patio left explains: “… we do not touch the plants [now] because rather, if we can water them and rescue them, rescue some saplings, we will try to…” However, while there may be a desire to cultivate trees for shade, for fruits and for aesthetic reasons, often a tree can come to pose a threat. The threat of damage is often enough to lead to trees being cut down, as one Nicaraguan respondent explains: “we cut down [the mango tree] because the roots could, well they might go underneath the earth, and that could cause damage to the walls” [emphasis added]. Similarly, in Brazil, one woman recounts the demise of a large mango tree, her thinking around this and the consequences, “the root of this tree will come under this home, will break the pipes, and even the walls, right, the foundations … I had to cut the mango tree. Oh my God, why did I do that? The back of the house became so hot, really, really hot.” In this case the mere threat to physical capital won out over the regulating services of natural capital but she recounts a new tree that is getting large that she has not cut because “When I look at it, I feel ‘sorry’ for it…” and reminds herself of its cooling properties. Another respondent cut down a tree as it was “making a mess in the yard, really bad” while another found her growing ‘natural asset’ brought negative ‘social’ outcomes: “I even had a plum tree there, I had to cut it because they [the kids] were always climbing the wall to get the plums.” That natural / social capital interactions can be positive for some and negative for others is highlighted by memories of a respondent’s mother cutting a tree down as on the street “… there are some users of… of drugs, right? Then, there was shade [from the tree] right? Then, it was a reason for the people to stand there, right? Smoking their things, there. Then, she cut the tree”. The discussion around cutting down trees is interesting since in Brazil 60% of respondents with a patio have a tree planted there while in Nicaragua the majority (69%) think there are insufficient trees in their local area. One Nicaraguan respondent when asked who could and should make the decision to cut down a tree suggested: “I don’t need to ask anyone else [in the household] for permission but I think to cut down a tree, you would have to think very hard”. In Brazil, those who cut down trees were constructed to be ‘others’ demonstrating ‘bad’ behavior: “Like, people here want to cut a lot of trees… Why … Just leave it alone. It gives a fresh, free air… Shade. There is no need to cut down trees… If it were up to me I wouldn’t

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cut any down. But they want it, so they do it. I even called the department of environment once …”. This bad behavior of others was often related to incomers who had recently moved into the area with the suggestion being “some people when they buy a piece of land the first thing they do is cut down the trees”. Bad environmental behavior was not confined to tree cutting: “He does it even without realising and may be thinking ‘I will burn this because it is easier to clear my land, otherwise I would have to excavate it, weeding later’, but he’s taking an important layer of soil which serves to absorb the water, and then global warming will increase much more”. This highlights understanding of the role of nature in global terms but also how ‘personal’ actions in ‘private’ spaces are not just personal or private, but have an impact on other people. In fact ‘personal’ trees in ‘private’ back yards can be valued by others in the community especially if they are more common than in public spaces: “….if you look up here, on my street, you see those houses at the back, all have large trees, with large canopies. … But parks with trees or woods, there are not many here” .

3.4.2  Planned and Public Urban Green Space The idea that parks with trees are lacking in the Brazilian community is not because there are no public communal spaces but because these tend to be more grey than green: “Here there are no parks, they are covered with concrete, no trees, no nothing. … I think of parks as a natural environment, right, flowers, trees, here we do not have these”. While bemoaning the lack of ‘nature’ the form nature should take is often not described as particularly ‘natural’ and it is a tamed and formalised ‘natural’ that is valued such as the manicured lawns and carefully planted landscape glimpsed in the gated communities of the rich. Brazilian respondents discussing such gated communities highlight them as: “… beautiful places …. Quieter areas, with beautiful landscape views …” and suggest: “It is a paradise, there. This one there is a paradise”. Value is then given to those spaces that include nature but not in its ‘natural’ form. This is also the case in Nicaragua where the value given to constructed ‘natural spaces’ is clearly seen. One respondent noted that an area that had once been open land but had recently been turned into a (largely concrete) park now “… has value. Before it was worth nothing”. Similarly, one resident had not visited the nearby lake shoreline for many years since he was ‘bored of it’ and for another the shore view of the lake was not valued until constructed: “before they began constructing you only saw water, and now, now they have built the malecón (pier) it looks different, more eye catching”. This preference for more formalised or constructed ‘natural’ spaces is linked to a number of issues, including wanting to feel nature as part of, not separate from the built environment. A Brazilian respondent expresses: “… but imagine if you [could] start picking fruits ….orange, apple, banana, imagine this in the city downtown, you arrive there with a basket and pick the fruits ….that would really be a city to live in, it would be the paradise, right? The preference for more grey over green in grey/

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green spaces was also related to grey/green spaces being valued more for social and recreational rather than ‘environmental’ reasons. In Nicaragua one person who came from a rural area and highly valued the countryside highlights this seeming contradiction: “I go to green areas, I go and play baseball, we play and then we have fun”, that is, he goes to green spaces to play on them, to enjoy these areas. Another notes that “the situation has changed, things have been made up (tarmacked), and now there is somewhere to go for recreation to enjoy yourself… we are happy”. In Brazil too, the value of the ‘outdoors’ lies with being able to ‘do’ things there: “Why do you think that an ecological park will get them off drugs? It will not, but they will [if they] have a leisure place, a court here, paved …”. And it was not always healthy options that were desired: “what’s the fun in being in the middle of these bushes here without the bars, without anything [to do]?” The idea of there being ‘nothing to do’ in ‘natural’ areas helps explain the desire for more grey over green, but it is also linked to the idea that more natural green spaces were seen as overgrown and ‘dirty’. It is well documented in the literature that a state of disrepair of green space negatively affects its use by making it feel less safe (Dempsey and Burton 2012) but conversely that the presence of green vegetation can aid the formation of neighbourhood social ties and contribute to residents’ sense of safety (Kuo et al. 1998). The WHO guidelines on designing urban green space highlight as important: availability and accessibility, aesthetics, amenities, and the area’s management, and suggest to avoid antisocial behaviour and fear of crime there needs to be “adequate and frequent maintenance to avoid the impression that the place is not taken care of” (WHO 2017, p. 19). Supporting this, in Brazil a common thread was that because they were ‘unmanaged’ then ‘natural’ green spaces invited litter: “Then, the people have more excuses, because there are bushes, you know? I think they take advantage of this issue to use it to discard waste, you know?” but managed spaces have the opposite effect. One Brazilian respondent noted how her mother had ‘occupied’ a public space after the accumulated waste dumped there was cleared by the local authorities. She brought seedlings to the area, and began to plant there and as the garden grew so new dumping did not occur as: “… now, who is going in good conscience to discard waste over there, right.” While the local authority had tidied up the area mentioned in this example, more generally those in the communities saw themselves and their local environment as neglected (see Juntti et al. 2019). During a walking interview one woman noted how a nearby square was so good because it was ‘very organized’ “Because the people of this street here really take care of the squares… But this is not a municipal administration service, you can be sure.” In the study, local squares and parks are valued, especially by the poor, and the young, childless and less educated, and those that do like parks value them highly, being likely to include them in their top three key community assets (see Bradshaw et al. 2017). Liking local parks was also significantly correlated with a number of neighbourhood related variables including wanting to continue living in the area. This suggests that local grey/green spaces can help build connection to place. Stronger still was the relationship between feeling safe walking during the day and during the night in the area and liking parks. If people feel safe in the neighbourhood they are more likely to

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like parks (and presumably visit them) and people who like parks also have a stronger sense of place. The study suggests that local grey/green spaces are recognised as an asset and help create a sense of place and belonging, especially for the poor. However, if not maintained, they are not only seen as ‘dirty’ or ‘ugly’ but also as dangerous, keeping people from engaging with the green, and blue, spaces that do exist.

3.4.3  Fearing the Green and the Blue While a lake view might come with a high price tag in wealthier settlements, being close to a lake when living in precarious housing with poor infrastructure can signify something not so much beautiful as threatening. In the community in Nicaragua the threat of floods was common every year with the onset of the rainy season. In Brazil too flooding was a regular occurrence and in both communities rains brought additional problems: “When it rains here in the neighbourhood, it is 100% guaranteed that the power ends, the power stops, the streets become all mud floods … if you have to take a bus to work, the buses do not come, they cannot pass by” (Brazilian respondent). Paradoxically too much ‘flooding’ can be a good thing as one person who likes to go and walk by the lake in Nicaragua noted: “before the water was further out, but when Hurricane Mitch happened the lake looked to reestablish its place once again, because before the lake was further away, further to walk”. In Brazil too, the idea of water ‘looking to reestablish its place’ was raised in relation to flooding: “because we invaded the natural place, right … So people build there and they are wrong, we are the wrong ones, because … the water will run its course, … it was there long before us”. The ‘risk’ then is understood as not from nature per se but from human intervention: “because [if] the person constructs in a risk area, constructs there knowing that he/she is at risk, removing the vegetation, when the rain falls it will cause a landslide. He is not protected, then it becomes a risk …. It is not exactly an environmental issue, I think this is more a question of consciousness, of the person who occupies these areas.” Human interactions with the natural environment are then understood to construct risk but the risk of flooding and landslides were not perceived to be the greatest risk faced, and in Brazil only 15% of respondents identified natural hazards as risk, compared to 92% who said drugs and violence were the greatest risks faced by the community. However, the risk of violence while seen as societal risk is also environmental risk, with perceptions of violence linked to perceptions of the ‘natural’ environment, and engagement with the natural environment in  local blue and green spaces limited by perceptions of violence. However close blue and green spaces are, going outdoors and enjoying urban green spaces, or visiting local ‘countryside’ and the reservoir/shorefront is mediated by other factors and may depend on the absence of other ‘assets’ such as time, or lack of capitals such as financial capital meaning a person needs to work long hours. As one woman in Nicaragua noted she stays home when she has free time since “I

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feel like being lazy. I walk around the streets all day [selling goods]. At the weekend then all I want to do is be in the house”. Going ‘outdoors’, outside one’s home, and walking round the local area was more common in Nicaragua (67% reported walking in local ‘green areas’ compared to 40% in Brazil) and in Brazil the general feeling can be summed up as “… people here, from the neighbourhood, they all stay home…”. The quantitative data suggests there is a relationship between reporting feeling safe when walking round the local neighbourhood and walking in the countryside, and in Brazil people did not feel safe in their local neighbourhood. One man in Brazil who recognised the beauty of the countryside still notes “I only leave the house when necessary … I’m always inside the house… because I don’t want to be hit by a stray bullet … I think it is better to stay home, I’d rather stay home quiet”. And parks can be seen as dangerous as one woman notes: “… because sometimes you’re there, there will be a shooting, you have nowhere to run, nowhere to hide … now, with the violence that we have in the neighbourhood, people are afraid to go out, to go to the parks…” The threat of violence keeps people inside their homes, and urban ‘green’ spaces are seen to be sites of danger, and this can then inform a negative view of the countryside: “For nature this forest here is a very good thing, but it also serves as, like some hiding places for bandits…”. Yet while fear stops people going to the countryside, when walking in the countryside it can reduce fear: “There are some beautiful places [to walk]… and you forget entirely about the violence here, these are really beautiful places.” In contrast to Brazil, nearly all (97%) respondents in the Nicaraguan community said they felt safe walking round the local neighbourhood during the day and three quarters (74%) also felt safe walking at night which might explain why the majority also reported walking outside the community in local open/green spaces. However, this might also be explained by the nature of the nearby ‘green’ spaces. While the surrounds of the Brazilian community were ‘natural’ green spaces, or countryside, they were harder to access in terms of the cost in time, money and energy needed to get there. Around the study site in Nicaragua the ‘green’ areas were easier to access time and cost wise, and were constructed ‘nature’ in the form of parks, plazas, and the pier. In Brazil the shorefront round the reservoir was protected and thus left as ‘natural’ and only a few small bars existed there, nothing else. In Nicaragua the lake’s shorefront had been formalised, cemented over with a pier constructed and the area commercialised. It raises the question – how green are the green spaces of Nicaragua? This points to the need to consider the nature of the ‘grey’ in grey/green spaces.

3.4.4  Grey and Green … Pink, Yellow, Red and Purple Spaces Around ½ to 1  km walk from the community in Nicaragua lies a big park/plaza which is where the respondents reported going to walk. As in Brazil it is the recreational rather than environmental value that draws people to the area, grey over green. When asked why they visited the area 37% said they liked the opportunities for exercise, to enjoy recreational and cultural events, while only 10% said they

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went because of the leafy/green environment. Perhaps more interestingly 26% said they went there precisely because of the features that had been installed by the government to tempt people to visit or to ‘go outdoors’ – a dancing fountain that children love to run around (and that acts as a free shower for water short and cash strapped households) and the free wifi meaning people go to ‘WhatsApp’iar’ friends and family. People were also attracted by the built infrastructure which while seeing green areas concreted over did not produce a grey environment per se. To understand public spaces in Nicaragua means moving beyond the notion of green and blue spaces, and the notion of grey/green spaces, since public spaces are green, and pink, yellow, red and purple spaces, with benches and railings, steps and gates, concrete floors and even trees painted in these bright colours. While these areas cannot be described as ‘natural’, the colours make them inviting, the services offered (e.g. fountains and wifi) are useful, and to ensure everyone can visit, they are policed meaning they are considered to be safe spaces for all. in Brazil the locals bemoaned the reduced policing around the reservoir and the increased crime “In the old times there was a lot of security, the police were more engaged. Nowadays no, there is little security.…” While the opposite is true in Nicaragua “before even taxis would not drive in [to the community] for fear of being robbed, now they come in at any time, people can walk around at any time, it is safe now”. Policing is of course a political act, and in particular policing (or not) of public spaces is determined by politics. The policing of the area around the community in Managua is not because of the community, but because of the area around the community, and the desire by the government to attract locals and tourists to the plaza and shorefront. The by-­ product is that the people in the nearby communities feel safer which influences how they engage with the public spaces and their own neighbourhood. It also influences who engages with public spaces.

3.4.5  Gendered Understandings of Green Spaces In Brazil the countryside emerged as a masculinised space, and more men reported walking in the countryside compared to women (46% compared to 36%). As one male participant noted, after eloquently explaining how beautiful a local natural area was, “Men can go anywhere, but women unfortunately don’t go and they don’t want to”. The idea that women ‘don’t want to go’ is of course debatable, and while sex is important it is gendered constructions of roles and social norms that are more important in determining access – in particular fear of violence. In terms of how issues of security interact with gendered understandings of green spaces there were differences between the two communities. In Brazil, women are less likely than men to consider it safe to walk around their local area in the day and during the night while in Nicaragua, women are more likely than men to feel safe walking outside the neighbourhood. However, this still does not translate to more women spending time outside and actually visiting surrounding green and blue areas and in Nicaragua while women feel safe, as in Brazil, they were still less likely than men to actually walk in the areas surrounding the neighbourhood. This

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suggests it is gender norms, not just ideas of safety, that keep women in the home. For example, gendered roles mean women tend to be ‘time poor’ compared to men – with many engaged in income-generating activities as well as taking responsibility for housework. If visiting the countryside demands a long and arduous trip on bad roads, they may be less inclined (as women are more likely to be poor, and may have less access to a private vehicle) and have less time (due to dual workload) to visit. Time may also limit their ability and desire to visit local green spaces, preferring to rest at home in their ‘free’ time. However, one assumed gendered social norm was not borne out in the studies, that of women as being ‘closer to nature’. In both communities women are less likely to attach importance to green areas, woods and blue spaces (Brazil) and less likely to mention the benefits of green areas and less likely to report being upset if there were fewer green areas (Nicaragua). In Brazil we might suggest this is because women don’t go to green or even ‘grey-­green’ spaces as they are seen to be dangerous. In part this is because they are ‘too green’, and many respondents talked about green areas that were not ‘maintained’ as ‘dirty’, meaning ‘natural’ nature or the countryside was often seen as something that needs to be tamed or ordered. In Nicaragua the ‘green’ areas that women access and value are ordered and the nature there is tamed. They are not just green, but are multi-coloured and it is this which is attractive, not the ‘greenness’ per se. So, has the multicoloured taken over from green? The case of the multicoloured ‘Trees of Life’ in Nicaragua suggest there is a limit to how far people will accept constructed ‘nature’ (Fig. 3.3).

Fig. 3.3  The ‘Trees of Life’ in Nicaragua

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3.4.6  Trees of Life: Unnatural Assets? The Trees of Life are large (approximately 15 metre high) metal constructs made up of hundreds of lightbulbs. During the day they dominate the landscape, while at night they illuminate it. While accepting that when lit up they are a sight to see, for those that live close by they give out a lot of heat with a related question over the cost of the electricity and the cost to the environment. As a local resident notes: “… if we plant trees by the lake they grow, but the Trees of Life … they cause damage, all that heat, all that energy…”. The official, governmental narrative constructs the Trees of Life as bringing joy to the people, but the respondents in the study still prefer living trees over the Trees of Life. Going back to the notion of natural assets and ecosystem services, the services provided by the trees are understood: “The ‘real’ trees close to the lake feed the lake, the Trees of Life light it up and show it off, but the real trees they support it” and trees as assets are valued not just for the benefits to the lake but aesthetically and on a personal level: “how can I put this, if a tree fell down, this here Mango tree, this tree that has been here since I have been here, if this tree was cut down I would miss it, but if they took down a Tree of Life I would not miss it because it is metal. This [the Mango] is a real tree of life ….”

3.5  Constructions of Nature: Concluding Thoughts While all nature is constructed, both materially and discursively, some natural spaces are more constructed than others. This chapter highlights how the nature of the ‘natural’ is important for how people engage with it. This is not to say that people do not understand the importance of nature. As the study findings demonstrate, the residents of the two communities recognize green spaces are important for personal and planetary wellbeing. They also recognize the diverse range of services that nature provides from the intangible, such as oxygenating the planet, to the keenly felt, such as giving shade and regulating heat. However, while recognizing these important services, at times they still felt they could not preserve natural areas in their homes, and back patios and vegetable gardens are sacrificed to build extra rooms, while trees are cut down for the threat that they might pose to property. While cutting down trees was seen as ‘bad behaviour’, the bad behaviour that trees were perceived to promote could also lead to them being cut down. While this was a ‘private’ decision, the consequences could be ‘public’, especially in contexts where there are few public trees to give shade. However, when there is public nature, this was often seen as problematic and this was linked to its ‘naturalness’. While valuing nature, what the study findings suggest is that many people prefer nature to be less ‘natural’, and well managed natural spaces are those that are considered not just more beautiful, but also safer. Safety, or better stated, perceptions of danger, are important for explaining if and how people engage with green spaces. While the policing of public spaces in part determines feelings of safety, other

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‘political’ decisions, such as maintaining or not a local park, also influence how people engage with it. People who walked in the green spaces surrounding their neighbourhood were more likely to be those who feel safe when walking around the neighbourhood. This suggests that feelings of insecurity in one’s daily or ‘normal’ environment can mean that ‘non-normal’ environments, such as the countryside, are perceived to be similarly unsafe. In this case it is not the ‘naturalness’ or otherwise of the countryside that creates fear, but fear translates and replicates from one context to another. That being said, the nature of local green spaces in a neighbourhood, its squares and open spaces, helped create a feeling of insecurity in the neighbourhood, that then translates and replicates to other, less local green spaces and the countryside. The balance of the natural and the built environment has a role to play in notions of security in local green spaces in the Global South. In the urban contexts studied here, these spaces are often more grey than green, but it is this ‘non-greenness’ that often attracts people – they go not for environmental but for social and recreational reasons, indicating that to enjoy the outdoors demands having something to do, other than to ‘just look at’ the natural environment. While those who stress the green in grey/green often see the grey as problematic in aesthetic terms, non-green does not have to be dull as the Trees of Life in Nicaragua demonstrate. The Nicaraguan case suggests making ‘green’ spaces attractive may include concreting them over and painting them bright colours to appeal to people meaning they will go there, and enjoy the social and recreation benefits that ‘green spaces’ are said to bring. The study suggests that not all green spaces that are said to be good for us are known or seen by ‘us’ to be good. ‘Good’ is a subjective notion and depends on understandings of ‘green’. In some cases this may mean green spaces are green, plus yellow, pink, purple and red. Such notions pose challenges for those aiming to ‘green’ the urban environment which, as this chapter has demonstrated, can hold a multitude of meanings. Acknowledgements  This paper draws on work undertaken as part of a Newton Fund Research Partnership scheme grant (ES/M011631/1 – jointly funded by RCUK and FAPEMG). We would like to acknowledge the work of Nilo Nascimento and Heloisa Costa (Federal University of Minas Gerais), Rebecca Wade (Abertay university) and Meri Juntti (Middlesex University) on this project. We would particularly like to thank Indira Nahomi Viana Caballero, Yumi Oki, and Rogério Brittes W. Pires who undertook the fieldwork in Brazil. In Nicaragua we benefited from HEFCE Overseas Development Assistance funding and we would like to thank Karla Bojorge M. and her team for undertaking the fieldwork there. Our particular thanks goes to all those who agreed to be interviewed in both countries, for sharing their time and thoughts with us.

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Chapter 4

Making a Governable, Value-able Nature: Calculative Practices and Eco-system Services John Henneberry, Jing Ma, and Riccardo Privitera

Abstract  There is a global movement to describe the natural environment as a set of ecosystem services that have economic value. Increasingly, the approach has been adopted by governments and, in response, by non-profit organizations to inform decisions about the provision and allocation of resources. The subjection of nature to an economic rationale has been much criticised. Some of the arguments are philosophical, pointing to the inability of economics to capture the extraordinary, intrinsic character of nature. Other arguments are more practical and highlight the difficulty of determining the economic value of a good – nature – that is not traded. These criticisms have considerable force. But a different perspective on valuing nature is adopted in this chapter by considering what is done to nature in order to make it amenable to calculation. So, rather than taking the numbers that are attached to nature as given  – and then debating the shortcomings of quantifying nature  – we explore the actions necessary to generate these numbers in the first place. The accepted means of qualifying, quantifying and valuing nature is the product of a huge amount of social, cultural, political and economic work: work that is necessary to maintain the primacy of such an approach. Keywords  Valuation · Ecosystem services · Economic value · Urban green space · Quantifying nature · Cost-benefit analysis

J. Henneberry (*) · J. Ma Department of Urban Studies and Planning, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK e-mail: [email protected] R. Privitera Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, University of Catania, Catania, Italy © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 N. Dempsey, J. Dobson (eds.), Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44480-8_4

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4.1  Introduction: Numbers and Nature The modern state has long pursued ways to perceive and describe society that enhance its ability to control and manage it (Scott 1998). Through the use of censuses of people or businesses, registers of voters or taxpayers, surveys and maps of land and buildings and so on, a simplified, rationalised, standardised representation of society  – and one that highlighted those matters of interest to the state  – was produced. The organization of the natural world was no exception. […] all seemed calculated to make the terrain, its products, and its workforce more legible — and hence manipulable—from above and from the center. (Scott 1998, p. 2)

The pursuit of modernist, rationalist governance has continued, extending its reach and complexity, and varying its detailed form to cope with evolving circumstances. Over the last 50 years, corporatism has gradually been displaced by neoliberalism as the dominant form of political economy. In parallel, dirigiste state intervention has been superseded by laissez faire market-based policies and practices in both economic and political spheres. These fundamental trends have, in recent times, been reinforced by the development, inter alia, of New Public Management (Christensen and Laegreid 2017), post-political decision-making (Wilson and Swyngedouw 2014), financialisation (Christopherson et al. 2013) and globalisation (Erntson and Sorlin 2013). Miller (2001) argues that an essential element and enabler of this political-­ economic restructuring is management through measurement or ‘governing by numbers’. Proper definition, quantification and valuation of things are essential to rational decision-making about things. In turn, these decisions support efficient, effective governance in both public and private sectors, and the operation of markets so that they distribute resources in equally efficient and effective ways. However, the maintenance and development of such a project requires significant work from a supporting network of actors to justify the approach as so ‘obvious’, ‘natural’ or ‘common sense’ that it does not need to be questioned. The network must also establish a regime of organisations, experts and practices to legitimate and operate the system. To participate in this system requires compliance with its methods, criteria and standards. This applies to the subjects of calculations, the calculations themselves and the calculators. The natural environment is no less affected by these arrangements than other elements of society. They determine what parts of nature get calculated, what calculations are undertaken on those parts and by whom. To understand the implications for nature, the constitution of calculative regimes and nature’s position within them need to be considered.

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4.1.1  The Structure of Calculative Regimes Markets are not pre-existing exogenous entities within which transactions occur more or less imperfectly in compliance with the neo-classical paradigm. Rather they, and the state sectors that manage and regulate them, are socially constructed, endogenous elements of the economy and wider society (Callon 1998). Consequently, there is no such thing as ‘the market’ or ‘the state’. Rather, there are myriad markets (Law 2002) and state forms (Macartney 2011) each with a distinct character determined by at least two levels of influence. First, at the structural level, the focus is on how an economy and the markets that constitute it relate to the state, and how both are integrated into wider society. Polanyi (1957) suggests that different arrangements exhibit different combinations of reciprocity, redistribution and exchange, with the current dominant form, neoliberalism, placing great emphasis on the latter and the price setting that results (Wilk 1996). Second, there is the operational level. The identification of various natural entities, the management of some by the state and the development of others into goods and the operation of their markets is supported by particular assemblages of actors with specific sets of capabilities (Barrey et al. 2000). A natural entity must be qualified and quantified, and its characteristics clearly defined and fixed, before it can be managed or traded (Araujo 2007; Callon et  al. 2002; Power 2004). This work is done by an array of public and private actors that, in some combination, identify, design, finance, produce, manage, market, sell, purchase and consume the good. Each actor contributes to this praxis in co-operative, competitive or unconnected ways (Callon and Muniesa 2005). Consequently, “… different types of market will differ in the specific configuration of … agencies mobilized and the distribution of power amongst these agencies …” (Araujo 2007, p. 221). These actors format the states and markets in which they are engaged and the latter’s particular institutional structures become established. In support of this formatting process “… counting, control and calculation [have] evolved into highly institutionalized forms …” (Araujo 2007, p.  216–217; citing Callon et al. 2002; Miller 2001; Power 2004). The operation of states, markets and economies involves calculations, monetary interchanges, transactions and financial relations of all kinds. There is a complex interplay between the character and performance of these calculative practices and the organization and management of wider social relations. Following Miller (1994), three aspects of these inter-relations may be identified. The first is calculation as technology. This is an instrumental view but by no means a mechanical or neutral one. To calculate the extent and value of a natural asset or the costs and returns of a natural process or activity is to alter the way in which it is perceived and treated. When the benefits of different options are explicated and stated in a particular way (the results of the calculations to which they are

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subject) this changes our attitude to each option (both in relation to the other options and generally). “Even if individuals seek to avoid or subvert the calculations made … by them, the economic norm installed by such calculations remains in place and provides a more or less enduring reference point.” (Miller 1994, p. 2). The second is the rationales of calculations that are embodied in the complex language and meanings intrinsic to them. These rationales mobilise calculative technologies. For example, appraisals of alternative public or private investments – in, say, green infrastructure – are rooted in and allow the exercise of choice (mediated in a way particular to the calculative method employed), a fundamental element of managerial decision-making. It is such practices that make economic and management abstractions such as cost or profit or rate of return calculable and knowable. Thus these rationales provide the basis for the wider diffusion and elaboration of calculative technologies. Thirdly, the economic and state domains are constituted and reconstituted by the changing calculative practices that define and provide understanding of them. Highly disparate ways of producing and managing things are made knowable in economic terms. Calculative technologies make operable the concepts incorporated in economic and governance theory. Such concepts can be defined and presented as discounted cash flows, incomes of varying types, collections of real and financial assets, and many other things. Calculation, counting and accounting render these concepts and processes visible in numerical and financial terms. However, over time calculative expertise changes, altering the reciprocal relations between calculative practices and social relations. The three aspects of calculative practice are inter-dependent. The selection and application of a particular type of calculation depends on the rationale – the purpose and objective – for using it. The emergence of new rationales may result in demands for more ac/counting or new ways of ac/counting. Conversely, as time passes and contexts vary, a particular calculative technology may be harnessed to a different rationale. In combination, calculative practices in pursuit of the related rationales that give them their significance may constitute and reconstitute the wider social realm within which they are embedded – or they may be reformed and re-orientated by changes in that realm.

4.1.2  Political Economy and Calculative Practice At any particular time, dominant agents and practices set the terms of exchange, legitimating and facilitating certain ways of organising and running business and regulatory activities, the economy and wider society (Lovell and Smith 2010; after Callon and Muniesa 2005). Procedures can be marshalled not just by companies but also by other organisations such as interest groups, professions, universities and governments. Working in broad concert, such bodies support the standardisation of government, commercial and economic practices. This reinforces the status of existing approaches to calculation, the calculative agencies that deploy them and the

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sectors and markets within which they operate. Established actors also call upon the objectivity and neutrality widely accorded to numbers (Porter 1995) to justify the existing order. Calculative techniques such as natural capital accounting or cost-benefit analysis of alternative green investments  – and the numbers that they produce  – are not developed and applied solely as part of a rational, instrumental march of intellectual progress (as Parker (1968) might have it). Rather, numbers are products of formalizing calculative practices (Lampland 2010)  – of definition, classification, standardisation, stabilisation, measurement and manipulation – that have an essential social dimension. They are not merely objectively representational. They shape and manage entities and relationships. They have agency. Consequently, calculative practices are vehicles for the exercise of power: partial and biased mechanisms that further the interests of some classes or groups over others. Different results arise from different calculations and favour different actors. Promoters of a new calculative technique face a fundamental decision. Should they seek the acceptance of the established calculative assemblage? This comes at a price: the technique must subject itself to and comply with the requirements of the dominant agencies and calculative practices to gain their support. Or, alternatively, should they try to alter the make-up of the assemblage and the nature of the calculative practices that it pursues? In this way the new approach will disrupt old ways and introduce new ones that may reinforce or undermine existing economic rationales. Developments in calculative practices are, therefore, not simply the result of technical advances but are also an indication of whose techniques and rationales are being articulated. Thus the rise and establishment of new practices may provide evidence of which interests have successfully promoted ‘their’ practices (Lovell and Smith 2010; Miller 2001). One such new practice is that of valuing nature. It is clear that the calculative regime that supports this practice is positioned firmly within the neoliberal perspective, lending scientific support to the harnessing of nature by market economics. Its growth has been underpinned by the argument that, in a world where the market is the dominant mechanism for distributing scarce resources, those assets that cannot be priced and traded are either undervalued or overlooked (Dempsey and Robertson 2012). “A major reason for the decline of ecosystem services is that their true values are not taken into consideration in economic decision making.” (Ring et al. 2010: 1) Putting a price on nature allows it to be included in the market calculus and, thereby, to be noticed (Salles 2013; Scales 2015). Such an approach involves applying established calculative technologies that embody established rationales to new subjects: natural entities that have not previously been valued. Compliance with the mainstream has had the advantage of the relatively rapid acceptance of the means and ends of valuing nature. This has given rise to the global movement to describe the natural environment as a set of ecosystem services (ES) that have economic value. ES provide an integrated framework for managing ecosystems in an increasingly human-dominated world (Lele et al. 2013). ES are components of nature, directly enjoyed, consumed or used to yield human wellbeing (Boyd and Banzhaf 2007) but also interlinked with cultural, social, material and

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human resources (Evers et al. 2018; Dawson and Martin 2015). Thus, ES can be defined as the aspects of ecosystems utilised (actively or passively) to produce human wellbeing (Fisher et al. 2009) or, conversely, the direct and indirect contributions of ecosystems to human wellbeing (TEEB 2010). This ‘nature for people’ paradigm (Mace et  al. 2012) has increasingly been adopted by governments and non-profit organizations to frame, plan and allocate resources (Posner et  al. 2016). The ES project involves scientists, economists, resource managers, administrators and policy makers, NGOs, regional and national governments, and supra-national bodies. It has shaped development policy and environmental governance at the highest levels (Dempsey and Robertson 2012; Ernstson and Sorlin 2013) and is underpinned by a substantial volume of ongoing empirical research that includes the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA 2005) and The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB 2010). Over the last 20 years an industry has developed that values different aspects of nature in different ways. But what of the price paid for this acceptance by the establishment? What has it done to or for nature? The move to subject nature to an economic rationale, to make it value-able and marketable, has been much criticised. Some of the arguments are philosophical, pointing to the inability of economics to capture the extraordinary, intrinsic character of an holistic nature. Other arguments are more practical and highlight the difficulty of determining the economic value of a good – nature – that is not traded (for discussion of these points see, for example, Dempsey and Robertson 2012; Ernstson and Sorlin 2013; Heynen et al. 2007). A particular concern about the drive to value nature is that it promotes the commodification and financialisation of nature (Bakker 2007; Scales 2015). These criticisms have considerable force. But a different perspective on valuing nature is adopted here by considering what is done to nature in order to make it amenable to calculation. So, rather than taking the numbers that are attached to nature as given – and then debating the shortcomings of quantifying nature – we will explore the actions necessary to generate these numbers in the first place.

4.2  Making Nature Governable and Value-Able Following a commitment made in 2011 in the White Paper, The Natural Choice: securing the value of nature (HMG 2011), the British government is pursuing a strategy to incorporate natural capital into the UK Environmental Accounts by 2020 (ONS 2017). This work is being undertaken in line with the principles set out in the United Nations System for Economic-Environmental Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) framework (UN 2014) and expanded in extant associated technical guidance (UN 2018). Natural capital accounts … are developed to be conceptually consistent with the System of National Accounts, in order to facilitate comparison and potential integration with accounting data for the wider economy… [this] is necessary if natural capital is to be mainstreamed in decision-­making… Accounting relies on clear definition and classification of activities in order to avoid

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double-counting and maintain consistent and comparable estimates between components and over time … In accounting terms, a service is a flow between a supplier of the service and the recipient of the service. The flow of ecosystem services – which may not be a movement in any physical sense – represents a ‘transaction’ between 2 economic entities, with the ecosystem being the supplier and one or more economic actors being the recipient … Within the accounting framework, monetary valuation provides a common metric through which services can be aggregated and compared… (ONS 2017, p.  3–4, 22, 30, emphasis added).

So two things must be done to nature in order for it to be accounted. First, its myriad elements must be described and defined and, simultaneously, be classified: placed into categories that comprise the physical accounts (ONS 2017). Second, a value must be assigned to the ecosystem services that are produced by each class of nature: these comprise the monetary accounts (ONS 2017). But what do these processes entail?

4.2.1  T  he Qualification and Classification of Natural Environments If they are to be performed, calculations must have a distinguishable and distinctive subject. That is, the subject must be clearly defined and objectified, on the one hand, and differentiated and individualised, on the other (Callon and Muniesa 2005). Unless a phenomenon is one of a class of uniform entities, to be a countable quantum that may be subject to the operational use of numbers it must be placed in one or several categories1 (Crump 1990; Power, 2004; Lamont 2012). The qualification and classification of entities may be undertaken at different levels. Take trees as an example. A tree is an entity that has a particular role in nature. But this role varies by the type of tree (oak, beech, spruce, fir, etc.) and its characteristics (age, health, height, habit, etc.), so we may want to break down the entity of a ‘tree’ into finer elements. Alternatively, we may place trees into larger categories determined by shared characteristics (broadleaved or coniferous trees, for example), some other aspect such as scale (copses, woods, forests, etc.) or a combination of both descriptors (coniferous woodland, for example). Classification is achieved through the identification of the entity’s essential, common qualities and the ignorance of its inessential particularities: that is, through a process of abstraction and simplification (Crump 1990; Power 2004). This is evident in the development of the UK’s Natural Capital Accounts. The physical accounts are based on the Land Cover Map 2015 (ONS 2017) that identifies 23 habitat classes (21 rural and two urban classes within eight broad habitats, see Table  4.1) covering the whole of Britain (CEH 2017a). In practice this is very useful. But in principle it is problematic. Both the strengths and the weaknesses arise from the characteristics of classifications. Take the habitat class ‘broadleaved  These categories may, in turn, fit into one or several hierarchies (Lamont 2012).

1

66 Table 4.1  UK Broad Habitats and Land Cover Map (LCM) Habitat Classes

J. Henneberry et al. Broad habitat Woodland

LCM habitat class 1 Broadleaved woodland 2 Coniferous woodland Enclosed farmland 3 Arable and horticulture 4 Improved grassland Semi-natural grassland 5 Rough grassland 6 Neutral grassland 7 Calcareous grassland 8 Acid grassland Open water, wetlands, floodplains 9 Fen, marsh and swamp 12 Bog 16 Freshwater Mountain, moorlands, heaths 10 Heather 11 Heather grassland 13 Montane habitats 14 Inland rock Marine 15 Salt water 19 Littoral rock 20 Littoral sediment Coastal margins 17 Supra-littoral rock 18 Supra-littoral sediment 21 Saltmarsh Urban 22 Urban 23 Suburban Source: derived from ONS (2017), Table 3.1, pp. 15–16

woodland’. “Broadleaved woodlands are characterised by stands >5 m high with tree cover >20%; scrub (30% for inclusion …” (CEH 2017b: 15). In these terms, all broadleaved woodland is the same and performs a uniform natural role, despite the wide variation that may occur in its characteristics. We can say this only because we ignore the differences that trees’ species, ages, sizes, health and so on might make, because these features are excluded from the definition. Indeed, we can “… not see the real, existing forest for the … trees […] The forest as a habitat disappears …” (Scott 1998, p. 13). Going further, all individual elements of Britain’s natural environment must be placed in specific categories, those categories must be clearly mapped and the resulting areas must together incorporate all of nature, if double counting is to be avoided and comprehensive coverage is to be achieved. Nature must be made to fit this template. For example, in the above classification there is no such category as mixed woodland, so mixed woodland does not exist in its terms. In addition, each area of habitat, defined in contiguous 25 metre squares, is assumed to consist entirely of the relevant land cover type (ONS 2017), so there is always a clear-cut boundary between different habitats whether they segue into one another or not. Thus, the process of classification produces a neat representation of nature that is

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amenable to counting and measurement, but one that is not accurate in representing the highly variegated reality of nature in situ. The reduction of complexity has its own value. It is the basis for a shared language to support decision-making and policy, such as that relating to the economic value of nature or to natural capital. One that is apparently objective, free of bias and worthy of trust and legitimacy. In addition, the process of sorting, clustering and classification makes entities both comparable and different, allowing them to be positioned in relation to complements and substitutes (Callon and Muniesa 2005).

4.2.2  The ‘Unbundling’ of Ecosystems into Categories The representation of nature as a limited set of habitat classes makes it amenable to calculation. A similar but different problem is posed by nature being simultaneously holistic and infinitely varied: characteristics that hold at multiple levels, including that of the habitat class. Such an entity cannot be valued because it cannot be distinguished and specified. So it must be ‘unbundled’ into separate, clearly defined elements (Robertson 2012). The dominant, almost ubiquitous, typology of such elements is that proposed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment in its list of ecosystem services (MEA 2003; see Table 4.2).2 It is precisely this decomposition of nature, driven by the need to make it calculable and value-able, that is at the root of many criticisms of the ES approach. Inter-related problems of practice and principle arise. Have the correct elements of nature (ES) been identified? What are the implications for the estimation of value of the interaction between different ES? Regression techniques can be used to sort out the level of relatedness between each stick [ES] in the bundle [habitat/ecosystem], but the foundational conceit of the bundle that can be decomposed into components remains … Value, if and when it comes to rest in the social abstraction that stands in for the complicated ecosystem, comes from the success of rendering the ecosystem measurable and comparable with other ecosystems, not from nature itself. (Robertson 2012, p. [393], square brackets added).

The identification, definition, standardisation, maintenance and regulation of categories require the application of significant resources and effort by a trained and coherent workforce (Porter 1994): ecologists and economists in the case of natural capital accounting. Technologies must be developed for the stabilisation and institutionalisation of standards, thresholds and other criteria that determine categories, such as the United Nations System for Economic-Environmental Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) framework (UN 2014). It also involves the building of consensus over the definition of classes and categories, allowing them to be transferred across contexts (for example, the 25 metre squares are known as Basic Spatial Units in the SEEA (UN 2014)). Essential to this process of consolidation is the presence of third parties and/or arbitrators (Lamont 2012). “Once accepted, such systems appear natural and incontestable.” (Power 2004,  Although there is great variation in the detailed development and in the application of the typology to suit different objectives and contexts. 2

68 Table 4.2 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment typology of Ecosystem Services

J. Henneberry et al. Ecosystem Service Supporting Services Services necessary for the production of all other ecosystem services

Soil formation Nutrient cycling Primary production

Provisioning Services Products obtained from ecosystems Food Fresh water Fuelwood Fibre Biochemicals Genetic resources Regulating Services Benefits obtained from regulation Climate regulation of ecosystem processes Disease regulation Water regulation Water purification Cultural Services Non-material benefits obtained Spiritual and religious from ecosystems Recreation and ecotourism Aesthetic Inspirational Educational Sense of place Cultural heritage Source: derived from MEA (2003), Fig. 1, p. 5

p. 767) But they remain social institutions that are open to challenge. Indeed, controversies over categories illustrate the latter’s power to re/define and re/shape things and the wider world (Porter 1994). Categories incorporate some characteristics of an entity and reject others. They make things partial and reduce difference. What is excluded are those factors that are not recognised or favoured by the extant, dominant community of practice. This is a matter of judgement. Entities, once defined and classified, may be measured or counted. “Measurement, by its own definition, is the application for purposes of ‘common utility’ of number to measure.” (Crump 1990, p.  73) Conceptually, this requires the recognition of some property or dimension possessed by all members of a class (such as weight or length or area) and the application of a measure to it (such as the gram or the metre or the hectare). The unit of measure that is used will depend upon the class of subject entity, the purpose of measurement and – to a diminishing degree – local socio-­ cultural circumstances. The specifics of units of measure and of the relations between them are less important than their standardisation and compatibility. The counting or measurement of categories or their constituents again involves selection and simplification. We apply numbers to those features of classes or class

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members that are important or measurable or both and ignore or exclude other features that do not meet those criteria. We measure by how much trees reduce pluvial run-off but not by how beautiful they are. By attaching numbers to bits of nature we imbue nature with the properties of numbers such as their apparent order and precision. And once numbers, measures, classes and categories become established and standardised – as they are in the practice of valuing nature – they become transferable and are able to transcend the particular contexts, whether locational or functional, within which they were generated. All of these factors are reflected in techniques used to value nature.

4.3  Valuing Nature While there is considerable variation in its detailed application, the predominant approach to valuing nature is within the ES framework. For example, Lawson et al. (2018, p. 5) show “…how natural capital assets in English floodplains are translated by providing services into benefits …” that have value. Similarly, Sunderland et al. (2019 p. v) utilise a ‘natural capital logic chain’ that portrays “…the natural environment as a stock of assets. These assets enable a flow of ecosystem services to people, who benefit from them, and therefore value them.” Figure 4.1 illustrates the approach. The starting point is a biophysical structure (or habitat or natural asset) such as an area of broadleaved woodland in an urban area. This performs various ecological functions such as evapo-transpiration, providing shade, blocking wind and so on. These functions deliver ecosystem services; for example, the regulation of the

Biophysical

Ecosystem

Ecosystem

Human

Societal

Structure

Function

Service

Benefit

Value

ecosystems rural and urban natural environments

metrics/indicators for measuring biophysical and ecological features of ecosystems

identification and measurement of services provided by ecosystems

ecological, social and economic benefits to be valued

different values that might be attached to each benefit

Broadleaved trees or woodland in urban areas

Shade, evapotranspiration, wind blocking

Micro-climate regulation

Enhances in/outdoor thermal comfort

Reduction of urban heat island effect in summer; allowing solar gain in winter

More comfortable working conditions; decrease in heat stroke and exhaustion, and in mental/behavioural disorders

Value of reduced energy costs for buildings; value of increased labour productivity; value of medical costs avoided

Metric/indicator: temperature reduction (°C) per hectare of tree canopy

Fig. 4.1  An ecosystem services framework for valuing nature. (Source: the authors)

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surrounding micro-climate by reducing the urban heat island effect in summer. The scale/extent of a service may be estimated through the application of relevant scientific metrics or indicators. Humans benefit from these services through increases in thermal comfort that result in more comfortable working and living conditions and reduced incidence of heat stroke and heat exhaustion and of related mental or behavioural disorders. A value may be attached to each benefit by, for example, estimating the reduced energy costs of cooling business and residential accommodation; or the value of increased labour productivity; or the value of medical costs avoided. What is not clear from the framework is that the quality and quantity of available empirical data declines with each step in the ES valuation process (Sunderland et al. 2019). Figure 4.1 also fails to demonstrate the sheer complexity of undertaking a detailed valuation of the ES provided by a natural asset because it omits the myriad functions, services, benefits and values that arise. The following worked examples will illustrate these and other points.

4.3.1  A  Natural Capital Account of Sheffield’s Parks and Green Spaces Sheffield City Council has a portfolio of about 4,100 hectares of parks and public green spaces. In 2016 Vivid Economics3 prepared a natural capital account of Sheffield’s parks and green spaces as a prototype for similar exercises in other places (Vivid Economics 2016). The latest published multi-disciplinary evidence was used in estimating the value of each asset. Where relevant data were unavailable, assumptions had to be made. The results of the accounting are described in Table 4.3. Apart from some very limited direct income from charges and leases (capitalised over 30 years at the social discount rate of 3.5%, as were the annual values of each asset), all the asset values were made up of various ES. Cultural ES were predominant. They accounted for over 75% of the estimated natural capital value of Sheffield’s parks and green spaces. Other ES – supporting, provisioning and regulating services – accounted for 23% of the value of Sheffield’s parks. This imbalance between cultural and other ES arises from the urban location of the study. It is a function of the large population of residents and businesses and the extensive stock of buildings that are located close to the parks and green spaces.4 Two of the most important assets are those related to physical and mental health benefits. Together, they account for over half (53%) of the natural capital value of Sheffield’s parks. The estimation of their value will be considered in more detail to

 Vivid Economics is an applied economics consultancy (see http://www.vivideconomics.com/)  The value of cultural ES is exceeded by that of other ES in natural capital accounts of rural habitats (see, for example, Lawson et al. 2018; Sunderland et al. 2019). 3 4

4  Making a Governable, Value-able Nature: Calculative Practices and Eco-system… Table 4.3 Natural capital accounts for Sheffield’s parks and green spaces

Assets Direct of which Recreation Parking Lease (commercial/cafes) Grants Cultural ES of which Physical health Mental health Residential property uplift Crime Other ES of which Fibre (timber) Clean air Carbon storage (trees/soil) Temperature Wildlife Flood risk management Gross asset value Liabilities Operational expenditure CAPEX (backlog) Total liabilities Total net asset value

£ million 18 3 2 10 3 1,002 554 145 237 66 301 2 89 120 84 4 2 1,321

71

% 1.36% 0.23% 0.15% 0.76% 0.23% 75.85% 41.94% 10.98% 17.94% 5.00% 22.79% 0.15% 6.74% 9.08% 6.36% 0.30% 0.15% 100.00%

23 14 37 1,284

Source: derived from Vivid Economics (2016, Table 1, p. 3)

illustrate how such values are derived. First, the physical health benefits of parks are considered. Physical activity reduces the risk of major diseases, notably cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, obesity and dementia, by 20–35% (Department of Health 2011). Access to parks and green spaces encourages such physical activity. The physical health benefit of parks is based on this relationship and arises from the savings in health care costs resulting from more physical activity. Vivid Economics’ (2016; and supporting notes to the accounts) estimate of the value of this benefit was undertaken in five stages. 1. The British Heart Foundation’s (BHF 2015) estimate of expenditure on CVD by the NHS was obtained for the UK. To avoid underestimating the costs, the BHF incorporated the findings of a report by the Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR 2014; cited in BHF 2015, p. 125) that considered the loss of productivity due to mortality and morbidity.

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2. The estimate of the reduction in the risk of CVD – of up to 50% – resulting from regular exercise was derived from a meta-review of relevant US studies undertaken by Franklin and McCullough (2009). 3. An assumption was made that the proportion of the at-risk population (that is, the UK population) going to a park or green space for exercise is 20% (this implies that access to parks reduces CVD by about 10%). 4. The population of Sheffield was expressed as a percentage of the population of the UK (the relevant ONS data were used). 5. The saving in healthcare costs was calculated as 1 (£s) x 2 (%) x 3 (%) x 4 (%). Similar estimates were made of the costs of type 2 diabetes, obesity and dementia to produce an overall estimate of health cost savings of £554 million. A six-stage approach was taken to the estimation of the mental healthcare savings arising from access to parks and green spaces. 1. Data on the total cost of mental ill health in England in 2009 was obtained from the Centre for Mental Health (CMH 2010). 2. Sturm and Cohen’s (2014) research on neighbourhood parks in Los Angeles reported that access to a nearby urban park is associated with the same mental health benefits as a 2% decrease in the local unemployment rate. 3. Farré et  al. (2015), in a study of the effects of the 2008/09 recession on the Spanish construction sector, found that a 10% increase in the unemployment rate raised mental disorders in the affected population by 3% (implying that a 2% decrease in the unemployment rate would decrease mental health disorders in the affected population by 0.6%). 4. An assumption was made that the proportion of the at-risk population (that is, the population of England) with access to a park or green space is between 20% and 40%. 5. The population of Sheffield was expressed as a percentage of the population of the UK (the relevant ONS data were used). 6. The saving in the cost of mental healthcare was calculated as 1 (£s) x 2 (%) x 3 (%) x 4 (%) x 5 (%). This produced an estimated saving in mental healthcare costs arising from access to parks in Sheffield of £145 million. The estimation of physical and mental healthcare cost savings in Sheffield resulting from the use of the city’s parks and green spaces raises issues about the transfer and translation of numbers. Numbers are differentiated significantly from words by the former’s apparent order, precision, stability, combinability and mobility (Hansen and Porter 2012). When numbers are applied to entities they describe those entities in selective, reduced, simplified form (Porter 1994), and inscribe the entities with the properties of numbers (Robson 1992). Thus natural entities, once quantified, are enrolled in wider systems of numbers: systems in which numbers may be produced and consumed by different actors. Normal practice in CBA, via the benefits transfer technique, involves just such interplay of numbers. The result is that numbers become separated from their

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original data sources and are  applied  – in ways unqualified in relation to those sources – to conceptually different subjects and contexts (Power 2004). Thus US data on the reduction in the risk of CVD arising from increased exercise is incorporated into a Sheffield study and combined with UK-level data on the costs of CVD. And the impact of access to local parks on mental health in Los Angeles is applied to Sheffield and calibrated with data relating to the mental health of redundant Spanish construction workers. The calculator exercises power and influence over an entity that is greatly removed conceptually, physically or otherwise from her, extending the reach of numbers.

4.3.2  A  Natural Capital Account of the Ponderosa Park, Sheffield The Ponderosa Park is located to the north west of Sheffield city centre (see Fig. 4.2 and Fig. 4.3). It extends to 11.27 hectares, about half of which is categorised as ‘improved grassland’ and half as ‘broadleaved woodland’. Between 2018 and 2019 the authors produced a natural capital account of the park as part of a wider research project on the impact of urban green space on mental health and well being (IWUN 2019).The approach adopted was similar to that of Vivid Economics (2016)

Fig. 4.2  The Ponderosa Park, Sheffield (Image: Jing Ma)

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Fig. 4.3  The location of the Ponderosa Park, Sheffield. (Image: Google)

but refined and developed both to exploit recent research on natural capital accounting and to reflect the smaller scale at which the work was undertaken (Gomez-­ Baggethun and Barton 2013). The main estimations were of the value of physical and mental healthcare savings and of the uplift in the value of market housing near the park (the last being a very conservative approach). They are outlined in Table 4.4. Particular attention was paid to the analysis of the park’s catchment area to quantify the potential local users and beneficiaries because this underpins the assessment of the value of the three main cultural ES provided by it. The catchment boundary was defined by a networked walking distance of 500 metres from any of the entrances to the park (Natural England 2010; Pauleit et al. 2003; see Fig. 4.4). The population of this catchment area is 7,532 persons in 2,923 households. The smaller scale of the natural capital account of the Ponderosa Park meant that a relatively detailed assessment could be undertaken of the value of the other ES that it provides. This was based on the two main habitats present in the park: 5.635 ha of broadleaved woodland and 5.635  ha of improved grassland with permeable soil. Eight ES were covered by the assessment. These provided total capitalised benefits amounting to £86,918. The overall results of the exercise are presented in Table 4.5. What is immediately apparent is that the imbalance between cultural and other ES noted in Vivid Economics’ (2016) natural capital account for Sheffield’s parks and green spaces (Table 4.3) is even more marked in the case of the Ponderosa Park. At 1.11%, other ES make an insignificant contribution to the capital value of the park, which is almost entirely (98.89%) derived from cultural ES. In addition, there has been a re-ordering of the importance of cultural ES. The uplift in residential property values is by far the most important ES in value terms, constituting almost 70% of all asset values. Physical and mental health benefits together account for almost 30% of the total. Several factors may contribute to the differences in the

Total annual savings:

Source 1 x 2 x 3

4 Value

3 Value

£52,988

Annual physical health-care £67 savings, per person: Source Vivid Economics’ (2017a, b) estimate for London based on an updated version of Vivid Economics’ (2016) Sheffield methodology, using Bird (2004) as the basis for the contribution of an urban park to its catchment population’s physical activity

Source CABE (2010) data on Yorkshire and the Humber

Estimations Step Avoided physical healthcare costs 1 Value Population of catchment: 7,532 Source GIS analysis 2 Value Proportion of population making 10.50% regular visits to the park:

1x2x3

Avoided mental healthcare costs Population of catchment: 7,532 GIS analysis 10.50% Proportion of population making regular visits to the park: CABE (2010) data on Yorkshire and the Humber Annual mental health£42 care savings, per person: Vivid Economics’ (2017 a and b) estimate for London based on White et al.'s (2013) analysis of the effects of the density of green space in urban areas across England on individuals' mental health instead of Sturm and Cohen (2014) and Farré et al. (2015) Total annual savings: £33,216

Table 4.4  Estimations of the Values of Main Cultural ES for the Ponderosa Park, Sheffield

Annual rate of increase in real house prices: HM Land Registry

Average price of privately owned dwellings in catchment: Fieldwork and agents’ sales particulars

Fieldwork

Uplift in house prices Dwellings in catchment: GIS analysis Proportion of stock in private ownership:

(continued)

2.90%

£112,500

50.00%

2,923

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Source: the authors

Estimations Step Avoided physical healthcare costs Avoided mental healthcare costs Uplift in house prices 5 Value Capital value of savings: £948,821 Capital value of savings: £594,784 Uplift in house price due to 3.00% proximity to green space: Noor et al.’s (2015) study of Subang The present value of annual Source The present value of annual Jaya, Malaysia savings over 30 years, savings over 30 years, applying applying the socialdiscount the social discount rate of 3.5% rate of 3.5% pa pa 6 Value Total uplift per annum: £143,044 Source 1x2x3x4x5 7 Value Capital value of uplift: £3,662,479 Source The present value of annual uplift over 30 years, assuming continued real growth in house prices and applying the social discount rate of 3.5% pa

Table 4.4 (continued)

76 J. Henneberry et al.

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Fig. 4.4  The catchment of the Ponderosa Park. (© Crown copyright and/or database rights 2018 OS; © Improvement and Development Agency for Local Government copyright and database rights 2018)

pattern of ES values between the city-wide and individual park studies. The former included large areas of green space, much of it woodland. This would boost the significance of other ES. The latter study applied a more restrictive measure both of the park’s catchment population and the tendency of local people to visit the park regularly. This would reduce the scale of physical and mental health benefits. Finally, the Ponderosa Park is in a densely developed part of the city, so will affect the value of a relatively large number of dwellings.

4.3.3  A  CBA of an Intervention to Increase the Benefits Derived from the Ponderosa Park, Sheffield The authors then investigated the cost-effectiveness of increasing the benefits derived from the Ponderosa Park via the construction and operation of a new park café and toilets. The first step was to define the catchment area for the café bounded by a networked walking distance of 500 metres from its site. The resulting catchment contained a population of 2,771 people in 1,128 households (see Fig. 4.5).

78 Table 4.5  Natural capital account for Ponderosa Park, Sheffield

J. Henneberry et al. Assets Direct income Cultural ES of which Aesthetic benefits Recreation Physical health Mental health Residential property uplift Other ES of which Carbon storage Carbon sequestration Storm water run-off Air purification Micro-climate regulation Noise reduction Pollination Compost biomass provision Gross asset value

£s 0 5,234,337 23,611 4,642 948,821 594,784 3,662,479 58,671 13,277 367 10,772 5,695 3,183 10,570 6,256 8,551 5,293,008

% 0.00% 98.89% 0.45% 0.09% 17.93% 11.24% 69.19% 1.11% 0.25% 0.01% 0.20% 0.11% 0.06% 0.20% 0.12% 0.16% 100.00%

Source: the authors

Fig. 4.5  Catchment area for proposed Ponderosa Park café. (© Crown copyright and/or database rights 2018 OS; © Improvement and Development Agency for Local Government copyright and database rights 2018)

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The costs involved in constructing and operating the café and toilets, and the income derived from that operation, were estimated over a period of 10 years (the length of lease currently offered to café operators by Sheffield City Council). The loss of other ES arising from the development of the café site was derived from the natural capital account (above) and was insignificant. The increases in visitors to the park (6.8%) and in the visits made by existing users (also 6.8%) were derived from an on-line survey of local residents conducted by Sheffield City Council in 2018. The former was used as the basis for estimating the value of the additional physical and health benefits arising from the café investment; the total of 13.6% was used as an indicator of the growth in the park’s attractiveness and, therefore, of its increased impact on the value of nearby dwellings. Using methods similar to those applied in the park’s natural capital account (NCA), the values of the additional cultural ES arising from the café investment were estimated as follows. 1. Annual savings in physical healthcare costs: number of new park users (from on-line survey) x £67 per person (Vivid Economics 2017a, b). 2. Annual savings in mental healthcare costs: number of new park users (from on-­ line survey) x £42 per person (Vivid Economics 2017a, b). 3. Annual uplift in house prices: 1,128 dwellings (from catchment definition) x 50% in private ownership (from fieldwork) x NCA estimate (3.0% contribution to 2.9% annual real house price growth) x 13.6% (from online survey). The results of the cost-benefit analysis (CBA) are described in Table 4.6. The CBA of the investment in a new café and toilets in the Ponderosa Park indicate that it would be a cost-effective way to increase the benefits arising from increased park usage because it produces a positive net present value (NPV)5 and a significant internal rate of return (IRR).6 The CBA also illustrates some of the practical difficulties of undertaking such an estimation. These arise from two broad, conflicting tendencies. First, the need for reliable, accurate evaluations of ES and other benefits and dis-benefits increases with the spatial resolution and specificity of the policy requirements that are being served (Gomez-Baggethun and Barton 2013). Second, the quality and availability of the data upon which such calculations are based declines as the level of detail increases (Sunderland et  al. 2019). In short, more is required from less. Here, it is not the overall benefits arising from a sizeable asset – the Ponderosa Park – that are being assessed. Rather, an attempt is being made to estimate the net increase in benefits that occurs following an investment that produces a modest enhancement in the quality of the asset. A key variable in the estimation is the extent to which the number of park visitors and of park visits will increase following the construction of the café and toilets. Recourse had to be made 5  The NPV is the present value of the future benefits arising from an investment minus the present value of the future costs, derived by applying an appropriate discount rate to each cash flow (in this case the social discount rate of 3.5% per annum). 6  The IRR equates to the discount rate that when applied to the future costs and benefits arising from an investment produces a NPV of zero.

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Table 4.6  Cost-benefit analysis (CBA) of new café and toilets in Ponderosa Park Type of Cost or Benefit Costs per annnum (average over 10 year period) Direct costs (construction and operation of cafe) Indirect costs (lost ES) Total Costs Benifits per annnum (average over 10 year period) Direct benefits (income from cafe) Indirect benefits of which  Physical health benefits  Mental health benefits  House price uplift Total Benefits Net cash flow per annum NPV over 10 years at 3.5% discount rate Internal Rate of Return (IRR)

£s 117,817 4 117,821 176,742 21,165 8,395 5,263 7,507 197,907 80,086 651,556 28%

Source: the authors

to the results of a survey not designed for this purpose because no other information on this key variable was available.

4.4  Conclusions The issue of service valuation continues to be one of the most contested aspects of ecosystem services (Dempsey and Robertson 2012). Consideration of the examples described in this chapter illustrate why this might be so. Valuation of benefits from ecosystem services is complex and subjective. The TEEB (2010) distinguishes ecological, social and economic benefits and values. Some people may value their income higher than their cultural identity, and may be willing to give up this identity for wealth (TEEB 2010), while different values could be attached to a particular benefit. Moreover, the diversity of beneficiaries adds an extra layer of plurality to the idea of ecosystem service ‘value’ (Small et al. 2017). This exacerbates a fundamental tension for those involved in natural capital accounting and the valuation of ecosystem services. The cost of such financial analyses increases with the resolution – in both spatial and ecological terms – at which they are conducted (Gomez-Baggethun and Barton 2013). Equally importantly, as attempts are made to understand ecological variations in greater detail  – and to identify the resulting differences in the ES that they provide and the value of those services – growing problems with measure are encountered (Robertson 2007). The application of narrower and more precise definitions of habitats to any area results in the generation of more differentiated descriptions/categorisations of that area. Greater accuracy of representation is accompanied by greater complexity and heterogeneity. This makes comparison between one area and another more difficult.

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Conversely, it is the very loss of precision involved in the use of aggregate, average units that is the source of their relative stability and commensurability as measures. As with definition and classification, measurement contributes to the knowledge and power produced through quantification. It involves further abstraction to derive those properties or dimensions of entities that can be measured (not just defined and categorised): the filtering away of ‘impurities’ to leave selected and/or easily measured ‘capacities’ (Porter 1994). What become accepted, ‘objective’ measures often do so only after much social and political work. Measurement and quantification need to command legitimacy among their users. Specifications and tolerances need to be defined and maintained for measures of all kinds (for example, of air or water pollution; of population or income). All users need to report these measures in the same form and to follow the same measurement protocols – whoever, wherever and whenever they are. Precise measurement establishes agreement, credibility and trust in numbers but is dependent on the development of instrumentation and is difficult to achieve. “There is a strong incentive to prefer readily standardizable measures to highly accurate ones, where these ideals conflict.” (Porter 1994, p. 391). This is because there are real gains to be made. Standard measures transcend particular local contexts (Crump 1990) and allow calculations to establish norms against which entities may be assessed (Porter 1994; Miller 2001). But the production of such measures also highlights the different standards adopted by natural and social scientists. To … produce ecological data that can circulate in the logics of capital and law, [ecologists] are continually forced to depart from the methodology and logic of ecological science. […] What is significant is not that they are wrong, but that they are scientifically incoherent in ways that make them coherent legally or economically. (Robertson 2006, p. [375], square brackets added)

Yet this fundamental conflict within the process and practice of ES valuation is, if not overlooked, at least accepted. Indeed it is an indication of established actors’ “Political power … to make even controversial counting and measurement systems appear natural and unavoidable, […] supporting a variety of schemes for monitoring and control.” (Power 2004, p. 769). New measures are continually being re/imagined by potential users such as scientists, technicians, policy makers, managers, politicians and economists. They operate along a continuum from the specific and material to the abstract (Hansen and Porter 2012). Power (2004) distinguishes between two levels of measurement. First-order measurement involves the application of standard units to entities’ various properties and dimensions (for example, to measure the amount of carbon sequestered in trees or soil). Second-order measurement – or meta-measurement – involves the aggregation of numbers and the creation of ratios and indices via mathematical and statistical operations (for example, to produce a rate of return on a green investment). First-order measurement is subject to continual flux as agencies and experts constitute new subjects to be measured and/or new measures of subjects. Landscape quality or ecological diversity may be revealed and accounted by metrics or diminished and distorted by them, depending on one’s point of view. Second-order

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measurement compounds these problems. These meta-measurements (for example, indicators of physical or mental wellbeing) have independent lives, supported by their own expert communities of practice. As we have seen, they are then free to be appropriated and applied to different problems. Measurement has been …subject to waves of innovation, to fads and fashion, in a restless metrological drama … acted out by accountants, actuaries, economists, consultants and many varieties of financial and non-financial analyst, fuelling demands for the measurement of everything. […] So what can and cannot be measured as quanta is not as simple as we often think, and is variable in time and across cultures. (Power 2004, pp. 767–768)

Moreover, within the political economy of measurement systems (such as natural capital accounting or CBA), there is less than congruence between the levels of accuracy and control required by policy and those that can be delivered technically. The “shift to numbers” (Hansen and Porter 2012, p. 415) exacerbates two issues. The first is that the deployment of numbers in the analysis of wicked problems and complex decisions reinforces perceptions of numbers as purveyors of accuracy and truth. The roles of the heterogeneous formalizing practices and actor-networks that produce this apparent transparency are obscured. Lampland (2010) stresses the tension between the representation of numbers as fixed, accurate, objective descriptors of entities, on the one hand, and the social aspects of their production, on the other. She does so by considering provisional numbers. These are numbers such as estimates or forecasts used in planning and strategy making or in the process of making ‘final’ numbers more accurate. Most of the numbers contained in the illustrative examples in this chapter are provisional. In this light, we cannot assume that … the effective use of numbers depends upon their veracity … [or] … that numbers perform the same task, and refer to the same element … Formalizing practices may rely on numbers, but stipulate neither their meaning nor their use a priori … formalization, then, is a set of practices that are ephemeral, temporary, conditional. (Lampland 2010, pp. 379–380, square brackets added)

It is, therefore, no surprise that “… confidence in numbers is inversely related to one’s participation in their making.” (Lampland 2010, p. 386). The second issue relates to the myriad parts and levels of the systems or networks that produce numbers, assemble and store them, subject them to calculation and deploy them in societies, polities and economies. Established calculative regimes create a formidable edifice of standards, rules and regulations that has been constructed piece-by-piece through negotiations, through the application of science, professional and technical expertise, and rational argument, and through the exercise of rhetoric, persuasion and power (Callon and Muniesa 2005). This creates path dependency. An idea is never so powerful as when its precepts are followed not for any specific reason but because it is apparently the ‘natural’ or ‘obvious’ thing to do. In these circumstances actions continuously reinforce current assumptions and extend the sway of the underpinning idea. Hidden from view is the huge and constant amount of social, cultural, political and economic work necessary to maintain the primacy of such ideas: work that is undertaken by those actors that benefit from the

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ideas and wish to avoid any substantive challenge to their position. This is the case with the argument for putting a price on nature.

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Chapter 5

Contesting Longstanding Conceptualisations of Urban Green Space Meredith Whitten

Abstract  Ever since the Victorian era saw the creation of “parks for the people,” health and wellbeing benefits have been considered a primary benefit of urban parks and green spaces. Today, public health remains a policy priority, with illnesses and conditions such as diabetes, obesity and depression a mounting concern, notably in increasingly urbanised environments. Urban green space often is portrayed as a nature-based solution for addressing such health concerns. In this chapter, Meredith Whitten investigates how the health and wellbeing benefits these spaces provide are limited by a narrow perspective of urban green space. Whitten explores how our understandings of urban green space remain rooted in Victorian ideals and calls into question how fit for purpose they are in twenty-first-century cities. Calling on empirical evidence collected in three boroughs in London with changing and increasing demographic populations, she challenges the long-held cultural underpinnings that lead to urban green space being portrayed “as a panacea to urban problems, yet treating it as a ‘cosmetic afterthought’” (Whitten, M, Reconceptualising green space: planning for urban green space in the contemporary city. Doctoral thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, U.K. http:// etheses.lse.ac.uk/. Accessed 12 Jun 2019, 2019b, p 18). Keywords  Victorian ideals · Urban public parks and green spaces · Planning · Decision-making · London · Public health

M. Whitten (*) Department of Geography & Environment, London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE), London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 N. Dempsey, J. Dobson (eds.), Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44480-8_5

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5.1  Introduction In 1840, a 21-year-old Queen Victoria received a petition from 30,000 residents of London’s East End asking for royal consent to build a park amongst the overcrowded, neglected and unsanitary slums. Observing that the congested district of Tower Hamlets had a population “exceeding 400,000 souls, nearly double that of any City or Town within the British Dominions,” the petition laid out its case for creation of a public urban green space to the monarch: …these Poor People, closely crowded in confined districts, have no open spaces in the vicinity of their humble dwellings for air, exercise or healthful recreation; circumstances which produce the most painful effects on their physical and moral condition” (Poulsen 1976, p. 18).

The petition to the queen was successful and followed by an Act of Parliament in 1841. The growing support for establishing a green space, open to people of all classes, in London’s East End was fuelled by Victorian ideas that “nature, like art, was thought to have a morally beneficial influence as well as recuperative powers” (Reeder 2006, p. 43). Victoria Park became the first publicly funded, publicly accessible park built in London specifically for local residents and communities, thus ushering in the Victorian public parks movement in the British capital. Today, Victoria Park, which is the largest green space in in the London borough of Tower Hamlets, is described as the “crown jewel” of parks and green spaces across the East End (Kvist 2011; Fig. 5.1 and 5.2). Born out of Victorian liberalism, public parks and green spaces form a highly visible part of the city’s urban fabric and continue to be lauded as the “lungs of London” (Reeder 2006, p. 42). They also are central to the city’s identity, as the recent campaign to designate London as a National Park City illustrates (LNPC 2015). Indeed, 47% of London is considered green, with 33% of this space being vegetated green space, according to surveyed habitat information, and an additional 14% is estimated to be vegetated private, domestic garden green space (LNPC 2015; GiGL 2015). London’s boroughs have designated 18% of Greater London as public open space (GiGL 2015). Despite the perseverance of the Victorian idea of publicly funded, publicly accessible green spaces over the past 175 years, urban green spaces have recently been portrayed as under threat, with headlines proclaiming, “London’s parks ‘could become inaccessible to the public”’ (BBC 2015) “England’s parks and open spaces have lost £75m in cuts since 2010” (Carrington 2013) and “‘Time running out’ for UK parks, government told” (Taylor 2018). In part, this reflects differing – and, at times, conflicting – perspectives on urban green space. Urban green space is provided for a long list of reasons, including sport and recreation (Hillsdon et al. 2006), enhanced economic competitiveness (Panduro and Veie 2013); air and water filtration (Heidt and Neef 2008); flood control and prevention (Zhang et al. 2012); and social cohesion (Peters et  al. 2010). Such a wide-ranging list means conflicting demands on urban green space can exist, and this can lead to conflicting approaches to green space management.

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Fig. 5.1  Victoria Park was the first publicly funded, publicly accessible park in London

Different discourses around green space also reflect the changing context in which green space in cities is provided. The setting in which London’s urban green spaces exist has changed considerably since the Victorian era, and even within the past several decades. In 2017, London’s population stood at an estimated 8,835,500, the largest in its history (GLA 2017). Between 2001 and 2011, the city’s population grew 11.6%, more than any region in England (ONS 2012). London also is significantly more densely populated than other urban areas in the UK; even the least-­populated London borough – Bromley – is more than five times denser than the England and Wales average (ONS 2012; GLA 2018). Although London has the 69th-largest urban footprint, by land area, of cities with at least 500,000 residents in the world (Demographia 2018; GLA 2018), its reach stretches far beyond its administrative borders, with 18% of London workers commuting from outside the city’s boundary (GLA Economics 2017). London residents also are younger and more diverse than the rest of the country, with an average age of 36.0 years, compared to 40.1 years across the UK, and more than one third (36.6%) of residents born outside the UK, compared to 13.3% across Britain (GLA 2017). Thus, contemporary London continues to experience urban changes and, as such, continues to feel the impacts of urbanisation. Such growth will be challenging for efforts to provide and manage urban green space in the British capital. While vulnerable and inconsistent funding is a factor in the precarious position of parks and green spaces – especially given the recent era of austerity in Britain

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Fig. 5.2  The Victoria Park fountain is one of many features in the Victorian-designed public park (Photo by Nicola Dempsey)

(Whitten 2019a)  – this chapter goes beyond the challenge of funding to instead explore whether the green space being provided and managed remains fit for purpose in twenty-first century London.

5.2  Measuring Fitness for Purpose The research discussed in this chapter stems from a project that aimed to determine the primary influences on how contemporary urban green space is delivered and managed in Inner London, particularly given the city’s increasing population. Data for the research called on in this chapter was collected using interviews, site

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observation, archival research and document review. The primary method involved conducting 50 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with three general groups: local authority and other government officers; developers, registered social landlords and consultants; and representatives from charities and nonprofit organisations, including user groups and “friends of the park” organisations. Of the 50 interviews, 23 were with local authority officers and staff from other public-sector agencies; five were developers, registered social landlords or planning consultants; and 22 were from charities, community organisations and user groups. Questions asked of respondents included: • What do you think is the borough’s goal regarding green space? • What do you see as the borough’s/organisation’s future role regarding urban green space? • What/who influences decisions about urban green space • What are the biggest pressures or constraints on green space in the borough? • Do you think the way green space is provided is changing across London? If so, how? The research was based in three Inner London boroughs: Islington, Tower Hamlets and Wandsworth, although several interview respondents, such as representatives of charities or government agencies, provided a wider, multiborough perspective. These three boroughs were selected based on analysis of the population density and residential development across all 33 London boroughs (GLA 2011a, b). Islington, Tower Hamlets and Wandsworth each ranked high in both categories, indicating they are dense boroughs continuing to get denser. Thus, green space managers in these boroughs face growing pressures to provide green space to more people in less space. Interviews were recorded and transcribed, and a coding framework based on emergent themes was developed. These codes were applied to the interview data using NVIVO software. Prominent themes that emerged from the data include: importance/value of green space in urban areas; history of parks and green spaces; changes in population and density; sustainability; health and wellbeing; sport, leisure and exercise; use conflict; internal governance; and green infrastructure.

5.3  Unchanging Rationales Although lifestyle and population changes mean there is a very different set of London park users today, the rationale for providing urban green space remains largely unchanged from when the Victorians established public green spaces nearly two centuries ago. The concept of what urban green space is and what it is for has endured, even though the urban context in which London’s green spaces exist has changed considerably since “Vicky Park” welcomed its first users in 1845. Islington, Tower Hamlets and Wandsworth councils each specifically refers to the role of green space for health, leisure, biodiversity and quality of life in planning and policy documents. For example, in discussing open space and the natural

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environment, Wandsworth’s Core Strategy states that the borough’s open spaces, including green spaces, “are important for both formal and informal recreation, physical activity, sport and play, providing playing fields, walking and cycling routes” and “also play an important role in the delivery of broad government objectives,” including improving residents’ health and wellbeing (Wandsworth Council 2016, p.  37). Similarly, respondents consistently mentioned physical and mental health and wellbeing, leisure and recreation, and quality of life as benefits of urban green space. Respondent 11 (senior staff, national charity) highlighted this linkage of current justifications for providing green space to the Victorian origins of public green spaces: “In a sense, the issues of that time [the Victorian era] are very similar to the issues we still have today.”

5.3.1  Connection to Health The nineteenth-century argument for providing publicly accessible urban green spaces was grounded in health concerns, as public health was a major issue at that time, with a particular emphasis on the health of the urban poor (Poulsen 1976; Cranz and Boland 2004; Clark and Jauhiainen 2006; Brück 2013). Worry about diseases such as cholera, typhoid and smallpox, particularly in urban areas, dominated public-health debate throughout the century (Gaskell 1980; Malchow 1985; Brown 2013). Although the era lacked scientific evidence supporting the role of green spaces in fostering a healthy environment, these spaces were thought to help “cleanse cities by opening them to purifying sunlight and air” (Malchow 1985, p. 99). Social and sanitary reformers, such as Octavia Hill and J.C. Loudon, used the squalid conditions and lack of access to nature in the East End to highlight the threat of “a disease mist or miasma” hanging over crowded urban areas and to argue for the provision of urban green space to serve as London’s lungs (Reeder 2006, p. 42; Dempsey et al. 2012). Public-health expert William Farr’s verdict about the potential health impacts of green space was meticulous: “A park in the East End of London would probably diminish the annual deaths by several thousands … and add several years to the lives of the entire population” (Poulsen 1976, p. 16). Today, the health benefits of urban green space continue to be a prominent reason for maintaining existing spaces and developing new green spaces accessible to the public (see GLA 2011b, 2017; Esbah et al. 2005; Baycan-Levent et al. 2009; DCLG 2012), and respondents frequently referred to the connection between health and urban green space. Respondent 15 (planner, Tower Hamlets) noted that “open space is seen as absolutely critical to health,” while respondent 11 (senior staff, national charity) said in the near future physicians routinely would prescribe time spent in the park instead of medication for some illnesses and conditions because of the health benefits derived from green space (Fig. 5.3). Indeed, social prescribing has already been implemented in some boroughs, such as Richmond-Upon-Thames, with general practitioners “prescribing outdoor activity as a medical treatment rather than a handful of pills” (APSE 2016; Richmond CCG 2017). Respondent 46

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Fig. 5.3  The London Borough of Redbridge offers organised weekly “walking for health” opportunities in many of its green spaces, such as Valentines Park in Ilford

(senior staff, national charity) observed that public health is a major reason green space has risen up the policy agenda, reflecting the attention the Victorians gave it: “Public health has renewed interest in the wider determinants of health and that’s led to a renewed interest in green spaces. It has gone full circle.” Indeed, health concerns rank high among local, regional and national policymakers and the connection between health and urban green space is an area of increasing research (Maas et al. 2006; Lee and Maheswaran 2011). In its 2014 briefing, “Local action on health inequalities: Improving access to green spaces,” Public Health England commissioned research, conducted by the UCL Institute of Health Equity, to provide evidence regarding how improving access to green space leads to improved health of local communities (PHE 2014). The National Planning Policy Framework addresses protection of open space in a section called “Promoting healthy communities,” noting that “access to high-quality open spaces and opportunities for sport and recreation can make an important contribution to the health and wellbeing of communities” (DCLG 2012, p.  18). Similar statements connecting improvements in health to green space provision are found in local authorities’ core strategies and other planning documents. While the Victorians were predominantly concerned with the working class having access to fresh air and exercise to ward off diseases that spread from cramped living conditions, the health concerns that invoke green space use today largely

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relate to a twenty-first-century stressful, inactive lifestyle (Chiesura 2004; Pincetl and Gearin 2005). “We’ve got our own health problems in the twenty-first century. They’re different problems [than in the nineteenth century]  – they’re long-term chronic illnesses rather than infectious illnesses” (respondent 46, senior staff, national charity). Addressing obesity and diseases exacerbated by it, such as diabetes, as well as the impact of stress on physical and mental health, sits high on the policy agenda (Barton et al. 2009). As a result, local authorities increasingly tie their justifications for providing green space to their policy goals to improve individual health and to develop healthier communities.

5.3.2  Leisure and Recreation Closely connected to health, leisure and recreation form another key justification for maintaining urban green space as inherited from the Victorians. For the Victorians, a “main use of the open spaces was for sports” (Conway 1991, p. 191). In 2017–2018, the most common reason English residents visited the natural environment was for health and exercise; the second-most common reason was to walk the dog (Natural England 2018). However, this varies amongst different groups. For example, the most common reason people aged 16–24 gave for visiting the natural environment is to spend time with friends (Natural England 2018). Forty-nine percent of natural environments visited in 2017–2018 were in a town or city (Natural England 2018). Nearly all interview respondents referred to sport and recreation as a contemporary reason for continuing to deliver and manage urban green space, supporting Sandström’s (2002) finding that recreation traditionally has been the primary role of urban parks and green spaces. Similarly, through analysis of open space plans for London between 1929 and 1976, Turner (1995) demonstrates the primacy of recreation over environmental services in these spaces. The emphasis on recreation in green space is highlighted in urban areas, such as London, where the amount of green space per capita and total amount of green space is constrained by development and population density. Several respondents said Inner London local authorities cannot keep up with demand for sports in their green spaces. For example, respondent 18 (strategy officer, Tower Hamlets) said sport and recreation use easily could dominate the borough’s existing system of green spaces: “We’re never going to be able to provide enough football pitches for everyone to be in a league and do what they want to do … every park in the borough would have to be plastered with football pitches.” Giles-Corti et al. find that “a disproportionate amount of community public open space is zoned for organized sports” (2005, p. 174). Respondent 11 (senior staff, national charity) agreed and said this sport provision occurs at the expense of other types of activities: “Sporting interests are looked after far better than other open space interests. The importance of informal, casual recreation and what it might bring in terms of general health, including mental health, is far less developed.” Although efforts to incorporate opportunities for recreation and fitness beyond

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organised sports, such as green gyms, do occur, formal, structured sport continues to pervade boroughs’ green spaces. This illustrates the difficulty of connecting green space and health beyond the traditional forms of leisure and recreation and this, then, influences the types of green space provided, ultimately reinforcing Victorian visions of green space. Indeed, with decreasing green space per capita, but an increasing emphasis on health through sport and recreation, there is tension between councils’ ability to provide adequate green space and their increased emphasis on connecting their wellbeing and green space strategies. Yet, England residents cited relaxing and unwinding, enjoying fresh air or pleasant weather, and enjoying the scenery as top reasons for visiting the natural environment (Natural England 2018). For adults with access to a private garden, the top 10 reasons for enjoying their gardens did not include sport or physical activity, other than for gardening and as a place where children can play (Natural England 2018). Instead, the reasons included enjoying plants, trees, wildlife and views.

5.3.3  Behavioural and Moral Wellbeing For the Victorians, “physical health was inextricably linked to social and moral improvement,” and, thus, improving the moral behaviour of the working class also was a driving force behind providing public green spaces (Brück 2013, p.  207). Green space was important because natural areas were thought to “purify the spirit” (Brück 2013, p. 207). Publicly accessible urban green spaces were meant to provide an alternative to the working class’ rowdy activities, such as drinking and gambling (Brück 2013). In parks, which were intended for activities deemed acceptable such as walking or promenading, the working class would be exposed to the refined manners of the upper class (Olsen 1993; Taylor 1995; Reeder 2006). The spaces’ design further encouraged “polite forms of behaviour;” for example, “paths and railings defined where and how one could walk while shelters and seating were provided at those locations considered educational” (Brück 2013, p. 210). Modern green space planners and advocates emphasise the impact of green space on mental health and wellbeing, as well, and this justification is evoked often in urban areas. Research shows that a prominent benefit of urban green space is its positive impact on mental health and psychological wellbeing and, notably, it can help combat stress and anxiety (Bishop et al. 2001; Chiesura, 2004; Esbah et al. 2005; Choumert and Salanié 2008). Environmental psychologists maintain that contact with nature enables psychological restoration (Van Den Berg et al. 2007). Yet, research does not limit the benefits to large, rural spaces. Indeed, green walls, green roofs, street trees and other greening structures found within urban areas can have a positive impact on health (Mentens et al. 2006; Gill et al. 2007; Norton et al. 2015). Yet, such non-traditional spaces do not cater to traditional uses – one can’t play organised sport on a green wall. Thus, they often are neglected in councils’ decision making regarding green space planning. Indeed, green roofs and green walls often are seen as something the private sector provides and, therefore, are

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Fig. 5.4  Birmingham Library rooftop garden

rarely incorporated into a council’s green space strategies, even though they can provide public benefits. For example, a green wall can offer biodiversity enhancement and mental health improvement as a place for quiet reflection (Fig. 5.4). Today’s focus on the health benefits of urban green space mirroring the rationale for establishing publicly accessible urban green spaces in the 1800s is, on the face of it, not necessarily surprising. Research increasingly shows positive effects of nature and urban greening on health conditions, from cancer (Porcherie et al. 2018) to depression (Miles et  al. 2012). However, the parallels in rationale by today’s proponents of green space with those of the Victorian era should be a concern here. This narrow adherence to Victorian green-space principles limits the ability of London’s urban green spaces to adapt to modern needs, demands and demographics. Focusing on the past limits what green space can do for the future. Additionally, a narrowly conceived idea of green space overlooks the growing understanding of how, more broadly, green spaces’ ecological services, such as biodiversity, affect urban health and wellbeing. Further, thinking about the connection of green space and health primarily in terms of recreation and leisure, neglects the social and economic benefits that green spaces provide, which can contribute to the health of individuals and communities. With their green space budgets decimated in recent years, local councils are quick to target new sources of funding. An understandable, but overzealous chasing of health-related funding threatens to distract green space planners and managers

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from conceptualising urban green space more broadly. Instead, the traditional approach is reinforced. Although health is a contemporary policy priority, the conceptualisation of green space that drives present-day green space planning and decision making remains rooted in nineteenth-century thought. Ultimately, this limits the ability to think more broadly about what urban green space is, including what it can do, particularly in a more strategic sense, to create a healthier environment for city dwellers. For example, while recreation provides health benefits, so, too, does fostering biodiversity, preventing floods, and filtering pollutants from air and water.

5.4  Changing Cities Approaching green-space management with Victorian-era principles is a concern as cities, such as London, continue to evolve. More than half of the global population – and 75% of Europe’s population – now lives in urban areas (Bertram and Rehdanz 2015; UNFPA 2016). This rapid urbanisation matters for urban green space provision: London’s green spaces must not only serve more people, but they must cater to changes in sociodemographic makeup, changing user preferences, and variations in contexts of the built environment and social interaction. The three boroughs in this research were selected because of their rapid pace of change in population, demographics and development, although all 32 London boroughs and the City of London have experienced population growth in recent years. Since a previous period of decay, from about 1939 to 1988, when London’s population fell by 22%, the rapid pace of the city’s growth and change has seen London transform “from a declining industrial city to its current status as an iconic centre of global financial and cultural flows,” with people, jobs and economic activity returning to the capital (Butler and Hamnett 2009, p. 40; GLA Intelligence 2015). Commenting on London’s urban change, respondents discussed pressures on urban green space, notably pressure from expanding and changing populations, and increased housebuilding. Respondents identified the pace of population growth and the amount and density of development as challenges for delivering and managing urban green space in Inner London, with local authorities falling further behind in their green space planning targets, such as green space per capita. For example, in Tower Hamlets, the fastest-growing London borough, respondent 15 (planner) observed: We’ve got a phenomenal increase in population, with a lot of new housing coming in. If you look at the census 2001 to 2011, we’ve gone up from about 210,000 to 260,000 in population, which is quite staggering. The issue that we’re really grappling with is, how do you provide high-quality residential environments at really high densities? When you’re building at high densities, you have a lot of flats with no gardens because they have balconies. So, it [urban green space] is absolutely essential in terms of liveability in Tower Hamlets.

Londoners also are changing culturally and socially and this puts pressure on the city’s green spaces. In 2017, 40.1% of Inner London residents were born overseas, a 48% change from 2001 (GLA 2017). International in-migration has led to cultural

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changes in London and this has resulted in changing usage patterns in and demands on London’s green space (Butler and Hamnett 2009; Özgüner 2011). Indeed, “different cultures have different value systems and relationships with nature” (James et al. 2009). Respondent 11 (senior staff, national charity) added: “As demographics change and as population profiles change, then the use of an open space changes. If you’ve got 35 percent of a community from a particular background then it makes no sense at all that they should conform to something which isn’t standard for them.” Thus, delivering and managing urban green spaces for London’s changing demographics and cultural mix becomes an increasingly “challenging task” (Özgüner 2011, p. 617). In Tower Hamlets, where more than half (54%) of the borough’s population comes from black and minority ethnic (BAME) groups (TH 2013; GLA 2017), respondent 39 (green space staff) said, “For us, other than the budget issue, the main issue is catering for the whole diaspora of people we have wanting to do different things in our parks and the different expectations they have for their green spaces. That’s where we find a lot of conflict arises.” Also in Tower Hamlets, respondent 24 (senior staff, housing association), discussed green space use by the sizeable and growing Asian population: “They will use pocket parks in a different way to other communities. They love growing their own food, so their gardens are generally almost turned over to agriculture, in a way.” At the same time, the age of Londoners is changing. London’s over-65 population is projected to grow by 21% over the next decade (London Councils 2013). Meanwhile, some boroughs, such as Tower Hamlets, are experiencing a simultaneous increase in young residents (GLA 2017). The school-age population in London is set for 12% growth over the next decade (London Councils 2013). Both changes have ramifications for how urban green space is used and, thus, delivered and managed, including for wellbeing. The green space uses of different age groups can vary widely – and even conflict. This tension is compounded by councils’ needs to provide for both younger and older populations within the same space, creating conflicting demands on green space designers and planners. Respondent 18 (strategy officer, Tower Hamlets) addressed the impact on younger residents: We have a very strong and very sizeable football community, lots and lots of football clubs, very many of them, actually, young Bangladeshi men, and we just don’t have enough football pitches. And we’re never going to …. So, we have lots of young men, which has an impact on the kind of activities they may want to do in those parks, but given the limited space, we can’t necessarily cater for that.

Meanwhile, respondent 45 (landscape architect, national charity) discussed the importance of features, such as benches, for older Londoners: I put that seat there [in a green space] because it has a role to play for the elderly people who live in the top of this tower block because, actually, that is halfway between there and the shops. The reality is that’s an important little rest break…. That’s actually massively important as a key concept.

Spending on adult and child social care, by far the largest expenditure for London councils, made up 62% of budgets in 2017–2018, compared to 54% in 2010–2011

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(Centre for London 2018). This trend is projected to continue, even without austerity measures (Whitten 2019b). As demands on statutory services, particularly adult and child social care, continue to increase with growing and changing populations, the ability to recover council funding for green space and other discretionary services seems unlikely, as respondent 23 (senior staff, national charity) said: Museums, libraries, archives, archaeological services, historic environment records, archives, all that sort of stuff is going to get squashed and squashed and squashed. So, if they’re [local councils] going to continue doing these kinds of services, they need to find new ways of funding them.

As their budgets shrink and development increases, local authorities are less able to take on management and maintenance responsibility for new – and even some existing – green spaces (Rupprecht et al. 2015; interview respondents). Yet, the increased demand for adult and child social care puts added pressure on the need to provide urban green spaces, as the broad range of benefits these spaces provide offer critical opportunities not just for improving health and wellbeing, but also for fostering social interaction, education and child development, and environmental services – all of which contribute to adult and child care and wellbeing and are necessary for urban resilience. The impact of urban change on green space delivery and management in Inner London is still playing out, and a knowledge gap regarding “how the needs and preferences of the changing demographics align or not with current urban green space” exists, adding to the pressure on London’s green spaces’ ability to meet wide-ranging contemporary demands (Rutt and Gulsrud 2016, p. 124).

5.4.1  Changing Environmental Awareness Urban resilience has become a prominent policy and planning concern (Leichenko 2011; Meerow et al. 2016). Although definitions of “urban resilience” differ across the literature, the concept can be used to “emphasize the idea that cities, urban systems, and urban constituencies need to be able to quickly bounce back from climate-­ related shocks and stresses” (Leichenko 2011, p. 164), particularly as processes of urbanisation have resulted in increased energy consumption (Rees and Wackernagel 1996; Steemers 2003), increased impermeable surfaces (Young 2010), disruption of the hydrological cycle (Andersson 2006), loss of habitat and biodiversity (Young 2010), and climate change (Young 2010; Hebbert and Jankovic 2013). Thus, cities often are blamed for contributing disproportionately to global greenhouse gas emissions and the catastrophic effects of global warming (WECD 1987; Dodman 2009; Young 2010). Research shows that green spaces counteract the negative impacts of urbanisation by providing critical environmental services (Jim and Chen 2003; Chiesura 2004; Choumert and Salanié 2008; Rutt and Gulsrud 2016). Thus, a renewed interest in urban green space coincides with an increased awareness about climate change and cities’ contributions to mitigating its effects. Indeed, Wright

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argues that England’s planning system is “now explicitly concerned with climate change” (2011, p.  1008). Green spaces are particularly important for mitigating impacts of climate change in dense urban areas, as they reduce carbon emissions and other harmful pollutants in the air, create cooler temperatures and reduce the amount of surface water runoff (Pincetl and Gearin 2005; Gill et al. 2007; Rutt and Gulsrud 2016). Although present-day policies recognise that providing urban green spaces helps mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change, in practice this was not identified by respondents as a predominant reason why local councils deliver and manage urban green space (interview respondents; Swanwick et al. 2003; Pincetl and Gearin 2005; Gill et al. 2007). Indeed, while Chiesura (2004), Clark and Jauhiainen (2006) and others argue that including urban green space throughout the city, including in the urban core, is a critical ingredient for the sustainable city, only seven of 50 respondents referred to mitigating climate change as a reason for providing urban green space. This omission supports research that shows that “ecosystem services provided by urban greenspace are often overlooked and undervalued” (Gill et al. 2007, p. 116).

5.5  Discussion Lauded for their economic, environmental and social benefits, urban green spaces are presented as a policy and planning panacea as urban change continues at a rapid pace and our understanding of the role urban greening plays in mitigating climate change and other negative effects of urbanisation evolves. Yet, in practice, urban green space is provided as an optional, ornamental amenity with inconsistent support and vulnerable funding. As a result, London’s urban green spaces remain “frozen in time” (respondent 2, senior staff, national charity), with a nineteenth-century solution being used for twenty-first-century problems. As such, there are missed opportunities to use green space as an effective planning tool to provide the strategic connectivity and multifunctional infrastructure identified as essential for urban sustainability. This research identifies three broad reasons for this paradox of urban green space: a focus on a rural ideal, inadequate planning designations and rigid, siloed governance structures.

5.5.1  Perseverance of Nineteenth Century Rural Ideals The environmental value of green space in an urban setting was not the Victorians’ primary focus when they created publicly accessible urban parks in Britain and, as present green space justifications mirror those of the Victorian era, the environmental benefits of London’s urban parks are not the primary focus today, either. Instead,

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a cultural and policy fixation on the “rural ideal” explains why “increased understanding of the ecosystem services provided by urban green space has not been adequately integrated into the management process” (Malchow 1985, p. 97; Young 2010, p. 314). Cranz and Boland highlight the disconnect between Victorian ways of thinking about urban parks and more modern uses: “Historically, urban parks responded to social problems and expressed various ideas about nature, but they showed little concern for actual ecological fitness” (2004, p. 102). The nineteenth-century perspective of green space was rooted in Victorians’ disdain for urban life and their reverence for the idealised, virtuous and superior countryside, and this perspective heavily influenced the establishment of public parks and green spaces as a counterpoint to industrialisation (Conway 1991; Gabriel 2011). The Victorians subscribed to the belief that “physical, mental and moral decay were inseparable and intimately linked to urban life” (Malchow 1985, p. 109). As such, cities were considered “the antithesis of good living environments” (Dempsey 2009, p. 316). The response was to bring the countryside into the city, simulating the country for those urban dwellers – namely, the working class – who could not flee the corruptive influences of the city for the virtuous and therapeutic countryside. In creating public parks and green spaces, the Victorians established the idea that, by replicating an idealised version of the countryside within an urban area, urban green spaces offered an essential retreat from the city to the physically and morally healthier countryside. Exposing the working class to the fresh air and “ideals of beauty” of the countryside would improve their physical health and lead to the poor and working class becoming “cultivated” (Brück 2013, p. 204). These spaces would provide the working class with places for “suitable” recreation and, thus, they would become “thrifty, industrious, docile and moral” (Conway 1991, p. 34; Brown 2013). As such, “the main trends of Victorian town-planning and architecture reflect, on the whole, a characteristic insistence on designing the urban scene in rural terms” (Hulin 1979, p.  17). These beliefs formed the foundation for what became England’s public park movement – a movement that since has been exported beyond Britain and has influenced park and green space planning, development and management across the world. Thus, the Victorian concept of green space is visible well beyond Britain’s borders (Fig. 5.5). Respondents repeated this theme of bringing the countryside into the city. Urban green spaces, respondents said, provide an escape from Inner London, allowing Londoners to feel as if they are no longer in the city, but instead have been transported to the countryside. Such comments tie directly to the Victorians’ “rural ideal” and exemplify how the concept of urban green space as countryside in the city remains embedded in urban planning today (Malchow 1985, p. 97; Gabriel 2011). This perpetuates the idea that the city is corrupt, polluted and generally not good for us, hence the need to escape it. This conflicts with broader, more contemporary, interconnected and multifunctional approaches to urban greening, including green infrastructure. Linking town and country is a potential outcome of the spatial connectivity that is a hallmark of the green infrastructure approach. In other words, with green infrastructure, urban and suburban or rural spaces are connected, but are

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Fig. 5.5  The Sabarmati Riverfront Park in Gujarat, India, adheres to some of the principles of the Victorian park, such as lawns, which are arguably inappropriate give the extensive maintenance and watering required in the very hot climate (Photo by Nicola Dempsey)

not the same; urban green space does not replicate the countryside, but instead complements it (Kambites and Owen 2006). By grounding the foundation of the public green space movement in the belief that urban green space should replicate the countryside and reject the urban context of its setting, the Victorians created a powerful concept for green space that perseveres today (Hulin 1979). Walker and Duffield acknowledge this: “The myth of the rural arcadia fuelled the desire to reconstruct the countryside in town. The impact of this idea has been far-reaching and has influenced the approach to open space and to outdoor recreation even to the present” (1983, p. 2).

5.5.2  Planning Designations How urban green space is defined  – which occurs largely through informal and unofficial definitions – also contributes to limited understanding and harnessing of the benefits of urban green space experienced today. The definition of urban green space  – or lack of a formal definition  – perpetuates a traditional concept of and approach to green space. Having a vague or no definition could be conceived as

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providing flexibility, such is argued with the concept of sustainable development (Tate 1994). In practice, though, the definitional void reinforces historical ways of thinking about green space, enabling traditional ideas of urban green space to endure (Tate 1994; Wheeler 2000; Jepson 2001; Chiesura 2004; Benedict and McMahon 2006; Connelly 2007; Mell 2008; Slavin 2011; Wright 2011). No single definition of urban green space – or even green space more generally – exists. This lack of clarity conflicts with planning strategies and policies that call for urban green space to be protected and enhanced. For example, at the regional level, the London Plan does not define urban green space, despite claiming that increasing green space in the capital is a policy priority (GLA 2016). Although guided by national and regional planning policy, local authorities are left largely to define the concept as they prefer. While this leaves space for local context to be factored, it also enables local councils to continue to provide green space in a traditional, unchanging way. Among respondents, the concept of urban green space was implicit – none elaborated on what they meant by or how they defined urban green space, with most substituting the term “park” for “green space,” underscoring how entrenched the Victorian construction of the concept remains today. Yet, the word “park” has been ambiguous from the beginning of the public park movement, with terms such as “park,” “garden” and “walk” used so “loosely” that “the type of open space and its accessibility could not be deduced from the terms … used” (Conway 1991, p. 1, 11). Despite widely varying roles with urban green space – such as biodiversity conservation, residential development and heritage protection – respondents all assumed that when they talk about green space, their audience inherently knows what they mean. This signifies an enduring and specific shared, tacit idea of what urban green space is, despite widespread recognition that green space has a broad range of benefits and can play multiple roles in support of the economically, environmentally and socially sustainable city (Chiesura 2004; Haaland and van den Bosch 2015). By being everything to everyone, the concept of urban green space risks being an empty signifier, or a discursive element that has become “emptied of [its] actual content and provide[s] for the unity of the discourse” (Methmann 2010, p.  352). Policymakers, local residents, green space users and respondents all can argue in support of urban green space because it has no definition or defined concept and, thus, they advocate for their perspective. Yet, despite its ubiquity, if the concept of green spaces is “too elastic,” there is little “substantive to be said in their favour (or against them)” (O’Neill 2011, p. 137). As such, “ambiguous definitions” of urban green space have led to a hollow – and, in many regards, meaningless – label that everyone can support without any risk (see Cox 2004, p. 216).

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5.5.3  Statutory Designations Despite a cultural- and a policy-based emphasis on a rural ideal, applied in urban areas, providing urban green space has never been a statutory requirement in Britain. Even policies calling for urban greening to contribute to the UK’s statutory priority of combatting the adverse impacts of climate change are not statutorily prescribed. This demonstrates the lack of connection between thinking about urban green space as an optional amenity and thinking about the essential, multifunctional work these spaces contribute to urban resilience if they are recognised as “critical scaffolding” (Eisenman 2013, p.  298). Several respondents argued that the recent austerity-­ related cuts to green space budgets would not have been as deep if providing green space provision was a statutory requirement: “Because parks are not a statutory service, it has taken, some would say, more than its fair share of cuts” (respondent 44, green space staff, Islington). Meanwhile, other respondents said designating green space provision as statutory would not change anything related to green space delivery and management unless statutory status came with stable and increased funding. Others said if green space was statutory, local authorities could be more assertive in requiring green space contributions from developers as a condition of planning permission. Without statutory teeth, the approach to urban green space delivery and management remains a “cosmetic afterthought” to development (Department of the Environment 1996, p. iii). Respondents reiterated the belief that green space staff, budgets and resources are low-hanging fruit for decision makers looking to make cuts, with some saying that doing so was short-sighted. Respondent 22 (landscape architect, national charity) observed that reducing green space budgets “runs against a lot of the research about the benefits and the importance of open space, psychologically and for education and for health. I think it’s just that it’s an easy target.” Despite government policies and planning strategies hailing the multifunctional benefits of green spaces that ultimately support other council-provided goals and statutory services, urban green spaces are not thought of as a core role of local authorities. This is a critical point about green space categorisation: green spaces are essential for meeting statutory objectives, but green spaces themselves do not merit statutory designation. Respondent 8 (regional planner) and respondent 9 (regional policy officer) argued that discussing the role of urban green space as green infrastructure, and not simply as recreation and amenity space, would demonstrate that green space is integral to London’s economic, environmental and social survival (see Gill et al. 2007). Yet London’s urban green spaces are not conceptualised as essential infrastructure that is part of the urban fabric, but rather as individual islands of countryside transported to the city. Respondents said statutory services such as adult social care would always be prioritised above green space. In discussing council priorities, most respondents did not mention how green space relates to other council services, such as adult and child social care, and health and wellbeing, thus overlooking green space’s potential

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multifunctionality beyond merely amenity. Respondent 2 (senior staff, regional charity) was an exception: It’s not a statutory service, so it doesn’t command the leverage for sustained funding. Housing, education, social services will all be top of the pile. … But, you could argue that health and wellbeing is derived from parks even if you don’t use it, if you just look at it. There’s research that shows that’s enough.

While being a non-statutory service might seem to provide a level of flexibility to urban green space delivery and management, my research indicates being a discretionary service actually reinforces a traditional approach to urban green space, thus, holding the Victorian-inherited conceptualisation of green space in place instead of allowing the concept to shift as cities, cultures and societal awareness of the benefits of urban green space change. As such, green space continues to be conceptualised as an amenity, despite the work these spaces can do for the contemporary city. This, again, harks back to the origins of public parks and green spaces. Despite the Victorians’ recognition of the important role of green spaces – important enough to establish public parks in the first place – green space remained an amenity: something that helped made life liveable, but was not necessarily essential to life itself.

5.5.4  Governance Structures A third reason urban green space does not realise its full potential relates to governance structures. In particular, the structures and processes of local authorities heavily influence the delivery and management of urban green space and, ultimately, urban resilience. Within the past decade, local councils have experienced dramatic cuts to their budgets, primarily from sustained reductions in public spending stemming from austerity measures imposed by national government in response to the global financial crisis (Lowndes and Gardner 2016). The budget cuts to local governments have been intense, with a proposed £5.5 billion reduction in funding resulting in a 27% decrease from 2010–2011 to 2014–2015 (Lowndes and Pratchett 2012; Lowndes and McCaughie 2013; Platts-Fowler and Robinson 2016). The deepest cuts have hit discretionary services, such as provision and management of urban green spaces (NAO 2014; Brown and Wilson 2015; Centre for London 2018). Indeed, almost every local authority in Britain experienced some cut to its green space resources (HLF 2016). In London, local authorities saw an 18% decrease in spending on open space, which includes green space, including a reduction of more than 10% in 2014–2015 (London Councils 2015; LAEC 2016). Nearly every respondent described austerity-related funding cuts as a significant cause of the mounting pressure on green spaces. Despite such deep cuts, local authorities remain the primary provider of publicly accessible urban green spaces (NAO 2006; James et al. 2009; Mathers et al. 2015;

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Dempsey et al. 2016; HLF 2016). Every local authority in London and the City of London Corporation owns and manages green spaces for public benefit, although how they do this varies widely. Typically, public parks and green spaces fall under the oversight of a culture and leisure team. For example, in Wandsworth, green space falls under Contracts and Leisure.1 Green space and planning may fall within the same broad directorate, such as Environment and Regeneration, as is the case in Islington. However, the parks team and the planning teams remain separate and discrete functional areas, with parks taking on responsibility for maintenance of green spaces for leisure and amenity and more contemporary urban greening activities, such as green roofs, green walls and street trees falling under other functional areas, such as planning, environment or highways. Thus, other types of urban greening are often conceptualised as connected to development and infrastructure and as part of the urban fabric. Parks and green spaces, despite existing in the urban environment, are perceived as amenity spaces separate from the city and from development decisions, and are treated differently, with funding coming from different sources, policies disconnected in separate sections of planning and development documents, and oversight and management falling into different areas of a council’s organisation.

5.5.5  Planning and Green Space Respondents described a complicated, often uneven relationship between councils’ planning and green space staffs. Respondent 2 (senior staff, regional charity) said, “There is a disconnect between parks people and policy and planning. There is a need for greater integration and communication. They [green space staff] are emasculated.” Respondent 44 (green space staff, Islington) was blunt: “We have a difficult relationship with planning.” Green space staff manage day-to-day operations, interact with green space users and bear the brunt of green space budget cuts. Meanwhile, planners’ focus on green space comes largely at the strategic planning level and during the individual planning application process. While some green space decisions are not planning related – the frequency with which to mow the grass, for example – many decisions are because they relate to land use or land management. In London, most planning decisions affecting urban green space are connected to development or regeneration, thus it is through planning that decisions about development and provision of or impact on green space primarily occur, making planning the prominent influence on the delivery of urban green space. Through the planning process, including imposing planning conditions, a council negotiates development’s impact on 1  Wandsworth Council’s culture and leisure team – which includes green space staff – became a public staff mutual, a form of social enterprise, and subsequently a not-for-profit organisation that manages parks and green spaces, leisure, sports, arts and cultural services for the council, but which is no longer part of council staff.

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existing green space and creation of new green spaces. With decision making resting predominantly in planning, the relationship between planning officers and green space staff becomes critical for green space staff’s ability to influence how these spaces are provided (see Clifford and Tewdwr-Jones 2014). The process to involve green space staff in planning and development decisions is generally similar across the three councils. The green space team is considered an internal consultee as are other functional teams, such as highways or housing. The planning officer handling a particular application decides whether to contact internal consultees. Green space staff do not review all planning applications, but rather respond when requested to do so by planning officers. As such, planners hold considerable power and green space staff must trust that planning officers consistently refer applications and do so at a stage in the planning process when green space staff can affect decisions (Clifford, 2016; Whitten 2019b). Respondent 31 (green space staff, Islington) said, “Trying to get involved at the right stage can be hard,” while respondent 19 (green space staff, Wandsworth) observed that, “If the planner says there’s going to be an implication for green space or a new green space created or it’s got a biodiversity implication, then it should come through to us automatically, although we’re never entirely sure what their screening process is. And, so, the kind of regularity of that and the effectiveness of it fluctuates.” As an internal consultee, some green space teams charge other council departments for their input through service-level agreements. Similarly, other departments, such as planning, charge green space for their services. Budget cuts and reduced staff across local councils affect how much two departments can afford to consult with each other. This leads to less collaboration, notably on smaller and more informal or incidental spaces, on which planning officers are less likely to consult. Additionally, it deters planning staff from expanding their approach to urban greening or green infrastructure to include the green space team. According to respondent 44 (green space staff, Islington): “I used to be able to ask [planning] all sorts of things, but now we’ve just stopped asking.” Although each council has established a process to elicit input from green space staff on planning proposals, respondents described processes dependent not only on relationships between the two organisational areas, but also between individual planning and green space officers. Respondent 27 (green space staff, Islington) elaborated on this: It all comes down to your relationship with the individual case officers. If you have a good relationship with the case officer, you have regular conversations and they incorporate your thoughts into the [officer’s] report. On other occasions, things happen and you think, ‘whoa, why didn’t we get told about this?’

Decisions about green space provision are largely shaped – and, in some instances, wholly determined – by council planning staff, as green space staff are seen as responsible solely for managing amenity issues in existing spaces. Respondent 31 (green space staff, Islington) said the primary decision-making authority that lies with that council’s green space staff relates to landscape maintenance of existing green spaces, with no responsibility relating to development. The demarcation of functions is key because it reflects and reinforces a silo mentality within local authorities (see Kambites

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and Owen 2006). Organisational fragmentation is problematic for the delivery and management of urban green space, as nearly every department, from planning to health to education to housing, within a local authority has a connection to providing, managing or maintaining a borough’s green spaces (Whitten 2019b). Green space staff also work with staff in other functional areas of the council, such as housing, education and health, that have activities affecting green space. At the same time, these other teams also may be working with planning officers without involving green space officers. For example, a council housing department could work with its planning team on a project regarding green amenity space or a green roof on a council housing estate, without involving green space staff. Indeed, “departments often have overlapping responsibilities for parks, which can render the governance arrangements complex and fragmented” (Dempsey et al. 2016, p. 445). With green space carved up and spread among different departments and responsibilities, a council’s ability to conceptualise urban green space as strategic, interconnected and multifunctional is nearly impossible. Instead of having a single, strong voice advocating for urban green space, multiple smaller, weaker voices advocating fractured, separate purposes for urban green space exist within the organisation. This makes significant change difficult. This fragmentation affects how green space delivery and management is coordinated (James et  al. 2009). Respondent 19 (green space staff, Wandsworth) said: I feel sometimes like I’m pitching a battle with my lovely colleagues in sports development who want people to be more physically active because everybody is putting the same demand on the finite space. … what tends to win is not what’s good for that landscape as a green space through time, but what meets the political pressure now. There’s a demand now to stop kids from being obese and give them sports pitches. People will put sports pitches in. If I’m not strong enough that means that might happen at the expense of biodiversity.

Respondent 27 (green space staff, Islington) expressed a similar concern: We had a site that’s being renovated and it had a well-established long-grass meadow that we conditioned had to be moved and maintained on site so it could be replaced somewhere within the development once it had been finished. The argument I heard [from planning] was, ‘Oh, it won’t work, it’s dead, so we’ll just have to replace it with some turf.’ Their whole argument was around the fact that they needed this space for amenity provision because somewhere else in the planning process someone had probably said to them, ‘You need to provide X metres squared of amenity space.’

Respondent 11 (senior staff, national charity) said fragmentation also exists among green space-related charity organisations, while respondent 2 (senior staff, regional charity) added that the fragmentation of green space management at the local level reflects disintegration at the national level: [There’s an array of benefits] – environmental, economic, social, health – that’s linked to silos within central government because parks are under the DCLG [Department for Communities and Local Government], but it’s considered a cultural service by many. It doesn’t come under the Department of Culture, Media and Sport. It’s in a separate department. The two departments don’t talk to each other. Then you extend that argument to say health or education and, again, no dialogue. All those silos have their funding schemes, as well. And, you have exactly the same in local authorities.

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This fragmentation makes it all the more difficult to provide multifunctional green spaces, as each department or area within a council focuses on their specific area of responsibility. With the smaller green spaces typically found in dense, urban areas, such as Inner London, providing multifunctional spaces becomes even more daunting. According to respondent 31 (green space staff, Islington): “We’ve got lots of small spaces, and high levels of user and resident involvement, which makes Islington a real challenge … because they [green spaces] are under an intensity of use and conflict of uses that are much harder to manage in small spaces.”

5.6  Conclusions Multiple forces are at work that prevent London’s urban green spaces from meeting contemporary demands based on changing users, changing uses and changing awareness of the impact of urban nature on human and environmental health. Although London’s existing parks and green space network has functioned well for the purposes of amenity and recreation for nearly two centuries, green space design, delivery and management remain “stuck in a time warp” (respondent 2, senior staff, regional charity). Despite changes in population  and in cultural and sociodemographic makeup, the provision of urban green space has remained similar to the original 1800s, Victorian-era concept of what public green space is, how it should look and how it should be used. This can conflict with evolving understandings of how critical urban greening efforts are to combatting weighty issues stemming from twenty-first-century urbanisation and the serious, global impacts flowing from it. Although council planning strategies refer to multifunctional use of green spaces, in practice, traditional uses related to health and amenity dominate. Conceptualising urban green space more broadly as multifunctional and interconnected – as green infrastructure – that provides a wider array of essential, critical services, such as flood control, urban agriculture, and air and water filtration, does not feature as prominently in planning and other decisions, even though such other services contribute to a healthier environment. Indeed, this is a prominent limiting feature of urban green space in London today: Other factors beyond the traditional uses of recreation, sport, leisure and quiet reflection contribute to health and wellbeing, but to realise this, green space must be thought of and managed in a more strategic, holistic, multifunctional way. This requires reorganising how green space is planned, designed and managed. Delivering and managing urban green space with a narrow focus obfuscates the wider range of benefits that cities can derive from green space. In other words, health and wellbeing are connected to green space in broader ways than merely providing green gyms or social prescriptions. Managing green space for a wider array of benefits, such as flood prevention, air and water filtration, biodiversity, urban agriculture and education, leads to more resilient cities, which further supports improved wellbeing (Fig. 5.6).

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Fig. 5.6  Parkland Walk is a local nature reserve and a Site of Metropolitan Importance for Nature Conservation in London which follows a former railway line. It demonstrates how a green space can be multifunctional, connect to other green infrastructure and provide environmental services that meet contemporary Londoners’ needs while respecting the heritage of the site

Although an understanding of the multifunctional benefits of urban green space “is reasonably well developed,” in practice this has not been well integrated into planning and development and other local authority processes (James et al. 2009). This ties to a broader perspective on the role urban green spaces can play in economic, environmental and social sustainability. To achieve this, a “paradigm shift” is needed to overcome the entrenched Victorian concept of urban green space as a “rural ideal” that currently exists, thus, allowing urban green space to be managed as a multifunctional, interconnected network of urban green spaces across the capital (GLA 2014, p. 43). The role of urban green space as amenity remains strong, evidenced, in part, by the nonstatutory status of green space. Despite supporting a range of statutory services, from health to climate change to housing, green space continues to be provided as a discretionary service, making its status more as an ornamental postscript. To accurately reflect the critical role urban green spaces play in a range of essential services, such as clean air and water, physical health and mental wellbeing, flood prevention, and utilities and transportation corridors, green spaces  – particularly those in urban areas – must be afforded statutory protection.

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Our understanding of the benefits of urban green spaces for the environmental, social and economic sustainability of urban areas has progressed, and research increasingly shows the immense value urban green spaces provide to urban resilience. A key area is a growing understanding of how instrumental urban nature and urban greening efforts are to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and mitigating climate change. This, again, highlights how the Victorian approach to urban green space is too narrow for contemporary concerns, as the contribution of green space to environmental and ecosystem services and the mitigation of climate change was not a nineteenth-century concern. Today, however, climate change is a key priority for the health of individuals, cities and the planet. Green space must be actively managed for climate change mitigation – these spaces do not achieve that simply by passively existing. Ultimately, to help urban green spaces move away from being merely a paradox and instead towards the panacea they are typically presented as, we must move beyond the Victorian ideal and acknowledge a new, twenty-first-century ideal for urban green space. Instead of being confined to a traditional idea and design of green space, with particular features and formal designation, the concept of green space should be more expansive and include urban greening efforts beyond the site scale that are increasingly likely to be provided in densely populated and densely developed urban spaces. This will incorporate green walls and green roofs, street trees, informal and incidental spaces, and notably small green spaces, highway verges, housing amenity green spaces, elevated green spaces, and spaces where the primary use is not recreation or where public access is not the priority. Urban green space must be treated as multifunctional and interconnected, encouraging different shapes and sizes, and recognising that green space will not be able to meet all user demands as population and development grow in amount and density across cities. Long-standing perceptions of what green space is and how it is delivered and managed must be challenged if Londoners – and urban dwellers elsewhere – are to truly reap the benefits of urban green space now and well into the future.

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Chapter 6

The Challenges of Changing Governance: Curating New Civic Identities for Health and Wellbeing Mary Gearey

Abstract  This chapter argues that community volunteering initiatives in support of wetland environments within the UK generate landscape-specific forms of environmental citizenship. Utilising empirical fieldwork undertaken within two co-­ associated wetland nature reserves in central London prior to its opening, and within local waterscapes in three interconnected rural villages, this chapter suggests that emergent modes of citizen agency are primarily enacted through the performativity of volunteering. Members of the local community effectively curate new civic identities for themselves in response to each site. These emergent environmental citizenships are stimulated by different forces. In the urban setting the local authority has invested heavily financially to address issues of social equity and access to nature in a relatively deprived and densely populated area. Participation in the wealthier rural area has been prompted by withdrawal of local government funding in response to ‘geographies of austerity’ where citizens are burdened with tasks such as flood and land management. In both spaces the demarcation between those who manage, those who operationalise activities and those who use these sites becomes blurred. Care must be taken to promote community collaboration in support of freshwater environmental integrity without these communities bearing the disbenefits of these new modes of governmentality. Keywords  Urban and rural wetlands · Flooding · Landscape management · Community volunteering · Elders · Civic identity

M. Gearey (*) School of Environment and Technology, University of Brighton, Brighton, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 N. Dempsey, J. Dobson (eds.), Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44480-8_6

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6.1  Introduction Recent examples of global socio-political activism, such as Extinction Rebellion, Rising Up! and the ‘School Strike for Climate’ movements all attest to the potency and accessibility of different forms of environmental citizenship. Concepts of citizenship in the UK and across Europe have become increasingly fluid over the last few decades. In contrast to Marshall’s (1950) political classification and Whitehead’s (2002) ‘clientalist’ model, contemporary social and economic policy has increasingly relied on forms of ‘active citizenship’, in which people have ‘performed’ duties in support of their communities that might previously have been undertaken by the state on their behalf (Ravenscroft 1993, 1996). Echoing Marshall’s (1950) construct of social rights, the rights exercised in active citizenship are necessarily bounded by resource constraints in ways that political rights are not. This thinking underpins Seyfang’s (2006) and Dobson’s (2007) extensions of citizenship framing to include those who voluntarily take steps towards what they respectively term ecological and environmental citizenships. For Dobson (2007), the practice of environmental citizenship is essentially a voluntaristic act performed by those who believe that they can make a difference, even within established and often hostile political and economic structures. There is a tendency to link activism to youth. Current media attention focuses on the energising and enterprising strategies deployed by a cohort of emerging activists. Yet, working in parallel ways with equal potency, other forms of environmental citizenship have quietly rooted themselves in urban, suburban and rural spaces. This chapter is concerned with these activists – even if neither they nor the public would willingly ascribe this almost militant status to them. This is because these environmental campaigners are older, often in their mid to late 60s, with many active throughout their 70s. They come from all walks of life, all social classes, urban and rural spaces. Some are physically strong, others undertake their activism through their intellect and social connectivity. What unites them is their age: the grand vista of time that enables them to see what has been lost and what work needs to be done; and a recognition that, in many respects, they are the only ones with the time, resources and capacity to undertake the everyday, small scale, yet essential actions needed to take care of their local community environments. This chapter sets out two comparative collective stories, or performances, which illustrate both what these actors undertake and the underlying social, economic and political forces which have led to these wider patterns of activism that are emerging throughout the UK and around the globe. Focusing on one type of landscape, wetlands, and comparing elder environmental activism within two very different wetland spaces, we can see the close relationships between the underlying drivers which have led to these older actors becoming engaged with environmental activism, often for the very first time. The chapter presents interview data drawn from two recent UK research studies to reflect upon the challenges of changing governance as a result of austerity politics and the impact this has had on civic identity, environmental citizenship and equity with regards to using wetland spaces for

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human health and wellbeing. One study is sited within two co-associated wetlands which have  only relatively recently been granted public access, located within a dense urban area of North London, which has been greatly  challenged by the impacts of austerity politics. The other is a chain of wetlands within a comparatively affluent rural area of the South Downs in West Sussex in south-east England.

6.2  Wetlands as Climate Change Mitigation Spaces So why wetlands? Wetlands all around the world are experiencing a political and cultural renaissance, as their contribution as critical landscapes for human health and wellbeing is becoming fully appreciated across different knowledge realms. Encompassing blue and green spaces within which water, whether fresh, brackish or salty, inundates land for some regular or predictable period annually or permanently, wetlands take multiple forms, including lakes, coastal plains, water meadows, bogs, fens and wet woodlands. As a result they host a wide number of highly diverse ecosystems and connect mosaics of landscapes across large areas, making up around 5% to 8% of the earth’s total land surface (Mitsch and Gosselink 2015). These watery landscapes are crucial for climate change impact mitigation and adaptation (Mitsch et al. 2013; Erwin 2009). They sequester green and blue carbon; improve air and water quality through their filtering and oxygenation capacities; they support highly diverse ecosystems across different wetland classifications, and are essential to biodiversity, they store and release stormwater, so potentially reducing the scale of flooding events. Wetlands also support human wellbeing in a multiplicity of other ways (Maltby and Acreman 2011). For many people, wetlands are an intrinsic element in supporting thriving livelihoods, providing incomes, food, medicinal plants and are spaces of indigenous cultural heritage. Particularly for the global North, wetlands, and human encounters with wetlands, are indisputably connected with physical, social, mental, emotional and psychosocial health and wellbeing (Millennium Ecosystems Assessment 2005). In the UK this re-evaluation of the myriad ways wetlands support human, and more-than-human flourishing has helped support a programme of wetlands conservation, reinstatement and expansion over the last two decades (Hume 2008). Across Great Britain wetlands have been recognised as an intrinsic element of blue-green infrastructure which can function as part of a ‘nature based solutions’ approach to improving environmental integrity, helping to reduce flood risk, connecting green corridors for wildlife passage and supporting open civic access to the countryside (Thorslund et al. 2017). As such, the grounding premise for championing wetlands has been predicated on the range of ecosystems services benefits they provide (Keesstra et al. 2018) as part of a green-blue infrastructure portfolio. Much attention has been given within town planning and building design towards developing green and blue infrastructure within urban fabric, emphasising the long term positive social impacts these support (Gill et  al. 2007; Haase et  al. 2017). Green-blue infrastructure takes multiple forms, from micro endeavours in new

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housing estates and older residential spaces epitomised by roadside swales and rain gardens, green roofs and walls, to macro scale efforts through which multiple agencies and organisations collaborate to share funding and expertise to develop sustainable futures planning for whole urban and peri-urban areas. These endeavours seek to increase the green and blue portfolio of urban fabric for both ecological benefits and to support community building across different social and economic classes. City wide initiatives include restoring, expanding and enabling arboreal avenues, with under-canopy play zones and cooling fountains, to provide both city shade and the creation of biodiversity corridors across diverse neighbourhoods; developing ‘spokes’ of pocket parks which champion a mosaic of green/blue patchworks of different sizes in spaces which are densely populated; creating  ‘superislands’ to reduce traffic and build community conviviality (Gearey 2019). Through removing traffic lanes and replacing them with re-natured public squares city authorities aim to engender shared civic spaces for a range of activities such as eating, art performances and promenading (Barcelona City Council 2013). Other urban intiatives develop at a grassroots level in forms such as community orchards, guerilla gardening and street side plant donations to encourage domestic horticulture. These small and large scale changes in support of green and blue infrastructure are often disjointed and ad hoc, the result of individual initiatives, or in response to national or supra national policy directives. They might also be the result of consultation strategies in response to an event such as a natural disaster (Rosenzweig and Solecki 2014), national planning (Wong et  al. 2008), or climate change planning (Brody et al. 2018). These approaches inherently embed wetlands, like all forms of managed space, within the contemporary political and economic milieu. Nature based solutions (NBS) are viewed as the climate change adaptation strategy du jour. NBS are defined by the European Commission as ‘living solutions inspired by, continuously supported by and using nature, which are designed to address various societal challenges in a resource-efficient and adaptable manner and to provide simultaneously economic, social, and environmental benefits (see also European Commission 2015; Maes and Jacobs 2017 :121). NBS recognises that humans shape and impact environments, both built and natural, and that these environments shape and impact human health and wellbeing. NBS operates at a wide variety of scales and within both urban and rural geographical spaces. Examples include mixed species green roofs, managed coastal realignment, rain gardens, companion planting in agriculture to reduce pesticide use, swales on new housing developments and riverbank tree planting, alongside city wide initiatives such as ‘green wedges’ (Lemes de Oliveira 2014) and water sensitive urban design (Ashley et al. 2013) which effectively reengineer the built environment. The conceptual framing which underpins NBS is a recognition that this socio-­ ecological dynamic is in continual flux. The ability for both to retain, or acquire, resilience to climate change impacts is predicated on a mutual dependency. Drawing on the foundational work of Holling (1973) and Folke (2006) resilience within this context is understood as the adaptive capacity of both natural and built environments and humans to flourish in response to systemic change. Developing strategies

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and responses to build socio-ecological resilience (Adger 2000) is fundamental to NBS approaches. Wetlands and socio-ecological resilience are closely entwined in modern narratives of climate change adaptation. Yet resilience remains a contested term, arguably one that has been co-opted to depoliticise environmental degradation, drawing attention away from the global structural changes needed to end resource overextraction in favour of small scale ‘green-washing’ solutions (Goldstein 2013; Swyngedouw 2011; MacKinnon and Derickson 2013). Expanding, conserving and restoring urban and rural wetlands satisfies the NBS and ecosystems ‘turn’ in political sustainability rhetoric. In many ways wetlands are a de facto holy grail that are beyond criticism; their human-scale solutions enable ways of navigating the ‘wicked’ complexities of global climate change entanglements. Alongside their environmental benefits, wetlands visitation encourages human health and wellbeing practices, which in turn enables job creation within associated recreational, tourism and heritage economic sectors. A central part of this contemporary wetlands narrative is the role that volunteers play in enabling these spaces to be enjoyed, accessed and ‘read’ by various publics. Challenges arise when the management of green and blue infrastructure must adapt to changes in wider policy and funding spheres. This chapter focuses on the effects that the 2008 global financial crisis has had on NBS initiatives, particularly wetlands management. It is argued that political austerity has radically reshaped civic relationships and custodianship of wetland spaces.

6.3  P  olitical Austerity and Its Relationship with Emergent Forms of Environmental Citizenship Since the global financial crisis of 2008 many countries around the world have enacted economic, and hence political, austerity measures. Public services in England have experienced severe financial cut backs, with central government funding to local authorities cut in real terms by an average of 27% (Hastings et al. 2015). As some services, such as child protection and policing, are statutory duties, the consequent effect has been to cut spending in other non-statutory and ‘less critical’ domains. This has greatly and adversely affected financial support for the natural environment and for green/blue spaces within urban and peri-urban areas. It suggested in this chapter that it is central government funding cuts to local authority spending which have prompted a groundswell of elder activism. Kitson et al. have described this widespread public spending contraction in terms of ‘geographies of austerity’ (2011, p. 292) as the pattern is currently replicated across many countries. The impact is that there is less public money for road maintenance, education, social housing, waterways management and environmental stewardship. Rural and urban green and blue spaces, and their attendant populations, are affected differently though equally markedly. In city spaces public parks are collateralised as rentable spaces for profit-making entertainment events (Mell 2018) as

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one of a number of ways of preventing near-bankrupt councils from having to sell their land. Privately owned public spaces (POPS) with green and blue attributes are bestowed with increased civic access as a means to massage the corporate social responsibility profiles of profit-making organisations (Gearey et al. 2019). In rural communities the slow withdrawal of local environmental and highways services increases the incidences of pluvial, rather than fluvial, flooding events as blocked drains and overgrown verges increase the rates of flash run off after heavy rain (Gearey 2018). The stepping back of the Environment Agency from historic, though not legally binding, interventions in Internal Drainage Board work, and the ongoing disbandment of these civic bodies, has left hundreds of often elderly riparian landowners with responsibility for smaller watercourse clearance (Alexander et  al. 2018), with no prior knowledge or resources to quickly step up to their responsibilities. This leads to a greater onus on parish councils, the lowest tier of English local government in rural areas, to co-ordinate knowledge sharing and bankside clearance. Parish council members are often retired and not adequately supported by higher tiers of governance. What connects rural and urban civic responses are the ways in which volunteers have increasingly stepped in to fill the lacunae left by economic and political austerity measures across sectors. As explored below, fieldwork reveals the different inventive, collaborative and unexpected ways in which community elders have worked together to champion the needs of the environment. What they have created can be described as ‘gerontocracies of affect’ – freeform elder-led consortia based around an ethics of care, in which custodianship of the environment is the central axiom.

6.3.1  E  nvironmental Activists in Wetlands: Rural and Urban Volunteering Experiences The data discussed here are  drawn from two pieces of fieldwork. The first was undertaken with a mainly rural community, set in three interconnected villages which share a common river, and associated tributaries and springs, all wetlands spaces, in south-east England. A parallel piece of work was concurrently undertaken in an urban wetland, in North London, where full public access had been recently granted to enable access to a series of constructed freshwater reservoirs. These reservoirs are set within 211 hectares of green-blue space, with this initiative granting full public access to this environmental asset for the first time in their history. Although the rationale behind each piece of empirical research was different, the connective strand was the central importance of volunteers in enabling these spaces to function. This overarching finding was not anticipated at the beginning of either of the research projects, and reflected changing governance regimes associated with environmental stewardship.

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The aim of the first piece of empirical research was to explore how rural communities understand and respond to changes in their local water environments. The research was informed by the UK’s Localism Act 2011 which shifts the onus of responsibility for a range of management issues, including water management such as land drainage and smaller watercourse maintenance, from local authorities to local communities in England. As a result parish councils, local civic bodies with administrative powers run by elected volunteers who are often retired from full time work, were suddenly required to take responsibility for quite complex technical and financial decision making. Featherstone et al. (2012) have described this neoliberal turn as ‘austerity localism’; a further stripping back of state intervention and responsibility under the guise of participative governance. Localism has  also been  presented as an opportunity for communities to define and strengthen their own resilience to a range of potential contingencies, but with little or no guidance as to how this might be implemented. Using water resource management issues as the framing for the research meant that a wide range of respondents with different interests and skills sets could engage in the discussions, using an approach which focused on environmental rather than overtly political issues. Water resource management issues can refer to flood risk prevention, drinking water quality, environmental management, protection and conservation as well as discussions concerning the ways in which different actors access and enjoy local waterscapes.

6.3.2  The Study Sites The River Adur catchment was selected for the rural study. Located in the county of West Sussex, adjacent to the South Downs National Park, it is mainly rural though only 50 or so kilometres from London. The area is populated with small villages and larger market towns with most of the local economy based on farming, small businesses and tourism generated by visitors to the National Park. The catchment’s villages socio-demographic profiles differ from the local towns as they have a higher number of retired residents, aged 60-plus, with a mixed housing stock of large detached homes and smaller former social housing. Many of the respondents interviewed had retired to the villages because of the beautiful countryside. The study site, just within the tidal stretch of the river midway along the catchment, comprised of three villages, located close to a variety of water resources: Steyning; Upper Beeding; and Bramber (Fig. 6.1). Survey participants were asked to share with the researchers their experiences of changing water environments within their villages, and their responses or actions in relation to these changes. Participants were recruited on the basis that they lived or worked in the villages and had some interest, understanding or role in  local water resources management. Emergency services providers, business owners, parish councillors, farmers, community volunteers, planning officers, householders, property developers, writers and historians were amongst the cohort of participants who were approached and

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Fig. 6.1  River Adur study site: Steyning, Bramber, Upper Beeding, West Sussex, UK. (Map by Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust)

took part in the one- to- one semi- structured interviews. No professional level of expertise in water resources management was required - simply an interest in local water matters past, present and future. Respondents were asked to talk about their local water environments, leading to an open, generative interviewing format, lasting an hour on average. A total of 37 interviews were conducted over the course of the research. Contacts were initially made within the study area through approaching  community archive and heritage organisations. These initial inroads into engaging with the custodians  of the local communities’ water resources then began to uncover further contact points for those people and organisations who were involved in dialogues about water. Of the interviews conducted over the course of the rural research project, 22 of the 37 were conducted with participants aged 65 and over; capturing those who were considering retirement, and those who had chosen to retire from paid employment (Fig. 6.2). The second piece of research, Woodberry Down and Walthamstow Wetlands, are located in a densely populated area of North-East London, with in the River Lee Valley (also known as Lea) catchment. Woodberry Wetlands (17 hectares in size) opened with public access in May 2016; Walthamstow Wetlands (211 hectares) followed in autumn 2017, again with full public access. The latter is now one of the largest urban privately owned public spaces (POPS) in the UK. The two sites are

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Fig. 6.2  Volunteers with the Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust. (Photo by OART.org.uk)

just over 2 miles apart, with the expectation that a ‘greenway’ between both will be developed, increasing the connectivity between the communities of Waltham Forest and north Hackney. Both sites were, and Walthamstow still is, operational freshwater reservoirs which provide potable water for London. Originally constructed in the nineteenth century, both sites were designed solely for drinking water storage. Whilst Woodberry reservoir was closed to public access from its inception, Walthamstow reservoirs (10  in all) have had continual, though limited, public access, via fishing or birdwatching permits. These permits were unpublicised and so access had been an ‘open secret’ amongst recreational users. Woodberry Wetlands meanwhile has had very limited recreational use, with significant water engineering grey infrastructure on-site leaving little fauna or flora growing, and no other significant wildlife resident. A long-running campaign by local residents has protected the Woodberry Wetlands, with a range of stakeholders subsequently overseeing the transformation of the site to an open wildlife reserve. The sites are free to access and are promoted as nature reserves, which limits the types of human activity permitted on-site. The official explanation for the shift from private to public access has focused on the benefits of opening up the sites as a public resource in support of community building, experiencing nature and human wellbeing. Prominence is also given to the collaboration between key stakeholders including the London Wildlife Trust and the local authorities. This public relations campaign has steered media attention away from issues associated with public

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safety, profit, management and reputational risk and towards the community collaboration elements of the endeavour (Waltham Forest Echo 2017). The monetary investment needed to transform these sites from closed to open access was significant, and an inclusive stakeholder forum was required to apply for funding. Through the creation of the ‘Walthamstow Wetlands Partnership’ led by Waltham Forest Council, which donated more than £1 million, and supported the London Wildlife Trust to lead the stakeholder bid, the consortium was able to secure Heritage Lottery funding of £4.47 million in 2015. Thames Water provided an additional £1.84 million and the Greater London Authority donated £750,000 (Thames Water 2017). Of a total of just over £8 million in funds, more than three quarters was sourced from public monies for a site which, although it will be managed by London Wildlife Trust, is still owned by Thames Water, a privatised utility company. In addition to securing public investment in the development of its private capital assets, it is also apparent that Thames Water has been able to use the publicity to demonstrate its commitment to the local community ahead of the first wave of domestic competition in the water supply sector. The Water Act 2014 stipulated that by 2017 non-domestic water users will be free to select their water supplier, with competition in the domestic market being phased in over the current parliamentary term up until 2021 (Priestley and Hough 2016). Whilst this new era of competition does not yet affect domestic users, large-scale users, mainly industrial and commercial, can select which water company they ‘buy’ their water from. Thus it may not be coincidental that the opening up of the wetlands has occurred at this time, as Thames Water will no doubt have been seeking to engender brand loyalty through its association with a major new recreational asset for this part of London. This is particularly crucial as the water companies use household revenue streams from domestic water supply contracts to provide debt and equity finance to support expansion of other elements of their global business portfolios (Allen and Pryke 2013). A key component in opening these sites has been the use of local volunteers to act as guides to members of the public, to help enforce the bylaws that underpin the POPs and to act as the first point of contact when visitors experience the site. These volunteers are emblematic of what we have termed ‘hydrocitizens’ (Gearey et al. 2019; Evans 2018): members of the public, and of the local community, who, similar to environmental citizens (Dobson 2007), perform acts of voluntaristic citizenship to protect, restore and improve public access to wetlands and other waterscapes. There is a tension regarding risk management on site and the expectations placed upon volunteers. Volunteers are likely to mitigate the risk of the on-site rules and regulations being contravened as they manage the expectations of the site managers and the employed personnel from London Wildlife Trust, along with the expectations of the visiting public who may not have had the time to fully assimilate or understand the conditions under which they may use and access these sites (Walthamstow Wetlands 2018). During November 2015 and March 2016, before the sites were opened to the public, 37 in-depth, face-to-face, semi-structured qualitative interviews were undertaken with a wide range of partnership and community stakeholders (including

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formal private, public and environmental NGO project partners, local residents, site volunteers, local birders and anglers, local councillors and local government representatives). The interviews explored the different processes through which stakeholders were involved in the sites, the varied partner and volunteer objectives, and the social and environmental significance of opening these sites to wider public access. In addition, these data were augmented by researcher participant observation at on-site volunteering days, plus local and national media coverage of the sites’ opening in print and social media. The respondents interviewed were a representative sample of the cohort of stakeholders involved in the wetlands sites, though not representative of the socio-demographic make-up of the surrounding locale. This alerts us to the non-representative aspects of environmentally focused volunteering. Age, class and race mediate both who volunteers within communities and why (see Musick and Wilson 2008; Rochester et al. 2010; Pearce 1993) with a clear bias towards those who are white and more likely to have participated in further and higher education. The findings are drawn from a thematic analysis of the data using computer aided and manual coding which identified codes and sub-codes which are the bases for the themes discussed in the next section.

6.4  C  reating a Meaningful Life in a Post-work World: Curating New Civic Identities Both datasets reveal the importance of volunteering for older community members. Creating a meaningful life in a post-work, post-family-raising phase of life helped develop new social networks, improved mental, physical and emotional capacity and helped people forge a new sense of self at a time in their lives when the dominant neoliberal discourse positions elders as economically  unproductive (Coole 2012). Within the rural fieldwork sample around a third of the participants had moved to the area because of the river, which nestles within the landscape of the South Downs National Park. Of these, most are retired people for whom the riverbank is also a place of the imagination, where they can contemplate a different life after working life is over. Other incomers were younger, commuting to work away from the villages. They also valued the river, but perhaps more as a signifier of the ‘rural idyll’ (Mingay 2017), reflecting a better quality of life for them and their families. New relocators, the retirees, initially used volunteering in various water resources management capacities as a route to enjoy meaningful activities and to build their social networks. Some joined existing local environmental groups, meeting several times a week, either to get involved in the physically hard labour of cutting riverside vegetation or tree planting, or through seasonal citizen science observation activities such as bird surveys and river water quality measuring. A large-scale one-off activity was in response to degraded local river water quality. In 2015 local anglers and the Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust fund-raised to hire heavy machinery to clear riverbeds and deposit aggregate to help water decontamination and support breeding

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grounds for spawning fish. Reflecting on the work, several respondents alluded to the need to take direct action, even aligning with those whose perspectives radically differed from their own, because they shared the same ultimate goal. As one of them observed: If you get a mobilised, engaged, enthusiastic, driven (Parish Council) chair, the world is your oyster, then you get people that have maybe been doing it for too long, but you just can’t find anybody else to take it on… so that community engagement thing again is really interesting, and I reflect back into my own life. I have nothing to do with local politics, but I think I have quite a lot to do with my community.

[Local community volunteer co-ordinator, male, working non-resident, late 50s] In the urban setting, relocation was not a dominant theme. Rather, retirement in an urban setting meant that many respondents felt a need to forge a new identity away from the home. Among their reasons were unanticipated feelings of being ‘hemmed in’ within small home spaces; a lack of privacy because adult children had returned to live with them; a desire to try something new; a longing to re-engage with natural spaces in ways they had when they themselves were children. As one urban volunteer stated: …getting out of the house and going to Woodberry Wetlands has been my absolute mental health and wellbeing. It has transformed my life. …that sense of belonging and the ability to escape is immeasurable.

[Local volunteer, female, retired, early 60s]) Using a post-work phase to engage with local community activities was cited as another driver for urban volunteering. Respondents often stated that they wanted to deploy their work skills in a new way, or to develop new areas of expertise. For many the nature of the engagement was secondary to feeling appreciated and given a recognised, organisational identity connected with the space in a formal capacity: I get pleasure from the social interaction with the other volunteers and the visitors to the site on the monthly tours. Talking to people about something that I’m enthusiastic about and then them responding to me really positively makes me feel good and gives me good social interaction.

[Local volunteer, male, semi-retired, late 50s] Some of these volunteers were using volunteering activities in order to transition into working in the environmental or conservation sector. The volunteering activities on the urban site included providing guided tours and educational talks for visitors, stewarding school groups, enforcing the bye-laws of no dog walking or picnicking, physical work such as tree planting, reed bed clearing, and pathway maintenance, and other landscaping tasks. Office based roles were also available such as dispatching angling licences, updating Twitter feeds and the website bird logs, and answering phone enquiries. All volunteers are supervised by a small team of employed official site rangers. This is in marked contrast to the rural setting, where voluntary activities are freeform and responsive to the needs of the local community and the individual interests

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of the volunteers. They are not site specific per se, but operate within a much wider and topographically and hydrologically more complex geographic field. Examples of the rural environmental activism practices include volunteers in one village who spent time researching local drainage maps to identify sources of pollution, and who then held local meetings to lobby for changes in local land management practices which, they concluded, were the drivers of the problem. Others volunteered as parish councillors, getting involved in civic administration, often of a very technical nature, particularly around the nascent devolution of riparian drainage responsibilities from the regulatory authority (the Environment Agency) to local homeowners. Their work enabled them to transition out of high status paid jobs towards useful, but still high status, voluntary work. As observed by one participant: “we are ending up running a kingdom almost here”. Another group of newly relocated retirees enjoyed a creative relationship with the riverbank, joining walking groups and local art initiatives, along with undertaking solitary endeavours such as writing and thinking, using the river as their inspiration. For these newly retired relocators their move was connected to a determination to shape a meaningful life post work, to enjoy the fruits of working life. Yet there was also a wistfulness – of reflecting on a life past, engaged in the headlong rush of work, family, caring – to now re-evaluate what this next stage of their lives might mean for them. Time became the underlying theme behind the research conversations – respondents’ focus was changing from working towards long-term goals to appreciating that every day is to be cherished. More than one respondent emphasised the joy of finally engaging in their passion for nature conservation, in slowing down time that they felt was passing too quickly: I mean, I just do this for, for love, you know. There’s no money, no allowances, there’s nothing.

[Male, retired environmental conservation volunteer, early 70s] Yet not all of the voluntary activities were supporting health and wellbeing in their myriad forms. For some, volunteering was a necessary response to failing local authorities and a withdrawal of state support. Indeed, as outlined below, some interviewees saw volunteering as the only way to protect local habitats.

6.4.1  R  esilience in Counterpoint to Austerity Localism: Building Communities Many rural residents told stories about the ways in which their lives had been altered by the impact of flood events. In one case the residents of a country lane, far away from the river but nestled within the chalk downland, explained how over the past five winters their homes had become deluged with water sluicing down the tarmac road from the South Downs to pool at the bottom of the lane, washing onto their front gardens and into their houses. As a result, postal and delivery workers would no longer service the street, the residents’ cars were damaged by stones and other

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debris in the water thrown up by passing traffic, and garden walls and brickwork mortar were showing signs of erosion from water intrusion. Although a downland spring had always trickled down the side of the lane, and was a renowned resource for village children to float home-made paper boats and dandelion faeries along, the volume of water had now increased substantially in the autumn and winter. A collective of local activists formed a pressure group to demand responses and action from the local council. Six active members, representing 80 local residents, would meet regularly to plan activities, with another 12 ‘sleeper’ households who would get involved when they could. The activists collected and submitted photos and engineers’ reports showing water swirling along the road, scouring the road surface and making transit difficult for the forty or so households. When asked for their diagnosis of the cause of this recent flooding the activists were clear: a combination of changing land management practices, in terms of crop type and tillage, by the landowner and tenant farmers at the top of the lane, and a withdrawal of local government services leading to the County Council no longer maintaining the highway or the drainage systems as it had in the past. Further, the environmental regulator, the Environment Agency, had also actively withdrawn from managing the drainage maintenance of minor watercourses; something that it historically undertook as a municipal benefit but which legally was the responsibility of every property owner. As a result, the residents perceived that wealthy farmers and landowners were causing the soil to become compacted, preventing rain from being absorbed and instead causing it to cascade from the top of the inclined lane down to where their houses lay. ‘Grips’ and other small diversion channels that would have traditionally slowed some of the water’s progress from the lane into roadside copses and dips were now no longer maintained by the local authority’s highways team. With nowhere to go but straight down, the increased volume and velocity of water left residents with a seasonal  tumult. The residents argued that the discomfort and inconvenience they suffered should not be a postcode lottery; they paid their residential Council Tax for highways services (amongst others) and felt they were being unduly discriminated against: We do get quite large chunks of tarmac and stones and things that are washed down…when it does rain hard and the water gushes down it brings all the stones down as well….there’s no real champion if you like from the Council who, who really they say they want to help us out but it’s only for their political needs – there’s no money around.

[Local resident, newcomer, working, male, early 60s] For these citizens, banding together to clear the drains of leaves when and where they are able, attending and petitioning at parish council meetings, fundraising for and commissioning engineers’ reports is all part of a grassroots, responsive endeavour which actively challenges the notion that their local environment has to simply accept these imposed, exogenous forces. They are adamant that their voices will be heard, but wistful about how long, as campaigners of retirement age, they can keep their activities going:

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Fig. 6.3  Mouse Lane, Steyning, seasonal flooding Winter 2016/2017. (Photo by Lisa Yallop) Because obviously as people get older they’re not, they’re less able to, to do these things, aren’t they? So you know, that’s fine for the next five years but I think after that we’ll probably be struggling.

[Local resident, late 50s, female, retired] Another flooding incident illustrates the connections between political austerity and its more nuanced impacts on older people’s lives. Here, flooding came through groundwater discharge, which is common in river valleys with high water tables, leading to the groundwater sitting within saturated soil, close to the land surface. Although rainfall contributes greatly to the amount of water in the soil, for respondents the local water table has been directly impacted by the rapid and dense housebuilding schemes higher up the catchment. With property developers required to provide minimal drainage alleviation in the UK, unlike in other European countries such as Germany where Sustainable Urban Drainage Schemes are legislated, many interviewees cited more roads, more buildings and more hardstandings such as offroad parking, as responsible for the rise in the local water table: The [flooding] problem … wasn’t actually caused by the Adur down here. The water just came down slowly through, through the fields; you couldn’t really see it but it was below the surface of the grass if you like. You could actually see it coming off the ditch into our garden, you, you could see the flow of it there.

[Retired business owner, female, mid 60s] (Fig. 6.3)

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In this instance the water got into this particular couple’s home and their adjacent businesses: … it is so disruptive because once the house gets wet as, as Penny said we were out [having to live elsewhere] for, well it was nine and a half months wasn’t it?

They talked through how flooding had awakened them to austerity politics: that when their home flooded they realised there was no-one to help them, no administrative structure or service provider to enable them to return to their prior circumstances. Instead, they felt alone and abandoned by the state, wondering what their taxes, insurance, and hard work was actually for. Their response was to join their local flood action group and to invest a large proportion of their retirement savings into adding flood protection cladding to their property - a property they felt would no longer be sellable as neighbours’ sales had been impacted by flooding. One of them commented, with respect to the neighbours, that: Anyway they’re trying to sell it and they’ve had three sale agreed signs up and all removed and we believe, certainly the first two were to do with insurance and inability to get insurance.

Meanwhile on the urban wetlands the feeling was that these sites needed to be reclaimed by local people, as these spaces were in essence gifted to Thames Water during the 1989 privatisation of the English water sector under the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Although Thames Water still owns the sites, and the management of the sites by the London Wetland Trust is on a lease, there was the feeling amongst volunteers that a form of ‘entryism’ was better to help steer the direction of the site from within: There are too many people who have got their own interests and not doing what they should do, you know? And these are the people you have to fight against and it isn’t an easy task lots of the time.

[Local volunteer, part time employed, mid 40s] There was a recognition that Thames Water’s involvement in supporting and part funding the opening up of both sites to public access, whilst being heavily reliant on free voluntary labour, would be beneficial for them, particularly in light of the forthcoming opening up of competition in the domestic water market, and the need to win customer loyalty: …..they have such a massive programme of ongoing works across London, it will be helpful for them to be able to point to something that they are giving back. I’m sure there is some reputational advantage to be had when you spend a lot of your time digging up London roads.

[Local town councillor, early 70s]

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6.4.2  A  ctivism and Community: Working Within and Against Current Governance Regimes “Basically everything that you used to rely on is just withering away and if you don’t take it over yourselves, you lose it. [Female parish councillor, early 60s, newcomer] Time and again the interviewees reinforced that their desire to keep their community together superseded the challenges of relying upon an ageing cohort of local activists. For the rural respondents this involved anything from running local libraries, to guerrila gardening to keep hedgerows and roadside verges trimmed, to organising village fetes to help with funding local youth spaces. The weight of responsibility lay on village elders who continue to be the most visibly present and digitally responsive sector of the local community. This activism is clearly in response to funding cuts and had generated a local gerontocracy in charge of organising the community and managing allocated funds from local government. For the urban respondents, community engagement in joint projects such as the Woodberry Down and Walthamstow Wetlands acted as a catalyst for other funding bids and community endeavours, and provided new physical spaces for festivals, learning events and educational activities, across different city boroughs and neighbourhoods. As onerous as the workload appears to be, there is a tenacity from these respondents who recognise the need to fight for their share of local council monies: ..so a lot of the things that we have been coming to accept as, as our right in terms of a community service, are partly being bypassed because the money has to be funded into areas where they (the  local authority) are legally obliged to spend it….when the counties, the counties and the districts want their cake and eat it, they want to take the money off you.

[Male, retiree, early 60s, local action group campaigner on landfill pollution] The urban volunteers are sanguine about the need to work with the water company, and that by doing so the site is compromised in terms of community ownership: What’s the alternative is what I always say, put it in perspective….The alternatives are it’s privately owned and never opened….

[Environmental NGO representative, late 30s] Particularly on the urban site, what develops is a blurring between volunteer and governance boundaries. Volunteers are members of the public who morph into agents of the site’s managers once they don their official wetlands branded badge or t-shirt. Those tasked with enforcing site bylaws, maintaining the site to adhere to risk assessments and insurance requirements and interfacing with the ‘public’ are the volunteers – who are also civic visitors to the site themselves.

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6.4.3  C  onnected Lives, Shaping Meaning with Concerned Others ‘They don’t live here, they sleep here’ [retired drainage engineer]. The quotation above is taken from a respondent who had spent all of his working life in one of the rural villages. His family and his working life were embedded with the landscape. He did not present an idealised version of village life, but his comments inferred that, in reversal of generic concepts of ageing, it is the young in the village who had become invisible: they were either in their cars commuting, or at home recovering from the working week. They were not connected or engaged with the life of the village. This lack of connectivity is particularly poignant for this interviewee who, after a lifetime of physical engagement with the landscape, and as a team leader of drainage workers, now was wheelchair bound and had limitations in communicating due to Parkinson’s disease. Yet his critical faculties were as keen as ever. The younger village cohort’s disconnection from the landscape he viewed as partly choice, and also as a symptom of the pressures of modern life to consume. Our interviewee’s contribution is dispersed: his knowledge, experience, stories, though increasingly locked in within his body, take a new direction as we can ‘read’ him through his effect on the landscape – his raised flood banks, his grips diverting water off the road and into ditches, his culverts. Part of this legacy needs a commitment to take the time to read the landscape, much like a text, to retrieve the lost or fading knowledges embedded within the gerontocratic legacy. As one rural respondent stated: .. community is all that matters because I feel disempowered… I don’t think my vote counts for anything, erm, and a lot of us I’m sure feel like that.

This is reflected too in the experiences of the urban wetlands volunteers. When asked why they chose to invest so much of their time and energy into the space they simply said: …[it’s] the right thing for our environment, for our communities that we work within.

[Local community volunteer, retired, mid 60s] Connecting with people of a similar age and to a wider span of community networks is obviously one aspect of volunteerism. Yet the fieldwork, once again, highlighted something ‘other’ at play. This ‘other’ is the mindful volunteering which is a directed act or performance of agency, directly responding to the recognition that the state is no longer able, some would argue willing, to provide support in times of crisis. It is this difference on which the gerontocracy argument in this paper rests. Volunteerism by an older cohort is not a gerontocratic act, nor forms a gerontocracy. What makes these forms of activism gerontocratic is the manner in which a political process, and its forms of governance, are deliberately utilised by an older cohort to provide resources and support policy decisions which significantly and directly benefit their own needs and desires. This is not to say there is unanimity of vision.

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Fig. 6.4  Flooded brooks on the River Adur floodplain near Bramber, West Sussex, UK, winter 2016/2017. (Photo by Pat Nightingale)

Rather, there is a collection of individual needs served through a collective endeavour whose endpoint is to replace the lack of governance, even lack of cohesive community, that is perceived to be the new normal (Fig. 6.4). A longstanding village resident, of over forty years, has been actively campaigning against and raising awareness around the poorly constructed multiple landfill sites around his home, underpinned by a wider awareness of the impact of incremental cuts to local services. Over the years he has noted the ebb and flow of local interest in environmental issues. He details how the sense of community has also changed over that time: …Well who’s going to do it? You try and find people, even to sit on the parish council, yeah? You know, we could, technically we’ve got vacancies for two or three or four people, you know, we’re under, we just can’t, there isn’t the, there isn’t the community spirit, you know, it’s not the same as it was when we were kids, you know.

Another Parish Councillor described how her awareness of local issues only came to the fore once she was involved in Parish Council work. She now feels morally obligated to remain a councillor as so few other residents are willing to engage with what she describes as ‘a complicated, time consuming role’. Having joined to keep active and learn about the local area as a retiree in-migrant, she has become politicised as the true enormity of austerity cuts have become clear:

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…I see it as a delegation of their (the County Council’s) responsibilities, whereby there’s a pot of money that only the most proactive and able (Parish) councils with a bit of oomph about them will spot. But then you’re completely responsible for it, even if you know nothing about, say, drainage. It’s a bit scary but money seemed to be so tight there seemed to be no other way to get the money.

As she details, had she not joined the Parish Council she would have remained unaware of the scale of delegated responsibility now resting with this tier of local governance. As she recognises, the issues that she is engaged with in her portfolio of ‘Planning and Highways and Lighting’ – reduced highways work, the roll back of local authority responsibility for drainage management and flood prevention – together with the Council’s wider brief, such as the cutting of local services for the young and the differently abled, would have not directly affected her retired life. Contrary to Berry’s (2012) depiction of a ‘grey power’ which is dominated by a self-satisfying grey agenda, instead we see a form of political awakening brought on through retirement and the opportunity to get involved with community networks. The elders cannot be presumed to just give knowledge – they are also developing new knowledges in response to the availability of new time and a willingness to network socially, driven by the in-migration patterns of the relatively affluent and well connected to particular types of rural settings.

6.5  C  oncluding Thoughts: ‘Grey Power’ and Environmental Activism in Wetland Spaces Both the urban and rural examples of environmental activism in wetland spaces alert us to a shift in governance patterns via ‘austerity localism’ and a growing awareness of the social justice issues attendant to equity of access to less managed natural space for human health and wellbeing. Underpinning both is the era of ‘grey power’ where some of our most inventive and tenacious environmental activists are community elders. Alongside claims for a renewal of Lefebvre’s (1991) ‘rights to the city’ (Isin 2008; Massey et al. 1999) promoting social justice, renewed citizenship, and the protection of public space, there is a growing body of research which asserts a pressing need for forms of ‘rights to nature’ (Apostolopoulou and Cortes-Vazquez 2018; Radhuber 2015; Swyngedouw 2009). This takes two forms. The first builds on indigenous scholarship and activism which argues that nature should be accorded a sovereign, or legal, status. If we are not separate from nature, and we as humans have legal rights, then logic argues that nature, or rather natural entities such as forests, rivers, mountains or permafrost, should also be granted its own unique legal status. The second form of ‘rights to nature’ develops from an affective positionality; that access to nature should be a universal human right. Utilising a political ecology approach, the ‘rights to nature’ perspective argues for the need to recognise the fundamental relationship between human health and wellbeing and the accessibility, use, and protection of green/blue urban spaces for all global citizens, present

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and future. There is an intra and intergenerational component to both aspects of the ‘rights to nature’ canon, focused on socio-environmental equity. In an increasingly urbanised and commodified world, green/blue spaces become the public sites of reclaiming a citizens’ right to lead a dignified, healthy life. Equitable access to green/blue space is also an issue of environmental justice (Jennings et  al. 2012; Haase et  al. 2017), as is the quality of such environments (Lennon et al. 2017). This focus on quality is key, as much of the critique of current legal or policy frameworks to develop natural infrastructure within city spaces has been accused of forms of ‘greenwashing’, in which the use of mono-species or non-­ native species is deemed both lacking in biodiversity and fails to support biomimicry endeavours. Yet the centrality of ‘a dose of nature’ (Pretty 2004) has been shown through research across disciplines. Urban green/blue spaces may support and enhance individual and community health and wellbeing through a number of pathways, including improving  air quality, enabling restorative  noise/sound profiles, encouraging  physical activity and social cohesion (Markevych et  al. 2017; Nieuwenhuijsen et al. 2017). The amount, quality and accessibility of urban green/ blue space has been associated with numerous physical and mental health outcomes (Egorov et al. 2016) and evidence suggests that health benefits may be greatest for those in more socio-economically deprived areas (Mitchell and Popham 2008; Wheeler et  al. 2012). Access to green/blue spaces is considered to be crucial to childhood development (Strife and Downey 2009) and cultural identity (Tengberg et al. 2012; Vecco 2010) across all social classes (Scopelliti et al. 2016). Yet equal access to nature appears increasingly elusive. In a climate of political and financial austerity, management of natural spaces increasingly relies upon volunteers; and as the fieldwork has shown, these volunteers are very often community elders. As greater responsibilities for policy delivery are handed to communities through local governance structures and new planning frameworks, e.g. the Localism Act 2011 and the 2018 National Planning Policy Framework, (see Cabinet Office 2010, 2011; MHCLG 2018), the role of Parish Councils is increasing in influence and impact. Parish Councils are, in effect, the lowest tier of local civic governance in England. Councillor posts are voluntary, yet selection is through an election process, with only local residents eligible. Parish Councils’ remit is to serve the needs of their local residents. Parish Council members are, onaverage, aged 60  and above  (Communities and Local Government Committee 2012). This is  15  years older than the median age of the 2014 UK population (Office for National Statistics 2015). Data is scarce on rural parish councillor demographics, but they are highly likely to reflect the age profile of rural settings which are ‘disproportionately elderly’ (Kinsella and Velkoff 2001, p. 315). This discrepancy between the younger working adults and the more civically active older retired adults reflect wider patterns of local political engagement (Biggs 2001) in response to social policy shifts. There is, in effect, a gerontocracy operating at this micro scale; decision-making and action are undertaken in the main by older members of the community. We are presented then with a gerontocracy tasked with operationalising forms of community resilience and this has important civic implications in terms of inequalities of democratic participation in an ageing society (Berry 2012). Care must be given to

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interrogate the ways in which the term ‘gerontocracy’ is often presented negatively in the literature, framed as the political dominance of an introspective and conservative cohort. Rather it is suggested here that civic engagement strategies led by energised, skilled local elders have the potential to be hugely beneficial to communities impacted by austerity measures. In conclusion, environmental volunteering provides a wide range of positive benefits for our older citizens. It increases their social and political connections; it improves their physical, mental, emotional and psycho-social wellbeing . Volunteering provides elders with new skill sets and interests; it counters the prevailing neoliberal paradigm that elders are a drain on society and replaces this with a differing perspective to show the importance of civic activism at all stages of life. The research findings highlight the different ways these elder actors contribute to widening engagement and enjoyment of natural spaces for younger generations in both rural and urban landscapes. We see how these activities cut across gender, social class, ethnicity and educational groups and involve those with widely differing physical and emotional connections to natural spaces. Yet we must place these positive aspects alongside more sombre reflections on the ways in which these changing governance regimes in many ways restrict access, use and enjoyment of wetland spaces. In our urban example, the opening up of public access to these private spaces obscures that these were municipally owned landscapes less than 30  years ago. Privatisation has radically altered our relationship with this landscape in ways which cannot be redacted. As Brett Christophers outlines in his 2018 work ‘The new enclosure’, the UK government has sold 50% of its publicly owned land to private investors in the last 40 years – a trend which continues and which is obscured by its piecemeal and ad hoc nature, so that it is hard to map. Enabling access by using third sector organisations to manage some of these spaces does not compensate for the loss of legal ownership of the land, particularly as this impacts on the long-term vision and use of these landscapes. We might see the leasing out of these spaces less as philanthropic benevolence and more as risk avoidance, as the charitable organisations that manage these spaces take on the legal and financial responsibility for caretaking them. Our rural activists highlight the impacts of severe funding cuts to communities which have significant cohorts of older residents. As the reliance on the ‘localism’ mantra continues, these elders may find it increasingly difficult to continue to fill in the resource gaps. Many of those interviewed seem to have experienced a late-life political awakening, as they realise that there is a fine line between environmental citizenship as forms of citizen science and activism in response to environmental degradation and political intransience. It would be interesting to see how quickly local services and community organisations would stop working entirely if our older volunteers withdrew their unpaid labour in unison. This chapter has sought to draw attention not just to the changing governance domain of environmental issues – that when government withdraws, civic activists step into the gaps – but to also highlight that whilst this environmental citizenship may have a host of beneficial attributes, what sits behind are often stories and real life experiences founded on the hardship and difficulties wrought by the politics of

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austerity. These tropes , a marketised water sector, a collateralisation of public land and a devolved management of high-risk private spaces, all suggest further entrenchment of nature-capital relationships. These activists may not be as high profile as others, and are often working in multiple ways without the recognition they deserve, but they are civic radicals who are enabling the next generation of environmentalists to find their voice.

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Chapter 7

Mind the Gap: Does What We Know About Greenspace and Wellbeing Change What We Do? Julian Dobson and Nicola Dempsey

Abstract  This chapter addresses questions of the decision-making processes concerning investment in urban green spaces. It considers how evidence is deployed in processes of governance, and how nuanced understandings of costs and wellbeing benefits are backgrounded as evidence becomes a bargaining chip in a struggle for resources. Calling on empirical research conducted in the city of Sheffield, this chapter examines these issues through the lens of the everyday work of practitioners and professionals. The chapter highlights the importance of logics of action and inaction, revealing the effects of stakeholders’ reasons for choosing not to take actions that strengthen the links between green spaces and mental wellbeing. Keywords  Decision-making processes · Evidence-seeking · ‘Logics of inaction’ · ‘Myth and ceremony’ · Governance · Urban green space interventions

7.1  Introduction In 2018 the UK government published a policy paper, A Connected Society, as part of what the prime minister, Theresa May, described as ‘a national mission to end loneliness in our lifetimes’ (HM Government 2018). It was curious that almost four decades after the election of the Thatcher government in 1979, which inaugurated an almost uninterrupted quest to shift state functions into the market economy, a Conservative government should seemingly shoulder the burden of a mission so amorphous and probably unattainable. But it illuminates the dissonance characterisJ. Dobson (*) · N. Dempsey Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 N. Dempsey, J. Dobson (eds.), Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44480-8_7

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ing public policy in the neoliberal era, a dissonance reflected in the specifics of policies on greenspace and wellbeing. This chapter shows how such dissonance impacts on the decisions made on the ground in one of England’s largest cities. We begin by presenting the broader picture: the political context in the UK that has led to a quest for particular types of evidence to inform decision-making; the complex governance arrangements through which practical decisions are made; and the role of evidence in a climate of austerity. We then introduce Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature (IWUN), a three-­ year project to investigate the role of ‘urban nature’ in wellbeing in the city of Sheffield. We outline the governance structures that influence practical decision-­ making and the logics applied by organisational actors, showing how such actors perceive their own capacity to achieve change. We conclude with some observations on the grounded use of evidence in practice, responding to the question of whether what we know changes what we do. The search for evidence, we suggest, functions as part of the ‘myth and ceremony’ (Meyer and Rowan 1977) of organisational life: evidence must be considered, but it does not necessarily change decisions.

7.2  Innovation Before Infrastructure? Buried about halfway through the loneliness strategy cited above is a section on community spaces, including parks and green spaces. It stresses that ‘green spaces in rural and urban areas have been shown to be highly beneficial to health and wellbeing and provide space for people to meet’ (p. 37). It proclaims that the government is ‘working closely with partners … to promote the value of public parks and green spaces’. A casual reader – or one unfamiliar with the UK context – might imagine such warm words to signal a programme of investment and support, perhaps along the lines of the investment that followed the report of the Urban Green Spaces Taskforce in 2002 (DTLR 2002). They might be surprised to find that only 2  years before Theresa May’s announcement, members of Parliament had declared public parks to be at a ‘tipping point’ of decline (House of Commons 2017) and that in one city, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, funding for municipal parks and green spaces had been cut by 90%. The sight of government ministers singing the praises of the public services they have systematically dismembered over nearly a decade has become familiar in the UK. It highlights that the agenda of twenty-first century neoliberalism is not purely to shrink the state; it is to recast a set of relationships between state and market, between central and local, that shifts resources from the public sphere to the private and moves both funding and the policy agendas dependent upon it from localities and regions to the centre. Indeed, the state can be quite interventionist in the pursuit

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of policies designed to shift resources and control, and in promulgating discourses of ‘efficiency’ that simultaneously suggest that public services should be better and that they should have less money (Christophers 2018). Furthermore, while municipal investment in parks and green spaces continues to shrivel, pots of funding from other sources – within and beyond the state – are available to find new ways of either paying for green spaces or demonstrating their worth. In 2017 the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government announced £500,000 for a Parks Action Group to ‘help England’s public parks and green spaces meet the needs of communities now and in the future’ (HM Government 2017). This is being spent on preparing ‘a business case for parks’ to ‘set out the social, economic and environmental returns that can be secured for local communities, government and the private sector from continued investment into our much loved parks and green spaces’ (The Parks Alliance 2019). In 2018 Nesta, which describes itself as a ‘global innovation foundation’, teamed up with the Big Lottery Fund and National Lottery Heritage Fund to award grants totalling £2  million through its Rethinking Parks project. This is specifically focused on funding innovation in parks which identifies ‘new ways of running parks more sustainably’ (Nesta 2019). In the academic world, too, there is funding to study the value created by parks and greenspaces. The £6.5m Valuing Nature programme  – which includes the research reported here – brings together four academic research councils and the UK Government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) to ‘consider the economic, societal and cultural value of ecosystem services’. To understand why there is (currently) money for innovation and research, but little for cutting grass, clearing litter, keeping facilities open or employing staff, it is necessary to understand some of the consequences of austerity in the UK, and especially in northern English cities. In brief, such impacts are reductive: there is less money to go around. They are distributive: some areas and groups are more negatively affected than others. And they are aggressively selective: both formally and informally, places and groups are forced to compete for the resources that remain, without the opportunity to design the rules of competition. Work by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (2018) and the Centre for Cities shows the scale and unequal distribution of local government spending cuts since 2010; for example, between 2009/10 and 2017/18 the number of cities spending more than half their entire budgets on social care increased eightfold (Centre for Cities 2019). The local budgets allocated to the discretionary service of green space provision and management are therefore understandably decimated (HLF 2016). The resulting competition for any available funds is both formal – small pots of money open to competitive bidding processes, a process adopted by governments since the 1990s – and informal, with a constant internal jockeying for position and influence within and between municipalities and public sector organisations. In such a climate, argument and advocacy, and the quest for evidence to support it, grow while the resources available for services diminish.

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7.3  Fractured Governance The competition for diminishing resources is exacerbated by governance models that distribute responsibilities and resources among different institutions to meet the demands of common agendas. At a political level, the UK government continues to support the creation and upkeep of green spaces and recognises the importance of mental wellbeing. Mental illness is the largest cause of disability across the UK and is calculated to cost the economy the equivalent of 4.1% of GDP (OECD 2018); there is also belated political recognition of the impact of species loss, with a 60% reduction in wildlife globally since 1970 (WWF 2018). Yet at an urban level, the responsibilities for meeting these agendas are splintered. Parks and green spaces are the responsibility of local government, but because they are not a statutory duty they are low on the agenda. Spatial planning, which is a statutory responsibility, also rests with local government; as do public health, education, and social care. All are overseen by elected councillors who agree and implement local political priorities. Direct healthcare for people diagnosed with mental health conditions rests with the National Health Service, either through hospital treatment for those with acute conditions, or with the primary healthcare system. Primary healthcare is provided by general practitioners, physicians who operate as independent contractors within the NHS and have wide freedom to decide what services to offer at a locality level. Within the NHS, resource distribution has traditionally favoured secondary rather than primary care, and treatment of individual conditions rather than action to address the wider social determinants of health (Imison et al. 2017). But healthcare is seen as a function of central government, so there is no direct democratic accountability. Wellbeing services are also provided at a community level through an assortment of civil society organisations, many of them underfunded or not funded at all, while public sector organisations receive a cost-free benefit from their existence. But their efficacy is at risk because they have little capacity to take on new work. There is also strong community involvement in the upkeep of parks and green spaces, but because this is through volunteers it is neither consistent nor evenly distributed. Despite recent rhetoric lauding the role of voluntary organisations in taking on tasks that previously fell to the state, the capacity of civil society organisations has also been reduced (Lobao et  al. 2018) and their influence in decision-making processes is often limited and superseded by the interests of the landowner, which is often the local municipality (Mathers et al. 2012). The ability to implement cross-cutting policies thus depends on interaction between arms of local and central government and local civil society, none of which are directly provided with the resources to work together and agree joint priorities. Progress is a matter of negotiation and brokering, in a context of competing and conflicting targets, demands and lines of accountability ‘between actors who are attempting to “square the circle” of contemporary mixed motivational demands, and institutions which themselves contain legacies of different mixed motivational demands from the past’ (Lowndes and Roberts 2013, p. 13).

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In addition to the challenges of fragmented resources and responsibilities, local governance is faced with the headache of conflicting rationalities. A legacy of community development, participatory planning and deliberative practice (Healey 1993) persists, especially among civil society organisations, indicating an expectation that they will play an active part in governance processes. A stronger and more recent heritage is that of ‘new public management’ (Rydin 2003), with an emphasis on efficiency and achievement of policy targets. Alongside this, with varying levels of political commitment, is the aspiration of localism – the notion of devolving power from the central to the local state and from the local state to community-based organisations (Davoudi and Madanipour 2015). This gives rise to unspoken but constantly simmering conflicts over both the purposes and the practices of local governance. In the climate of austerity that has become entrenched since 2010 in the UK, the discourses of devolution and localism have become further tainted with an insistence on public sector cost savings as the primary objective. Austerity urbanism (Peck 2012) involves institutional buck-passing from the central to the local level – the ‘systematic dumping of risks, responsibilities, debts and deficits, to the local scale’ (p. 650). Cuts must not only be made at local level, but managed locally: localities are required to take ownership of centrally imposed budgetary constraint. In the UK, despite the efforts of some local authorities to protect the poorest populations, this has played out in terms of disproportionate cuts to urban areas, and reductions in resources for the services most used by people in greatest need (Lowndes and Gardner 2016; Hastings et al. 2017). This rapid overview of governance arrangements affecting greenspace and wellbeing in the UK will be familiar to many, with varying permutations and distinctive challenges in other jurisdictions. The reason for highlighting these governance complexities at the outset is that they skew linkages between evidence and action in ways that often escape the attention of researchers tasked with gathering the evidence.

7.3.1  Evidence in Governance The austerity context imposes conditions on how evidence can be translated into action. It delineates the parameters of the permissible, influencing how knowledge is deployed and what knowledge is demanded. In a climate of financial constraint, evidence becomes a resource in a quest to continue existing activity and to legitimise proposed activity, and a tool in both advocating and resisting institutional change (Jasanoff 2010). As funding cuts bite deeper and demands on organisations increase, organisations seek ‘proof’ that what they do is effective and justifiable. Such evidence may take the form of academic research that demonstrates the efficacy of a particular approach in comparable contexts; evaluation of an organisation’s own activities; or case studies  – ranging from in-depth to anecdotal  – of ‘best’ or ‘good’ practice (Bulkeley 2006).

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Within organisations, the anecdotal and the taken-for-granted may carry more clout than the academic. Time-pressured staff have neither the time to read academic research directly nor the privileges to access it. Even parliamentarians tend to get most of their knowledge from think tanks (Kenny et al. 2017). Within professional milieux, much effort is devoted to feeding this justificatory appetite. To provide just one example, the Royal Town Planning Institute in the UK produced a research report on ‘the value of planning’ (Adams and Watkins 2014); this has spawned, among other outputs, an online tool developed in partnership with the Welsh Government, a report for decision-makers on ‘delivering the value of planning’, and another on ‘the worldwide value of planning’. In a climate in which the role of planners is under threat (Haughton and Allmendinger 2016) such activities provide an ammunition dump of targeted policy-relevant material. As well as seeking to justify what they are already doing, organisations look for evidence to legitimise what they would like to do. In the context of urban green spaces, this plays out in the national and international search for appropriate ways of valuing greenspace and urban nature. This drive is not new, but has gathered momentum. Natural capital accounting (TEEB 2010) has been designed as a way to quantify the benefits provided by greenspace and biodiversity. Other studies seek to capture the social return on investment in green spaces (Greenspace Scotland 2013). More recently, healthcare researchers have mooted the possibility that ‘a dose of nature’ might be more medically cost-effective than traditional interventions in addressing physical conditions such as obesity and cardiovascular disease (Shanahan et  al. 2015) and as the equivalent of ‘a drug for mental health and well-being’ (Barton and Rogerson 2017). In the hurly-burly of everyday bureaucracy, however, researchers’ caveats vanish. It falls to academics to note that ‘surprisingly little work has been done on the relations between … costs and benefits, and how the match or mismatch between those who bear the former and those who enjoy the latter affects the provision of green infrastructure’ (Wild et al. 2017). It is seldom spelled out that the imagined returns on investment do not always accrue to the investing organisation, and in any case tend not to be cashable, taking the form of future costs avoided in the long term rather than extra income gained that can appear in a set of management accounts (Dobson 2018). In a world of ‘shrinking-pie resource allocation’ (Peck 2012), evidence forms a bargaining chip. It is used both as a tool of advocacy and as a resource for resisting change. Particular forms of knowledge are advanced and celebrated within epistemic networks (Haas 1992; Olsson et al. 2006), where expertise can permeate and transcend institutional boundaries. Such networks can become centres of resistance to established paradigms, generating and validating their own canonical knowledge; ‘knowledge-based experts’ influence policy environments by ‘articulating the cause-and-effect relationships of complex problems’ (Haas 1992, p. 2). Their work supports new ‘network imaginaries’ (Muñoz-Erickson et al. 2017), and introduces and legitimises ‘cosmopolitan knowledge’ from different local environments (Hulme 2010). Such knowledge may conflict with local ‘logics of appropriateness’ (March and Olsen 1989) or taken-for-granted ways of understanding and practising

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an organisation’s ethos and purpose. ‘Discourse coalitions’ (Hajer 1993) cluster around competing interpretations of data, seizing on research or seeking to discredit it as they tussle for influence and resources. Within the context of current debates on the value and funding of urban greenspace, we can see how evidence is mobilised for particular ends, and how actors are enrolled in such mobilisation. Two examples are illustrative. A UK greenspace charity, Fields in Trust, estimates that frequent use of local parks and green spaces can have a positive health and wellbeing impact nationwide worth £34.2 billion, and can save the National Health Service a further £111 million through reduced visits to medical practitioners. As the charity’s policy manager points out, ‘as long as there is a threat to our public parks and green spaces then making the case in economic terms can help to change the conversation’ (McCann 2018). The second example is the notion of a ‘dose of nature’, discussed above. Here knowledge about the health effects of urban greenspace is deployed to justify changes in healthcare practices. In the first illustration, a quest to provide an acceptable economic valuation of greenspace mobilises economics for the purposes of protecting and justifying investment, but enrols policy actors into a discourse in which whatever cannot be shown to have economic value drops out of the conversation. The conversation is changed, but not necessarily in the way that those who value their local parks and green spaces would want. In the second, a quest to show the health benefits of greenspace leads to the reduction of complex experiences to a ‘dose of nature’ and the enrolling of academic actors into a discourse that values the more-than-human world according to its utility in supporting human health and wellbeing. However noble the objectives, this locks in a view of the natural world as a resource to be exploited. Within epistemic networks, cultures and shared beliefs coalesce and new understandings gain traction. Epistemic networks establish ‘social meanings’ as well as agreed facts (Jasanoff 2010) and reinforce their position by claiming expert authority (Raven et  al. 2012) and acting as arbiters of ‘best practice’. Such mutually-­ validated expertise enables epistemic networks to influence policy agendas and inform institutional strategies (King 2005). At an organisational level, knowledge networks influence change in five ways: they inspire, legitimise and facilitate change; they challenge slow progress; and they can also constrain change by excluding options where evidence is considered inadequate or unhelpful (Dobson 2019). Evidence is thus political: a tool to achieve the ends of governments, institutions, and interest groups (see also Henneberry et al., Chap. 4, this volume). The more robust and detailed the evidence, the less amenable it is to the swift resolution of policy and practice dilemmas (see Dempsey, Chap. 8, this volume). Good research – rigorous in its conception, conduct and conclusions – is more likely to raise questions than provide answers. In an austerity context, decision-makers demand answers to questions such as ‘if we adopt policy X, how much money will it save us?’ or ‘if we adopt policy Y, will we achieve our targets on issue Z?’. Academic evidence tends to respond with variations on the theme of ‘it depends…’. As Pawson and Tilley (1997) highlight, interventions in policy and practice are mechanisms inserted into variable contexts, with variable outcomes depending on the environment, the duration and resourcing of the intervention, and unforeseen

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external factors. This does not mean they have no value. It means that the value is dependent on factors that it may not be possible to influence. Our own research, however, suggests that practitioners do not view evidence in this way.

7.4  A Case Study from Sheffield, UK Sheffield provides a case study in how evidence for the wellbeing effects of urban green spaces is selected, deployed or sidelined in practice. Over three years researchers conducted a study to investigate how the city’s green spaces and natural environments contribute to good mental health and what interventions could support these salutogenic processes and properties. Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature (IWUN) was funded by the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council and led by researchers in the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield with colleagues in the University of Derby, Heriot-Watt University, Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust and the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. IWUN aimed to define the characteristics of natural environments that promote health and wellbeing; explore the diversity of values and beliefs that influence people’s connections with nature; investigate the potential for assessing the value of natural environments in terms of health and wellbeing outcomes; examine the policy and governance frameworks needed to implement appropriate interventions; and work with stakeholders to translate such findings into practice. Sheffield is the UK’s fifth largest city and is characterised by high levels of urban deprivation typical of post-industrial cities. However, it is well provided for in terms of green spaces: natural environments form 70 percent of the city’s land cover, with 80 public parks and a total of 947 publicly accessible green and open spaces. A study by Vivid Economics (2016) found that the city’s parks and green spaces provide benefits valued at nearly £1.3 billion for public services in the city (including £145 million in respect of mental health). IWUN had four work packages, working simultaneously on different aspects of the relationships between natural environments and human wellbeing (Dobson and Dempsey 2018). An epidemiological study examined the correlation between green spaces in Sheffield and general wellbeing  – physical health as well as mental (Brindley et  al. 2018). The second work package examined individuals’ feelings about and connections with the natural environment through a series of interviews and facilitated workshops. Participants were mental health service users and infrequent users of green space, especially from deprived areas of Sheffield and including significant numbers of BAME (Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic) participants. These intensive qualitative interviews and workshops produced a wealth of material highlighting the variety and richness of connections with nature, including the

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importance of childhood experiences and encounters with the natural world, the use of spaces for solitude and recovery from the stresses of life but also for companionship and sociability, and attachments to animals, flowers, birdsong and domestic pets. The third work package centred on a smartphone app, which prompted users to respond to the natural environment within ‘geofenced’ green spaces in Sheffield. Users were asked what they noticed and how they felt. Participants were asked to take part in either a 30-day or a 7-day experiment in which they used the app regularly. Results from the seven-day trial indicate marked improvements in wellbeing and an increased sense of connection with nature among participants, especially among those suffering from mental health problems such as depression and anxiety (McEwan et al. 2019). The fourth work package had two strands. The first aimed to synthesise IWUN’s research with existing academic studies and to work with practitioners and local stakeholders to identify interventions that would maximise the wellbeing benefits of Sheffield’s green spaces. We identified five interventions that could be implemented by practitioners within Sheffield. We also worked with stakeholders to understand the decision-making processes involved in putting such interventions into effect. The second strand of this work package involved a cost-utility analysis of the proposed interventions, testing the hypothesis that it is possible to put an accurate economic value on the wellbeing benefits generated through specific interventions in urban natural spaces in cities in order to inform decision-making (see Henneberry et al., Chap. 4, this volume). However, insights from organisational studies alert us to the absence of simple logical chains between research findings, recommendations, political or management decisions and on-the-ground action. A wealth of scholarship from sociology and organisational studies sheds light on the ‘embedded agency’ of individuals working within institutional contexts (e.g. Barley and Tolbert 1997; Seo and Creed 2002). Within organisations, individuals adhere to ‘logics of appropriateness’ (March and Olsen 1989). A new policy or process, particularly when imposed or advocated from outside, may clash with such logics of appropriateness and meet with resistance. But actors within organisations do not act uniformly. Organisational culture is celebrated, followed or challenged to different degrees through the process of ‘institutional work’  – individuals’ actions that maintain, disrupt or repair institutional structures (Lawrence and Suddaby 2006). Actors follow established logics of practice or ‘logics of inaction’ (Sharman and Perkins 2017). In any organisational situation, multiple logics vie for influence (Thornton et al. 2012) and the rules, practices and narratives that shape behaviour are subject to different degrees of contest and enforcement (Lowndes and Roberts 2013). Change is only indirectly related to evidence and policy – hence the growing scholarly interest in the creation of ‘niches’ where new ideas can be incubated in a deliberate effort to challenge existing ways of working (Grin et al. 2010).

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7.5  Grounded Governance and Fragmented Agendas An examination of one Sheffield park, the Ponderosa, shows the multiple governance structures and agendas at work. It was developed in the 1960s as part of a network of three parks that stretches from the university campus in a northwesterly direction towards the city’s main river and historic centre of industry, the Don. Each of the parks – Weston Park, Crookes Valley Park and the Ponderosa – contain landscaped grassed areas, mature trees, and in the case of the first two, water features (Crookes Valley was a former reservoir). Weston Park hosts the city’s main museum and contains tennis courts. Crookes Valley Park hosts watersports activities, contains a children’s play area and bowling green, and has a bar and restaurant. The Ponderosa, unlike the other two, was never intended as a park: the site was originally earmarked for housing. Its accidental nature is reflected in its name, a nickname adopted by local children after a ranch in a 1960s TV programme. A horseshoe of woodland at the top descends to a flat area of sports pitches surrounded by tower blocks, and to one side is a small orchard planted many years ago by local environmental volunteers. It has no café or social hub. All three parks are managed by Sheffield City Council’s Parks and Countryside department. Netherthorpe, the neighbourhood surrounding the lower end of the Ponderosa, is among the 10% most deprived in the UK (IMD 2015). Within the municipality, it is a priority area for social services, education, and public health. Direct healthcare is provided via the Upperthorpe Medical Centre in the adjoining neighbourhood. The nearest hospitals are accessible by car, but public transport is limited. Community activities are provided by local voluntary organisations including Zest, a ‘community anchor’ organisation that has taken over a former library and swimming pool and has been established in the area since 1997. Local residents are involved in the upkeep of the Ponderosa, Crookes Valley and Weston Park through the activities of the Friends of Crookesmoor Parks. Residents can also influence municipal decision-making via elected representatives for the Walkley ward, with three councillors covering a total population of just under 28,000. Some matters are the responsibility of national agencies: the Environment Agency is responsible for water quality, while Natural England is responsible for biodiversity and wildlife management. Such distributed and fragmented governance is typical of English urban areas. Because the upkeep and use of green spaces involves multiple interests and responsibilities, ranging from biodiversity to sports, decisions are made in order to satisfy varying – and often competing – agendas. As part of our research we consulted stakeholders and practitioners to identify interventions that would maximise the wellbeing impacts of green spaces, and to understand the decision-making processes involved. We were interested here not only in formal decision-making processes but in the understandings embedded in daily practice, the ‘local forms of knowledge which may or may not be codified’ (May and Perry 2017). In consultation with project advisers, we identified the public, private, and voluntary sector organisations and individuals involved in health and greenspace governance. A total of 122 respondents completed an exercise to

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Table 7.1  The shortlisted interventions The green space interventions considered to have the greatest potential mental health benefits for Sheffield’s residents (in no particular order). 1. Improved access to green spaces, including walking and cycling routes 2. New or upgraded toilets and cafés in parks and woodlands 3. Set and maintain a minimum standard of regular, sustained maintenance 4. Employ parks staff to encourage outdoor activities and volunteering 5. Support voluntary and community organisations to animate green spaces

choose their preferred interventions from a list of 35 options. The shortlist was discussed at a stakeholder event with 30 participants; in six focus groups involving 28 participants; and in six semi-structured interviews with individual stakeholders. The focus groups were conducted with parks professionals; volunteers associated with ‘friends of parks’ groups; local government planners; public health professionals; community workers engaged in health promotion; and a group of clinicians recruited by the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare. Individuals interviewed included two medical general practitioners; the head of therapy in an NHS institution; an academic specialist in public health and physical activity; a primary care worker based at a Sheffield leisure centre; and a housebuilder engaged in major housing schemes in the city. Interviewees and focus group participants were selected on the basis of their existing interest in green space and wellbeing, and their knowledge of decision-­ making processes. All interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed, and thematically coded to identify decision-making processes including trade-offs, the use of evidence, justifications of resources and reasons for inaction. Table 7.1 shows the shortlisted interventions (with some illustrative examples in Figs. 7.1 and 7.2). It is important to note that these were informed by local context and knowledge, so would not necessarily be generalisable to other urban contexts.

7.5.1  Do Actors Believe They Can Achieve Change? In the course of our interviews and focus group discussions with stakeholders, we identified a wide range of reasons for proceeding with the interventions that had been prioritised (Table 7.2, centre column). These logics of action illustrate how, in the context of practice, an action might be justified and advocated on the basis of existing knowledge  – both academic and tacit. Given that these logics support actions that had already been agreed as priorities, it is not surprising that participants offered a substantial set of justifications. Their understandings of the benefits of greenspace interventions either mirror academic evidence (for example, in terms of the health benefits of greenspace) or go beyond it (for example, in the belief that cash savings for health services can be generated).

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Fig. 7.1  Improved access to and within green spaces for walking and cycling

Fig. 7.2  Animation of green spaces by voluntary and community organisations

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Table 7.2  Investing in greenspace for wellbeing: Logics of action and inaction identified from research Logics of action Logic Theme Wellbeing logics ‘Green spaces are good for you’  Multiple benefits across a population  Being in nature connects with biological rhythms  Use of greenspace encourages positive social norms Green spaces reduce healthcare dependence and health inequalities

Green spaces are cost-effective – nature-based interventions promote self-care Greenspace activities help to address loneliness and isolation   Volunteering benefits both the volunteer and wider community   Green spaces provide opportunities for group activities   Walking provides quality time and deeper social interactions Greenspace activities help reduce fear of crime  Social activities address fear of going out  Park rangers provide sense of safety

Logics of inaction Theme The value of ‘nature’ is subjective  Many people aren’t interested in the outdoors  People with high support needs can find natural surroundings intimidating  Green spaces support ‘unhelpful’ coping strategies – drinking, drug use Persistence of biomedical model of healthcare   Non-medical knowledge is devalued   Social prescribing is ‘plan B’   Little capacity to try new and untested initiatives Funding for ‘green’ or social prescribing is short-term – projects are not sustained

Green spaces are difficult and dangerous  They attract undesirable activities (e.g. drug taking)  They involve physical risk  Genuinely ‘wild’ places are dangerous

Group activities or volunteering increase employability skills, confidence Academic research shows greenspace is Academic evidence isn’t regarded as sufficient or appropriate – does important for stress relief, attention not involve large population restoration and physical activity cohorts or randomised controlled trials; long term outcomes not demonstrated (continued)

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Table 7.2 (continued) Logic Financial logics

Logics of action Theme Cost-effectiveness of ‘green’ interventions (cheaper, more local, more tailored to personal needs and preferences) Provides cash savings: reduces pressure on other services and potentially releases funds for reinvestment or reduces healthcare waiting lists Commercial activities in parks can generate income to spend on healthcare interventions or new facilities Some money is available now Basic levels of maintenance and care prevent green spaces becoming liabilities

Wider economic logics

Quality of life attracts investors and boosts the city’s reputation

Greenspace investment increases land values

Logics of inaction Theme Upfront funding – therapeutic interventions and greenspace investments have direct and immediate costs. Evidence of costs and benefits is inadequate Savings are notional savings at some future date. Savings may accrue to organisations that do not pay for interventions. Limited commercial markets; investments may have unintended consequences Funding can’t be sustained There are more immediate problems. Greenspace is seen as a luxury, ‘nice to have’ Creating new green spaces is costly and residents of new developments do not want to pay greenspace management costs The economy comes first: there are insufficient links between greenspace and attracting new investment and jobs. Roads and infrastructure are seen as more important. Development does more to increase land values than green space. Green spaces can make new housing developments ‘unviable’

More walking and cycling via green spaces reduces congestion and air pollution (continued)

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Table 7.2 (continued) Logic Civic and community logics

Logics of action Theme Good quality spaces encourage nature connections. Recruiting development workers increases confidence and use Investment in green spaces creates opportunities for volunteering and participation and is good for young people Well maintained spaces create a sense of ownership and reduce antisocial behaviour. Park staff increase a sense of security There is strong political support for greenspace and appropriate planning policies

Organisational logics

Joined-up working enables different organisations to meet shared objectives on poverty and inequality. There are opportunities to pool or match resources.

Existing policies supporting green infrastructure   Some planning policies support greenspace creation Neighbourhood planning may create new opportunities

Logics of inaction Theme Improving access and transport links is expensive Target groups aren’t perceived to be interested in ‘nature’

Greenspace is associated with risks – crime, safeguarding, objects of fear (needles, drug paraphernalia). Unpoliced environments are intimidating Greenspace is not the top political priority and elected councillors focus on parochial interests. Homelessness, poverty and the economy come first Silo working – there are ‘organisational firewalls’ between departments and organisations  Services are ineffectively signposted  There is competition and duplication between organisations  Officers are risk-averse Policies are sometimes weak and the regulatory regime is weaker. Wellbeing and greenspace not prioritised in development plans   Development industry doesn’t value greenspace   Development pressures favour rapid decisions   Informal and community spaces not identified as a need   Land ownership prevents action – different public green spaces owned by different organisations/departments (continued)

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Table 7.2 (continued) Logic Environmental logics

Wider social logics

Logics of action Logics of inaction Theme Theme Green spaces support climate change adaptation and mitigation. Improved air quality has direct wellbeing benefits. Flood resilience (SUDS schemes) provide opportunity to create new biodiverse spaces Green routes can be wildlife corridors Biodiversity is not valued – people chop down garden trees and pave over gardens Investment in greenspace can support Greenspace groups are dominated equality and diversity objectives by retired white people Community sector is bottom of the Community ethos: people-centred professional hierarchy values of voluntary and community organisations working in green spaces Nature-based learning alleviates stress among young people Media and political attention focuses elsewhere – deterioration of green spaces is not a big enough crisis to warrant attention Housing developers say buyers don’t want green spaces

Of greater significance is the range of reasons offered in the right-hand column for not going ahead with an intervention. These are the rationalisations of inaction that practitioners either encounter in their daily work or have internalised as reasons for not intervening. In a large majority of cases, each argument for action had a counterpart logic of inaction. What this table demonstrates is that evidence alone, whether scholarly or practice-based, is insufficient to generate action, or even to provide adequate justification for action. Financial, political, and organisational logics may outweigh ‘evidence’. The table aggregates the justifications expressed by participants across this strand of the research project, rather than segmenting them by individuals or roles. It shows that across a broad swathe of relevant professions in one city, the logics of inaction balance, and frequently outweigh, the logics of action. This balancing of logics is played out in the course of everyday professional practice. Academic evidence may emphasise the value of natural open space in offering opportunities for peace, relaxation, and social activities (e.g. Ward Thompson and Aspinall 2011). But practitioners told us they needed to show the economic effects of such findings. One community worker described how data generated through a social prescribing initiative were dismissed by potential funders because of the failure to demonstrate cash savings:

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…from day one of doing that work, [voluntary organisations have] got really consistent data about the impact it has on individual people’s wellbeing, on how much it makes them feel good, but the reality is that’s not getting them any money to carry on doing the work, it’s not encouraging people to invest. We know it makes people feel good, anybody would be able to say that, and what they’re being consistently asked for is data around cost savings.

Even where policy goals are seen in terms of health and wellbeing outcomes rather than purely in monetary terms, proposed investments are frequently discounted because the evidence is not considered robust, or it is not aligned with existing policies and targets. One clinician told us: …what the healthcare trust gets funded [is] measured against certain targets, so that becomes then the priority for the clinician … because they’ve got massive caseloads, they can’t spend their time to include other areas unless it’s something that’s also a measured target that they’ve got to evidence, to prove that it’s something that they’re doing for a reason.

For medical practitioners, we were told, actionable evidence should appear in relevant journals such as the BMJ (British Medical Journal) or The Lancet; ideally it should be supported by a randomised controlled trial. Evidence that does not fit that model is regarded as less valid; but to fit the criteria valued by medical practitioners, much of the qualitative and practice-based knowledge of the value of greenspace would have to be discounted. Local government, similarly, demands evidence that supports municipal objectives, whether they be objectives of economic development or public health outcomes. A local government planner, discussing the idea of ‘green corridors’ to link neighbourhoods with parks and woodlands, questioned whether connections could easily be made between the creation of a route, the likely increased use, and eventual health gains: We could say yeah, great, there’s an increase in cyclists, therefore you can correlate that there is likely to be a better quality of life, people’s health is likely to improve, but there’s no empirical evidence to support that, or at least it’s disparate.

Our research highlighted the difference between what can be established from academic inquiry and the information practitioners say they need. What is evidenced is not necessarily a sufficient argument for changing policy or practice. One health expert emphasised the pressure for ‘a more politically attractive argument’: It’s unlikely that we will convince people to [invest] purely on a health argument. If we could, we’d have won that argument years ago because the evidence is overwhelming, so it’s going to need to be a different argument. Probably a more politically attractive argument around the economy.

The same interviewee added: We’ve used the academic evidence as part of a jigsaw puzzle … and we’ve combined that with local tacit evidence, more substantive theory, and a few hunches if you like, and chucked that into a pot and said okay, this is our best guess based on the totality of that information, local insight, academic literature, which is not always context specific…

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The logics and arguments of the practitioners involved in our research signal a culture in which new investments are viewed as risky and the potential outcomes of such investments, though desirable in principle, are viewed as lower-order priorities than actions where quantifiable returns can be demonstrated. This risk-averseness is exacerbated by financial constraint. This plays out not only in a reluctance to incur costs, but in a reduction in organisational capacity. The ability to innovate or to connect between different organisations (or different parts of the same organisation) is reduced both through a shortage of time and a lack of information. One parks worker told us: One week you’ll find out that something’s happened across the city that’s really aligned to some of our aims – well, didn’t anyone know about this? Because no-one’s got the time to go along to meetings and stuff like that.

Capacity is reduced in order to concentrate resources on what are perceived to be more pressing problems. One community worker explained: It’s well known that prevention is better and more effective in the long term. But at the moment in the current climate everybody’s fighting fires and not actually able to put that funding into the preventative services. It might be more expensive in the short term but in the long term it really does help to invest in the community and voluntary sectors. We’re picking up a lot of the bulk of what statutory services used to …

The practitioners we interviewed believed the interventions they had selected were necessary and justifiable in supporting wellbeing, but could not currently be justified in the terms demanded by financial decision-makers or in terms of organisational priorities. Nam and Dempsey (2018) report similar reluctance to innovate in the case of community food growing in urban parks, as it would impose additional responsibilities on parks managers. Logics of inaction become self-reinforcing: after repeated rebuffs, practitioners focus on what they believe they can achieve rather than on the outcomes they would like.

7.6  Evidence-Seeking as Myth and Ceremony Reflecting on these connections and disconnections between evidence and action as observed in Sheffield, it is salutary to revisit Meyer and Rowan’s classic depiction of the ‘myth and ceremony’ of organisations (Meyer and Rowan 1977). Their view was that organisational practices and procedures arise as ‘reflections of rationalised institutional rules’; these rules function as myths that enable organisations to accumulate legitimacy, resources, and stability – and to survive. Meyer and Rowan considered that as organisations adopted similar rules they become isomorphic in terms of structure, but such structures become ‘loosely coupled’ with the actual activities pursued. Instead of pursuing Taylorist principles of coordination, inspection and evaluation, such organisations relied on ‘a logic of confidence and good faith’. Such practices may be inefficient but help to guarantee survival and continuity.

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The notion of myth and ceremony relates to the following of rules in the context of activities and outcomes that bear limited relation to them. As Meyer and Rowan observe (p. 343): …structural elements are only loosely linked to each other and to activities, rules are often violated, decisions are often un-implemented, or if implemented have uncertain consequences, technologies are of problematic efficiency, and evaluation and inspection systems are subverted or rendered so vague as to provide little coordination.

More recent literature has extended the notions of rules as myth and ceremony to practices of workfare in the United States, characterised by ‘myths’ of rights, contracts and client satisfaction (Handler 2005); the drive by nation-states to institute national stock exchanges (Weber et al. 2009); and the ‘bureaucratic ceremony’ of managing ex-offenders after their release (Wacquant 2010). As Wacquant points out (p. 613) organisations are able to thrive, not despite their inefficiencies but because of them; they provide a ‘ceremonial façade’ for business as usual. Such decoupling, the literature suggests, is endemic in organisational life. If we were to consider the search for evidence of the wellbeing benefits and economic value of green spaces and the natural environment as embodying myth and ceremony, rather than simply taking it at face value, this would lead us towards a different analysis of why evidence does not result in appropriate action. Rather than adopting a view that the evidence is inadequate, or inappropriate to the particular circumstances pertaining in one or another location, or that it is unconvincing because it is not based on the gold standard of randomised controlled trials, we might explore the discursive functions of evidence in policy and practice environments. Public policy, informed by the bureaucratic principles of new public management, requires a process of evidence-seeking and evidence-presentation in order to justify decisions. The myth of evidence-based policy also enables proposals to be rejected on the basis of insufficient evidence, effectively masking the politics of decision-making. A concern with ‘what works’ and ‘good practice’ provides an appearance of logical inevitability for what is actually a political choice. As a recent systematic review on ‘places, spaces, people and wellbeing’ (Bagnall et al. 2018) found, in practice the evidence is mixed: choices are always made on the basis of inadequate information. Further and more detailed studies to compare different interventions might provide decision-makers with more nuanced abilities to choose between alternative approaches. But as Pawson and Tilley (1997) observe, ‘what works’ is a question of what works for whom in what circumstances. An intervention is a mechanism adopted within a context, and its effectiveness is influenced by context. We should question, then, not only whether the evidence of ‘what works’ is sufficient or not to justify action and investment, but also whether the perceived knowledge gaps justify inaction. Our study leads us to conclude that to identify reasons for inaction we need to look beyond the evidence to examine the context. In a context of financial stringency and declining resources, the demand for more evidence can be the equivalent of kicking the can down the road. A finance director can always

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turn down an investment proposal on the grounds that evidence is insufficient: such a refusal is a low-risk option within an organisational environment. The refusal becomes the final step in an elaborate ritual which begins with a proposition, perhaps advanced by local residents or a voluntary organisation; moves on to discussion within the lower levels of municipal bureaucracy, perhaps within a parks department; is then shunted to a finance or chief executive’s department; and is then returned with a ‘finance says no’ sticker attached. On some occasions, where a proposal has influential backers or is seen as particularly meritorious, it may also go through the steps of consideration by elected councillors, adding a layer of democratic legitimacy to the final refusal. This is not simply a complaint that proposals get rejected. Neither is it a blanket assertion that what we know doesn’t change what we do; rather, knowledge is no warranty of change. So this chapter, along with Chap. 8, is a call to pay attention to the function and use of evidence within an organisational context. Outside the organisational studies literature it appears to be frequently assumed that there can be a relatively seamless transition from evidence to policy, and from policy to action. Our research suggests that evidence, policy, politics and the interests of actors within organisations form a complex and sometimes volatile mix, and outcomes can seldom be predicted with accuracy. As Hajer (1993) has highlighted, it is often the discursive treatment of the evidence that can make a difference between what is done or not done; the identification of a problem as ‘ours’ rather than ‘theirs’ can rely on a particular combination of evidence, culture, and political opportunism. In the case of urban green spaces, perhaps rather less attention should be focused on categorising and quantifying their benefits, and rather more on examining how and why, despite the accumulation of evidence, neglect and deterioration are so frequently permitted to continue. Acknowledgements  Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature is led by the Department of Landscape Architecture at the University of Sheffield. The IWUN project is supported by the Natural Environment Research Council, ESRC, BBSRC, AHRC & Defra [NERC grant NE/ N013565/1].

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Chapter 8

Measuring the Gap Between Rhetoric and Practice: Examining Urban Green Space Interventions Post-implementation Nicola Dempsey

Abstract  This chapter outlines the lack of examination of practical attempts to implement policy rhetoric into practice. With a focus on the long-term management of urban green space, this chapter discusses the longstanding gap between what we know about green space and what we do in practice. It will look in detail at the citywide green and open space strategy and the green space regeneration funding programme as two mechanisms for implementing rhetoric. These are both commonly used in cities around the world but are rarely evaluated for their effectiveness, often because practitioners simply do not have the time. But the reasons why we don’t evaluate are wider than this, encompassing factors of understanding context, using tacit knowledge and how we deal with the concept of failure. The chapter concludes by discussing the wide range of challenges that are faced when conducting this type of post-occupancy evaluation and considers how academics and practitioners can best address these challenges. Keywords  Policy rhetoric · Strategies · Funding · Place-keeping · Long-term · Green space management · Post-implementation

8.1  Introduction Chapter 7 highlights the inherent danger in assuming that ‘there can be a relatively seamless transition from evidence to policy and from policy to action’. With full recognition that there are challenges associated with such an assumption, this chapter focuses on practical attempts to implement policy into practice. When those who N. Dempsey (*) Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK e-mail: [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 N. Dempsey, J. Dobson (eds.), Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44480-8_8

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have generated the policy rhetoric are also responsible for putting it into practice, the gaps between evidence, rhetoric and implementation become obvious. This calls for careful attention to the interpretive processes through which evidence is translated into action. This chapter focuses in detail on two examples of ‘rhetoric’. The first is the strategy, which is developed at a town/city scale in relation to the theme of green and open spaces. The second is the funding programme, which relates directly to addressing a specific problem: the need for green space regeneration. This chapter sets out the background to the theme of long-term management which underpins these examples of rhetoric and relates directly to quality, access and maintenance of green and open spaces. It then outlines how the course from rhetoric to implementation was charted through the mode of process tracing. This is followed by a brief discussion of examples from around the world, with a focus on the UK context where the author is conducting ongoing research. It moves on to consider the numerous challenges faced when engaging in post-occupancy research of this nature and how academics and professionals can respond.

8.2  W  hy We Need (Policy) Rhetoric on Green Space Management Policy puts an inordinate focus on the creation of places, and not enough on their longterm management. While there is a need to create high-quality places, large amounts of capital can be spent with little thought or resources given to their long-­term maintenance and management (Dempsey et al. 2014). A newly-created playground or park makes an immediate impression. It is tangible and can be seen and experienced – a ribbon can be cut and it can be declared open! However, the impact (or lack) of longterm management is much less visible and therefore can be difficult to articulate. Those involved in creating high-quality places implicitly assume that these places will be looked after, appreciated and treated with respect. There is a long-­ standing body of knowledge which argues that this assumption is inaccurate. Wilson and Kelling (1982) outlined several decades ago the ‘broken window syndrome’ to describe the downward spiral of disrepair that can occur when places are not looked after, leading to anti-social behaviour going unchecked and high restoration costs. Evidence of this has been well-documented in parks and green spaces around the world, where  – over time  – even today’s most celebrated parks have fallen into decline. New York’s Central Park was a no-go area in the 1970–80s which led to the creation of the Parks Conservancy, a not-for-profit organization which now raises almost all of the park’s $80 million annual operating budget, overseeing the park’s overall management for over 42 million annual visitors (CPC 2019). Central Park was created after Frederick Law Olmsted visited Liverpool’s Birkenhead Park in the 1850s, a park which also suffered from severe decline in the 1980–90s and received almost £7.5m in funding for restoration (Layton-Jones 2016) while its local authority managers continue to deal with costly vandalism and graffiti (Hughes 2018).

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There are therefore significant economic, social, cultural and ecological costs of not managing and maintaining spaces. As well as financial, those costs can be considered in terms of falling user numbers, increased feelings of insecurity, poor access and perceived poor quality. Such decline might start in relatively small ways, with litter left lying and vegetation left unpruned. Research conducted by the author and colleagues into the concept of place-­ keeping posits that long-term management is crucial for a place to continue to be well-used and feel safe, welcoming, and accessible. A normative concept, place-­ keeping considers long-term management as a ‘process’ which does not simply start once the designer has ‘finished’ but is rather about long-term and flexible management to permit places are enjoyed by all users now and in the future. The working hypothesis is that for place-keeping to be achieved, a number of inter-related dimensions need to be synthesised. These dimensions are partnership, governance, design and maintenance, policy, funding and evaluation. This is part of a growing body of knowledge (developing largely in northern Europe, e.g. Jansson et al. 2018; Buijs et al. 2018; Mattijssen et al. 2017). It is not possible to discuss all of these in this chapter, so I will mainly focus on the last three dimensions, and call on some of this place-keeping research later in the chapter. Political support for long-term management of places (and accompanying budgets) can be both strong and fragile (Lindholst et al. 2014). A catastrophic event can usually prompt and support the need for management: forest fires in Portugal, Australia and the USA, flooding in India, the UK and France, typhoons in Taiwan, the Philippines and Japan, are enduring examples. Responding to such rare events can take considerable time (Taeby and Zhang 2019) and in some circumstances leads to a return to ‘business as usual’ and inaction after initial flurries of media and political attention. This is arguably the case in Sheffield after the city’s 2007 floods. National government hailed as a success the spending of £21m in the lower Don valley at the confluence of the city’s rivers, where flooding was most severe (Defra and Environment Agency 2018). However, further protection measures costed at more than £60m have still not been put into place across the city over a decade later (Cumber 2017). Taeby and Zhang (2019) in their work on disaster resilience in south Florida, found that residents  – the ‘impacted stakeholders’ when flooding strikes – are not the responsible stakeholders who implement the resilience measures, indicating gaps between rhetoric, implementation and lived experience. Klauer et al. (2013) argue that long-term thinking is an art. In their analysis of sustainability politics – an inherently long-term pursuit – they point out that ‘dealing with long-term dynamics is an exceptionally difficult task’ (p.  79). Thinking long-term is difficult because it depends on how knowledge is interpreted to inform the decision-maker’s power of judgement, which leads to action or inaction as Dobson and Dempsey discuss in this volume. Thinking long-term is also difficult because the meaning of time differs according to who is making the decision. A national politician may operate on short (e.g. 4  year) terms while the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has continued to inform politicians

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around the world for over thirty years without any end point in sight, given the nature of past and current decision-making processes (IPCC 2019). The importance of sustained revenue funding to manage places is often underestimated. Kreutz et al. (2014) discuss how the new, large and management-intensive open spaces created in HafenCity, Hamburg, were accompanied by no increase in the management budget for the responsible district authority. Burton et al. (2014) point out how popularity of places can put an increased burden on management budgets. They discuss a set of themed playgrounds (Temalekplats) installed in Malmö, Sweden, in the early 2000s which required unanticipated reinvestment because their management was not considered at the design stage. The municipality’s usual approach to management and investment was based on a 33-year lifespan of playgrounds, while the Temalekplats’ lifespan was closer to 10  years. Such examples show the extent to which management after the intervention is under-­ resourced and poorly valued. This points to a need to think and act for the long term, which is not easily executed by stakeholders, as the next section outlines.

8.2.1  Evaluating over the Long Term The practice of ‘post-occupancy evaluation’ is where feedback is obtained on the performance of something in use (e.g. a building). Post-occupancy evaluation can then provide information and inform knowledge to improve future projects (e.g. building design) (BRE Group 2019). When considering urban landscapes, we can reflect on how management, or stewardship, is not a new phenomenon and has been practised for millennia by people in their everyday lives. Crop rotation, autumn harvesting, coppicing and planting spring bulbs in winter are all examples of stewardship which go beyond maintenance and look ahead to a future landscape. In the urban context, this can become more complex, given cultural, social, economic influences. Thinking about the long term in parks, for example, is about building with robust materials so that benches, footpaths, bins and other elements still function many years after construction (Burton et al. 2014). Planting design and maintenance is a more complex issue. For example, it could be considered incongruous with a Victorian park’s character to, say, plant wildflower meadows, as this would never have been part of the original design. The National Lottery Heritage Fund in the UK adheres to this policy when awarding funding to parks (The Parks Agency 2002). Grass mowing also becomes a contentious issue in the context of long-term management. Given the limited habitat possibilities of mown grass, coupled with drives to cut down on costs, there is a shift towards long grasses in swathes of unmown lawn. While better for birds and insects than mown grass, this is not necessarily universally appreciated by park users or managers (Nam and Dempsey 2019). Equally, space in parks allocated for football and other sports can be physically out of bounds for non-sports users. But how much of this is perception? For example, some picnickers in a park may consider unused football fields as inappropriate places for picnics, even though there may be no physical barriers to stop their use as such.

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8.3  Tracing Processes, Post-implementation These examples indicate the usefulness of examining the process of policy rhetoric interpreted into practice over time, rather than taking a cross-sectional, snapshot approach. This brings methodological challenges, not least when those people involved in the implementation move on (voluntarily or not) which changes the skills, expertise and learned knowledge of potential participants (who can be over-­ worked in the case of austerity measures which have resulted in staff cuts; HLF 2016). It would also be useful to examine how interpretations differ when local, regional and national policies intersect. The tendency to assume that ‘what works well’ will necessarily work well everywhere, as Scott et  al. (2014) note, is misguided and can lead to missed learning from ‘less good’, or non-implementation of good practice principles. As Denrell et al. (2003) state in their work in economics, ‘when only studying positive examples, it is possible to misunderstand what is genuinely making them successful’. In this way, the examples discussed in this chapter are not necessarily ‘best’ or ‘good practice’ but are indicative of what happens in practice. Considering long-term management as a “process“rather than a “product” requires an appropriate method of data collection. Process tracing allows researchers to explore “the causal dynamics that produced the outcome” of an intervention (Beach 2017) to trace the “empirical fingerprints” (ibid.) left by the context and associated mechanisms of the intervention (after Pawson 2006; Cowell and Lennon 2014). Process tracing permits the identification of patterns, sequences, traces and accounts across the cases under scrutiny (Beach 2017). It is therefore a particularly effective analytical tool when exploring interventions that have been completed and ready for post-occupancy evaluation. Process tracing, in its almost forensic approach to analysis, can go beyond standard evaluations such as ‘before and after’ counts which measure if more users are using a place post-intervention. Process tracing can help provide a more in-depth understanding of why more or less people use a place. By focusing on the process rather than the ‘final product’, we can for example, explore how the nature and longevity of partnerships at the design, or place-making, stage can impinge on management decisions in the future, affecting the propensity of local residents to (not) choose to use a park post-intervention (Dempsey et al. 2016). There are varied examples of implemented rhetoric that could be examined empirically, in relation to green space management. These include the Business Improvement District or the not-for-profit trust model (Dempsey et al. 2014). In the following sections, I attempt to trace some of the processes of putting two other rhetorics into practice to explore the long-term management implications of different interventions. These are broadly defined as the a) citywide strategy and b) making material change in parks and green spaces. They are of interest because there has been little academic scrutiny of them in the area of green space management.

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8.4  Green Space Strategies: A Worldwide Phenomenon While there is great variation in what they actually cover, strategies relating to green and open space are prevalent across the world. For example, the City of Malmö in Sweden developed an Environmental Programme for 2003–2008 to enact its objectives in support of the United Nations’ Local Agenda 21 (O’Byrne 2008). These objectives are now embedded in Malmö’s Comprehensive Plan (adopted in 2014; Malmö stad 2014). In the USA, states are required by the federal government to have a 5-year comprehensive outdoor recreation plan (SCORP  – Statewide Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan). The extent to which this plan is put into practice can depend on the local level, where most states require local jurisdictions (typically cities) to have comprehensive land-use plans which also relate to recreation as well as parks, open space, trails, etc. However, this also suggests the potential for inconsistencies in the implementation of plans across the country and within the same jurisdictions. For example, the Texas SCORP is mostly a data-driven document which does not provide aims and objectives about how it will provide or maintain outdoor recreation planning. Rather it “creates awareness of current outdoor recreation and conservation needs, issues and areas of concern through input from citizens and outdoor recreation professionals”, and in this way “fulfills an eligibility requirement” for Texas to receive its allotted funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) program, guidance and assessment (Texas Parks and Wildlife 2018, p. iii). The Austin city Parks and Recreation Long Range (10-­ year) Plan provides much more detail and does not seem to relate in any way (or indeed refer) to the Texas SCORP (APRD 2010). Similar disjunctures may also be seen in Malaysia, where Ibrahim et al. (2017) has examined the open – rather than green – space policies in place, and discovered inconsistencies in policy implementation prevail between the local and regional scales. It is against this backdrop of highly variable (and under-researched) green and open space strategies, that I explored the UK context in more detail. A review of local authority websites conducted for this chapter shows that of the 69 cities (accorded city status) in the UK, 46 have stand-alone green and open space strategies – variously referring to ‘open space’, ‘parks’, ‘green space’, ‘green infrastructure’, ‘city open space’, ‘sport and recreation’, ‘recreation and leisure’ and ‘biodiversity’. Twenty of the UK cities have developed these strategies specifically as part of their city’s statutory Local Plan. At the time of writing, 11 cities do not have a green and open space strategy or any equivalent in the public domain. This variation adheres to Franchina et al.’s (2017) description of such strategies as non-­ statutory plans which are often cross-cutting and inform other non-statutory and statutory plans across a city, e.g. health, education, transport. According to CABE Space, a government advisory agency which (despite being axed in 2010) is used as a source of advice and reference by academics and practitioners, a green and open space strategy (or GOSS) ‘sets out an authority’s vision for using its green space and the goals it wants to achieve, plus the resources, methods and time needed to meet these goals’ (2006, p. 5). This concurs with Franchina

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et al.’s (2017) observation that a GOSS should be one of a range of council-wide documents, with more detailed strategies (e.g. trees, play, sports, allotments) feeding in to it (CABE Space 2006). A strategy should provide a picture of the current context, and so is often supported by what is variably called a green/open space audit, assessment or study, with a preceding local needs assessment. This then  – broadly speaking – leads to a set of aims and objectives which can be implemented via an action plan. However, there is growing a small body of evidence showing a breakdown between policy rhetoric and implementation. Whitten (2018; this volume) highlights how strategies developed by some London borough councils contain inaccurate aspirations that can never be achieved. For example, inner London boroughs are pressured to create strategies which aim to increase the amount of green space per capita, which the practitioners she interviewed openly stated was impossible to achieve, particularly given ongoing densification and population increase in the borough. As one of her interviewees put it: “setting targets and delivering them are two completely different things.” It is therefore a working hypothesis in my research that a green and open space strategy does not get implemented into practice. Franchina et al. also identified the vulnerability of the green and open space strategy given the lack of a statutory requirement for urban green space provision and management in UK cities (2017). When examining Birmingham’s ‘Green Living Spaces Plan’, the authors found limited evidence that it informed the city’s statutory plans, and how its aims are being diluted and overlooked because there is no translation of its principles into legal requirements. The next section goes south of Birmingham to explore how the green and open space strategy in the city of Westminster’s is implemented into practice.

8.4.1  A Worked Example: Strategies in Westminster To test this via a desk study, I looked at cities where there had been concurrent green and open space strategies to determine what had been achieved in terms of specified aims and objectives. The first difficulty was to find a suitable case as I found only one city to which this applied. Westminster City Council (WCC) in London published their “Open Space Strategy” in 2007, and outlined 7 priorities. It lists 65 primary actions to address these priorities and a further 63 more specific actions. Starting modestly, I targeted one priority to explore in more detail: to improve access to open spaces and an associated action of maximising public access. This aim was discussed in the 2007 document highlighting how Westminster has significant disparities in its level of access to public green space across the City, with Bayswater (0.2), South (0.13), Maida Vale (0.46) and Marylebone (1.07) lying well below the accepted UK standard of 1.6 ha per 1000 population (WCC 2007). The City’s more recent (and differently named) “Partnership Approach to Open Spaces and Biodiversity Strategy” (emphasis added) was published in 2019 after a period of consultation in 2018.

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Trying to find out if public access to open space has improved in Westminster as a result of the 2007 strategy soon became very difficult. First, the ‘improve access to open spaces’ objective had gone. It is interesting to examine how text was changed between the draft (2018) and final (2019) versions of the new strategy in relation to access. For example, the draft strategy listed ‘increasing green spaces and infrastructure’ as an aim, but this was changed to ‘prioritising city greening by creating new green infrastructure’. The examples of work cited to illustrate this point were extended to include private developers and private land managers such as Business Improvement Districts (WCC 2019, p. 13). Within this priority, the draft strategy had listed a commitment to ‘directly contribute to the expansion of Westminster’s green network’, stating that the council would introduce pocket parks where possible (WCC 2018, p. 22). This was removed in the final version, specifying that the council would play a role of facilitation and support for ‘innovative greening solutions including pocket parks and private “greening” activities by residents and businesses’. This was in addition to encouraging developers ‘to consider the provision of pocket parks, allowing access to small open spaces for workers, particularly during their lunch breaks, and school children’ (WCC 2019, p. 25). This suggests the council is stepping back from creating green space and marks greater reliance in the future on the private sector for green space provision. This potentially calls into question the aim of maximising future public access. It remains to be seen if public access to open space has been improved since the 2007 strategy. In both Westminster strategies, the reader is directed to the council’s annual Authority Monitoring Report (AMR) “to monitor the net gain or loss of open space” (WCC 2019, p. 27). This becomes problematic for a number of reasons when one tries to interpret the publicly accessible data, partly because of a lack of consistency in data and definitions. Firstly, before 2013 the reports were annual but for the period of 2013–17, there was only one single report. Secondly, the AMR data are aggregated for the entire City and there is no reference to neighbourhood level access figures in the 2007 strategy. A baseline amount of open space is never provided so one can only see gains and losses in relation to the previous year’s gains and losses. This, thirdly, depends on which AMR one consults. For example, in the 2010–11 AMR, the open space indicator measures “loss of designated open space” which was zero in this period. However, we are not told what the gain is for open space even though the AMR specifically states that there was “a loss of over 1000 sqm of B1C (light industrial) space at Paddington Recreation Ground to create a new pond and associated open space”. This is (fourthly) further muddied because no distinction is made between green and open space in the AMRs or in the final strategy  – it is all described as ‘open space’. Before 2011 a ‘policy objective’ in the 2010–11 AMR was that ‘the Council seeks to conserve, enhance and increase Westminster’s green and open spaces’ so the change occurred after this point. Fifthly, the format of the data changes. In 2007, more data are provided in the text, while the 2019 strategy is almost exclusively map-based. For people comfortable reading maps, we can see that there is less ‘open space deficiency’ in the revised 2019 maps compared to 2007. However, this is not easy to do as the maps are produced using different datasets. What one finds in one map in 2007, requires two

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maps in 2019, making data comparison problematic. There appear to have been changes in the categorization of mapped public space in 2007 – with London Zoo listed as public space, but then as private space in 2019. A careful reading of both strategies indicates that 53% of the parcels of open space were publicly accessible in 2007, compared to 57% in 2019. This would suggest an increase in number of publicly accessible spaces across the City. However, this does not tell the whole story. This is calculated not by area, but by parcel of land. The Council concedes that all new spaces have been small. It is also not clear what type of open space residents may access, as this is not specified in the maps. To again muddy the waters, the 2019 strategy claims that ‘private spaces only account for 24% of total green space’, but the reader must note that up to this point, both strategies use the broader term of open, not green, space. So we don’t know whether the increase in public space is green or open space or both. But we can see broad overlaps in the areas highlighted between the 2007 public open space deficiency map and the 2019 deficiency in access to wildlife map, which suggests that new spaces have not been green. Finally, there is no reference to the 2007 strategy in the 2019 strategy at all, referring only to the last open space audit. This exercise shows how difficult (and frustrating!) it can be to find out if a city has achieved just one of its many aims and associated commitments from a strategy. This suggests that – beyond the mapping of access to green space – there is little direct relationship between Westminster’s strategies. Having done extensive research in public green space management in the 2000s, I do not find it surprising that the 2019 strategy is only 19 pages compared to the weighty 59-page 2007 equivalent. This reflects the reduction in resources allocated to green space provision and management over the last decade.

8.4.2  W  estminster and Beyond: Common Symptoms in Strategies? As an addendum to this discussion, another city is undergoing an internal review of its green and open space strategy. As this is an ongoing process, I will not name the city at this stage. It is a fascinating examination of what has and has not been achieved, and what could never be achieved because austerity circumstances have changed the status quo or because the aims/objectives were either poorly written or, frankly, fanciful. It is also interesting that this city has the same problems as Westminster in matching available data to the aims and objectives set out in the strategy. It is thus difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain if an objective has been achieved because the data collected does not correspond to the strategy. The need for accurate and usable data is therefore clear. Evaluation tends to be one of the first things to be dropped if resources (human or financial) are removed. While this may compensate for short-­ term financial shortfalls, in the long run it can be harder to argue for those resources

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(e.g. if user numbers are not collected in a consistent manner). If data are collected in different ways over time from strategy to strategy and hence cannot be analysed, we will never learn how well a strategy achieves its aims.

8.5  M  aterial Change in Green and Open Spaces: Changing Practices…? My first job at the University of Sheffield was a research assistant post on the MP4: Making Places Profitable project. This was an EU-funded project (2008–12) involving academics and non-academics, which part-funded interventions in a range of urban and rural sites in seven European countries. The physical interventions that were funded through the project were designed with their long-term management in mind. The shorthand for this idea is ‘place-keeping’, a concept referred to above and originally developed by Wild et al. (2008). The working hypothesis of the project was that for place-keeping to be achieved, a number of inter-related dimensions should be synthesised, including policy, funding and evaluation. The project brought together academic and non-academic partners in Denmark, Sweden, England, Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands. The non-academics received funding for the design and low-maintenance of specific interventions in their countries based on their involvement in partnerships engaging in governance processes which involved ongoing evaluation. The funded interventions ranged from the re-landscaping of a unused, poorly managed urban green space (Firth Park, Sheffield, UK; Fig. 8.1), the redesign of village entrances with traffic calming measures (Emmen, Netherlands), engaging local communities, businesses and associations in future maintenance of open spaces (Lövgärdet, Gothenburg, Sweden), creation of easy and safe connections for bicycles and pedestrians between different green spaces (Ghent-Bruges-Zeebrugge, Belgium), and the development of a masterplanning process, integrating long-term management concerns (Eriksbo, Gothenburg, Sweden). Some of the interventions were not implemented as originally intended, both because of the effects of austerity (Figs. 8.2 and 8.3), and also as a result of unanticipated challenges. For example, one of the interventions in Sheffield involved the redesign of a steep embankment into a grassed, stepped amphitheatre (now called South Street Park, Fig.  8.4). When the design was implemented, hand-rails were required (according to the council’s health and safety advisors who were consulted late in the process) which incurred an unanticipated and ongoing cost. The creation of indicators to measure the progress and effective success of the projects was a part of the project evaluation. These indicators incorporated a mix of the objective and subjective, of which four will be discussed here. They are: number of users as a result of the intervention, residents’ satisfaction with the intervention, number of residents involved in the decision-making around the intervention, and involvement of volunteers in the long-term maintenance/management of the

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Fig. 8.1  The remnants of the Victorian boating lake at Firth Park which was part of the area selected for regeneration in the project part funded by the EU

intervention. Like many indicators, these had their limitations. Firstly, the number of users was universally recorded as a significant increase across all the projects because the status quo had been so poor that there were very few ‘baseline’ users (apart from people described as ‘undesirables’). Secondly, the levels of satisfaction were understandably and uniformly positive compared to the status quo, which arguably merely tells us that the current state is preferable to the previous one. The next indicator – number of residents involved in the decision-making around the intervention – is flawed in that a simple head count tells us little about how residents contributed to decision making. The South Street Park intervention posed a particularly stark problem in that there were few nearby residents at the time. The park is located next to Park Hill Flats, a housing complex which was being redeveloped at the time of the intervention. The council therefore embarked on a process to create a local community group called the Friends of Sheaf Valley Park. The group’s remit extended beyond South Street Park to include the wider Sheaf Valley Park, which combined a number of existing green spaces with no ‘Friends’ group. Membership of this group has remained small, while other Friends group (e.g. Friends of Park Hill) have developed alongside it rather than joining it. The final indicator – the involvement of volunteers in the long-term maintenance/ management of the intervention  – is also worth examining in more detail. The underlying idea behind involving volunteers in green space management is one

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Fig. 8.2  The area round the Firth Park clock tower, regenerated through the ‘Ripples in the pond’ project

which is culturally defined. Volunteering is a long-standing practice in the UK (see Chap. 6). But it is not commonplace in other European countries where green space provision and management is considered a taxpayer-funded public service. In Emmen, Netherlands, the involvement of residents was a fundamental project aim. But in practice, their involvement as volunteers was not initially popular with the municipality (which raises a question of ‘business as usual’ which I will refer to later). Stakeholders reported how this was mooted in one of the project meetings: ‘One of the points of discussion is possibly handing over more/all responsibility for maintenance to residents’. Because the responsibility for roads in Emmen lies with the province, careful negotiations were needed to permit the village council to take it on. There have been small investments via residents (benches, flower pots), and shop-owners (lighting, Christmas tree) in the central square in Emmen. Overall responsibility lies with the village council for one small area in the village rather than as the shared responsibility for the central square and immediate surroundings as originally planned. Another component of the evaluation of the place-keeping project was that the non-academic practitioners who received the funding were required to engage in a process of critical self-reflection. This reflection process was conducted throughout the project but could not continue beyond due to the end of the project funding. This made it more likely that participants reflected on how the place-making stage of the

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Fig. 8.3  Budget cuts meant that the planned interventions in the regenerated Firth Park were not all implemented – here we can see poor drainage

Fig. 8.4  South Street Park, overlooking the city of Sheffield, after the improvements which included large-scale earthworks to create a grassed amphitheatre, part-funded by the EU

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project was delivered and influenced initial experiences of place-keeping. Delays meant that the projects were not all completed on time, but, more importantly, not enough time had lapsed to reflect critically on the place-keeping process. Measuring numbers of users or people engaged in a process therefore has limited value without an understanding of the nature of the use or of the engagement. The numbers won’t tell us if the residents were simply attending a meeting or if they took part in, say, design charettes and/or had a significant influence in decision making. A further challenge is that the project allowed business as usual to prevail; MP4 simply provided a well-timed injection of funding. In other evaluation research, we found that despite gaining funding based on an agreement to work more collaboratively than the norm, this does not necessarily happen. Organisational structures and prevailing work cultures can act as barriers to change (Dempsey et al. 2016). As an interviewee from Emmen indicated: “the process of (discussing) place keeping requires much more time than expected, due to uncertainties about roles and responsibilities with some of the stakeholders.”

8.5.1  Reflecting on Failures in the Evaluation Process A wider set of challenges was associated with this project. Firstly, there was a perception that the “academic” exercise of self-reflection did not apply to the practitioners who were under pressure to get their intervention implemented on time. Dealing with the usual project tasks (e.g. budgeting, health and safety, timescales and consultation) meant that making time for reflection was not a priority. Academics were more at ease with critical self-examination while practitioners from NGOs and municipal authorities were less inclined to highlight anything negative about the intervention process. There was one main hypothesis for this: to highlight ‘failure’ in their own performance might mean that an organisation is deemed to be ineligible for funding next time. Such a state of affairs would be unacceptable, particularly for non-grant funded organisations in times of austerity. Unsurprisingly, practitioners generally provided only the data that the funders specifically required. Not all the evaluation measures were therefore perceived to be useful and there was a clear preference for quantitative methods and the production of positive ‘hard numbers’ which were generally perceived to be more useful and easily understandable for funders, accountants and the public. The EU project itself, like many others, was constrained by a problematic timescale: the project simply was not long enough to measure place-keeping in practice. Practitioners were asked to reflect on the process as it was happening – which would have made sense if that had been balanced with a reflection on the process once it was over, and at later periods post-implementation. However, given constrained resources as well as the project’s duration of 4  years, this was impossible to do. There is little impetus for practitioners to go back to completed projects and reflect on what worked well or not, because there are no resources to allocate to such

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evaluation, and pressures to move on to the next project. The opportunities for formal learning are therefore limited once project funding has ended. Finally, what was being reflected on/evaluated was not one single baseline. Smith et al. (2014) when reflecting on how place-keeping was evaluated in the MP4 project, observe that the timeline for reflecting should not have been before or as the intervention was implemented  – that was the place-making stage. Instead they argue that the ‘baseline’ point should have been the completion of the project ‘with a view to monitoring and evaluating long-term place-keeping on a regular basis’ (p. 167, emphasis added). This points to the flaw in the application of these indicators. They were arguably there to chart the success of the interventions. Using the baseline of the state of the site pre-intervention, means that more people use the sites now than did in the past, and use it in a more socially acceptable way (e.g. less drug-taking). However, if a post-intervention baseline was used on the Sheffield interventions, South Street Park would fare well on this measure but the regenerated part of Firth Park would not. If we use the nature of community involvement as an indicator of a ‘valued and sustainable place’ and the results would be reversed as Firth Park has a much larger and active Friends Group than South Street Park. No single measure tells the whole story and we have to bring the context into the analysis, not just the place-keeping mechanisms per se. An examination of the context tells us that to reach the regenerated site near the clock tower from the rest of Firth Park, one has to cross a relatively busy road next to the wider park. The regenerated site has very few facilities compared to the rest of the Park which could be why few people are seen using it. User number counts done over a number of years by students at the Department of Landscape Architecture show sustained low numbers, because the site will always be physically disconnected from the rest of the park. Regarding South Street Park, it is not yet clear how involved the ‘community’ gets in a ‘top-down’ Friends group instigated by a local council as part of a park regeneration process compared to a community-led group which reacts at a grassroots scale to (e.g.) the lack of regeneration in a park. To get a proper sense of how an intervention is ‘working’ or not in a place, one needs to know about the context in which the process unfurls. This should remind the reader of the warnings of labelling an intervention as ‘best practice’ and presuming that it can ‘work’ elsewhere.

8.6  W  hat Do We Know About the Gap Between Rhetoric and Implementation? Based on what has been examined in this chapter, the answer to this question has to be ‘we know something but not enough’. The preceding analyses inform us about the gap in knowledge and underpin future research along the following themes:

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8.6.1  It’s Dependent on Context, but… The old adage that ‘no one size fits all’ holds here, but more than that, the examples discussed in this chapter show how variable approaches to long-term management can be. The timescale of green and open space strategies across the UK’s cities varies enormously. Bristol and Sheffield’s strategies cover 20  years while Dundee, Stoke-on-Trent and Gloucester cover(ed) 3, 4 and 5 years respectively. One thing to be learnt from the MP4 findings is how they call into question such short timeframes, even when long-term thinking is a fundamental part of the project.

8.6.2  M  ismatch Between Intended and Achieved…and the Pressure to Succeed When austerity hits, what a strategy sets out to achieve may be severely hampered. To say a council ‘failed’ to achieve its objective may be accurate, but tells only part of the story. Considering how an intervention develops rather than applying a stark ‘success or fail’ dichotomy is more informative and relevant. This would require a change in evaluative practice. Funders want to show how their funding has made a difference. Practitioners want to show that they have delivered their clients’ objectives. And researchers are increasingly under pressure to examine what funders want to fund (Collini 2012). Setting out to explore the ‘not so good’ practice is therefore not a priority for any of these stakeholders even though there can be significant learning from what doesn’t work well. This calls on the idea of ‘tacit knowledge’ posited by Polanyi (1966), which explores the process of how something comes to be known and thereby accepted. It also relates to Alexander’s (1968) supposition that we know what doesn’t work (or the ‘bad fit’) and this knowledge is valuable for us to be reflective in our practices (Schön 1983). O’Gorman and Werry (2012) state that “to look squarely at failure, we need methods designed not to capture the fixities of representation or identity but to help us navigate the slippery, fugitive terrain of process and affect”. This is difficult to do. As they go on, “failure hurts. Failure haunts. It comes laced with shame, anger, despair, abjection, guilt, frustration  – affects we usually wish away or hide”. This was obvious during an recent informal discussion with a practitioner about how to discuss practice that did not work well. This discussion ended in his unhappy reflection that every project he had ever worked on was a failure. In the area of green space management, notions of failure are politely avoided in the unerring discourse that all green space is valuable. There is no interest in learning from what does not work well – if the funding is spent, and spent on time, the intervention can be deemed to be a success. With such a low threshold for success, I would argue that Werry and O’Gorman’s statement that “failure is productive, because it demands redress” (O’Gorman and Werry 2012) does not apply here…yet.

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8.6.3  The Power of Public Outcry Pointing out failure is one thing  that public scrutiny does effectively. There are many examples, particularly in the UK where austerity has detrimentally affected green space management. These include: proposals to sell off public parks (Powell and Carlin 2018), such as the recently rejected application to sell Calderstones Park in Liverpool (Thorp 2019) and the damaging political manouevring of Sheffield City Council over its street tree management as part of its ‘Streets Ahead’ strategy (Drury 2018; Burn 2019). What seems less easy is sustaining the public outcry or ensuring that the redress that Werry and O’Gorman discuss is sought. We need more research to trace the processes involved in green space management when it has public attention, to explore to what extent it aligns or not with different implementations of policy rhetoric. Local context is important here because what works in one place may not work in another. For example, the charitable trust model to manage a number of its city’s parks which has recently been implemented by Newcastle-­ upon-­Tyne (Newcastle City Council 2018) was discussed at length in Sheffield and was rejected due to perceptions that it would ‘prioritise “prime” sites to the detriment of other locations’ (Mell 2018, p146).

8.6.4  The Problem with the Data This short analysis has demonstrated how issues with data can be highly problematic. The analysis of the Westminster strategies shows how the format and time periods covered in datasets can render the data unusable and incomparable, making it very difficult for the reader to find supporting evidence. Any citizen should be able to read their city’s strategy and question the content within. Having attempted to do this for the Westminster strategies, I will endeavor to explore other strategies for more clarity and transparency. I am not suggesting that this marks deliberate attempts to be evasive; indeed problems with data are common as Henneberry et al. in this volume outline. However, there does need to be awareness of the problems this can cause. In the pursuit of measurement, are we measuring the wrong things because we are dependent on particular modes of measurement which come with their own limitations? If Westminster is not an isolated example, it also raises the question about the use and validity of the green and open space strategy if it cannot be compared with its later or earlier iteration.

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8.6.5  E  stimating the Importance of Context: A Purely Academic Exercise? The current context of austerity, and limited resources, doesn’t necessarily mean that a strategy must go unused and unadopted. Austerity hits councils hard and the non-statutory nature of parks and green space mean they are disproportionately affected as funding is allocated to statutory priorities. Being evaluated – and agreeing to be evaluated – is not an easy thing to do, given the tricky relationship we have with ‘failure’ in certain disciplines. In built environment, the focus on good, or best practice, is all-pervading and we rarely engage in a meaningful process of post-occupancy evaluation. Rather we are inclined to find out what worked well and ignore what didn’t work well. This brings to mind the observation by Scott et al. that we can miss valuable learning if we don’t look at the less good, or non-, implementation of good practice principles (Scott et  al. 2014). However, it is clear that practitioners do not have the time, resources or ‘scope for considering the embedding of evaluation in standard practice’ (Smith et al. 2014, p. 169). With Chap. 7 in mind, there is a need to understand better the role that tacit and practice-based knowledge plays in policy formation and in how policies are interpreted and implemented in practice. Given the ongoing resource impacts of austerity, and how wider networks of non-governmental stakeholders are becoming increasingly involved in green space management, we should explore the variations of how local and national policy are interpreted via evaluation which can capture informal knowledge forming as well as formal learning. Acknowledgements  I would like to thank Dr Meredith Whitten, Prof. Thomas Randrup, Dr Ylva N Bretzer and Dr Christian Lindholst for their invaluable help in exploring international examples of strategies.

References Alexander C (1968) Notes toward a synthesis of form. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA Austin Parks & Recreation Department (APRD) (2010) Long range plan for land, facilities and programs (LRP) adopted November 2010. http://www.austintexas.gov/page/parks-recreationlong-range-plan-land-facilities-and-programs-lrp-adopted-november-2010. Accessed 28 June 2019 Beach D (2017) Process tracing methods, Handbuch Methoden der Politikwissenschaft, pp 1–21. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007%2F978-3-658-16937-4_43-1 BRE Group (2019) Post-occupancy evaluation (POE). https://www.bre.co.uk/page.jsp?id=1793. Accessed 28 June 2019 Buijs A, Hansen R, Van der Jagt S et  al (2018) Mosaic governance for urban green infrastructure: upscaling active citizenship from a local government perspective. Urban For Urban Green 40(2019):53–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2018.06.011 Burn C (2019) Police’s secret media strategy with council over Sheffield trees operation exposed, Yorkshire Post. https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/latest-news/police-s-secret-media-strategy-with-council-over-sheffield-trees-operation-exposed-1-9711588. Accessed 28 June 2019

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Burton M, Dempsey N, Mathers A (2014) Connecting making and keeping: design and management in place-keeping. In: Dempsey N, Smith H, Burton M (eds) Place-keeping: open space management in practice. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 125–150 CABE Space (2006) Green space strategies: a good practice guide, CABE, London. https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20110118142343/http://www.cabe.org.uk/files/green-spacestrategies.pdf. Accessed 28 June 2019 Central Park Conservancy (2019) About us. http://www.centralparknyc.org/about/. Accessed 28 June 2019 Collini S (2012) What are universities for? Penguin, London Cowell R, Lennon M (2014) The utilisation of environmental knowledge in land-use planning: drawing lessons for an ecosystem services approach. Environ Plan C 32:263–282. https://doi. org/10.1068/c12289j Cumber R (2017) Sheffield faces anxious wait over £64m for flood defences, The (Sheffield) Star. https://www.thestar.co.uk/our-towns-and-cities/sheffield/sheffield-faces-anxious-wait-over64m-for-flood-defences-1-8613291. Accessed 28 June 2019 Defra and Environment Agency (2018) £21 million Sheffield flood defence completed. https:// www.gov.uk/government/news/21-million-sheffield-flood-defence-completed. Accessed 28 June 2019 Dempsey N, Smith H, Burton M (eds) (2014) Place-keeping: open space management in practice. Routledge, London Dempsey N, Burton M, Duncan R (2016) Evaluating the effectiveness of a cross-sector partnership for green space management: the case of Southey Owlerton, Sheffield, UK. Urban For Urban Green 15:155–164. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2015.12.002 Denrell J, Fang C, Winter SG (2003) The economics of strategic opportunity. Strateg Manag J 24(10):977–990 Drury C (2018) Sheffield’s street tree massacre: how locals battled to protect Europe’s greenest city, Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/long_reads/sheffield-tree-massacre-parksgreen-city-spaces-felling-street-council-yorkshire-a8286581.html. Accessed 10 May 2019 Franchina A, Scott AJ, Carter CE (2017) The green living spaces plan: evaluation and future prospects. Report submitted to Birmingham City Council. Birmingham City University. https:// mainstreaminggreeninfrastructure.com/reports/The_Green_Living_Spaces_Plan_Evaluation. pdf. Accessed 24 June 2019 Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) (2016) State of UK public parks, HLF, London. https://www.heritagefund.org.uk/publications/state-uk-public-parks-2016. Accessed 12 Feb 2019 Hughes L (2018) Birkenhead Park’s famous Swiss Bridge targeted by vandals AGAIN, Liverpool Echo. https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/birkenhead-parks-famous-swissbridge-14550785. Accessed 28 June 2019 Ibrahim PH, Haron RC, Dali MM (2017) Open space development planning in Malaysia: issues and problems. Adv Sci Lett 23(7):6322–6326 Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (2019) Media release: nature’s dangerous decline ‘unprecedented’. https://www.ipbes.net/news/MediaRelease-Global-Assessment. Accessed 28 June 2019 Jansson M, Vogel N, Fors H et  al (2018) The governance of landscape management: new approaches to urban open space development. Landsc Res. https://doi.org/10.1080/0142639 7.2018.1536199 Klauer B, Manstetten R, Petersen T et al (2013) The art of long-term thinking: a bridge between sustainability science and politics. Ecol Econ 93:79–84 Kreutz S, Dempsey N, Lindholst AC (2014) Resourcing place-keeping: fighting for funding. In: Dempsey N, Smith H, Burton M (eds) Place-keeping: open space management in practice. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 100–124 Layton-Jones K (2016) History of public park funding and management (1820–2010). Historic England, London

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Lindholst AC, Dempsey N, Kreutz S (2014) The politics of place-keeping. In: Dempsey N, Smith H, Burton M (eds) Place-keeping: open space management in practice. Routledge, Abingdon, pp 30–51 Malmö stad (2014) Comprehensive plan for Malmö summary in English, Adopted by Malmö City Council on May 22nd 2014, Malmö stad, Malmö. https://malmo.se/download/18.125 6e63814a61a1b34c1ade/1491298771893/OP_english_summary_hemsida.pdf. Accessed 10 May 2019 Mattijssen TJM, van der Jagt APN, Buijs AE et  al (2017) The long-term prospects of citizens managing urban green space: from place making to place-keeping? Urban For Urban Green 26:78–84. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2017.05.015 Mell IC (2018) Establishing the costs of poor green space management: mistrust, financing & future development options in the UK.  People Place Policy 12(2):137–157. https://doi. org/10.3351/ppp.2018.7698488596 Nam J, Dempsey N (2019) Understanding stakeholder perceptions of acceptability and feasibility of formal and informal planting in Sheffield’s district Parks. Sustainability 11(2):360. https:// doi.org/10.3390/su11020360 Newcastle City Council (2018) Newcastle Parks Trust. https://www.newcastle.gov.uk/sites/ default/files/Libraries%20%26%20Hubs/Parks%20%26%20Open%20Spaces/3.Public%20 Presentation%20(Governance)%20-%20July%202018.pdf. Accessed 18 June 2019 O’Byrne D (2008) Malmö, Sweden: the city of parks, Případová studie. University of Washington. http://depts.washington.edu/open2100/Resources/1_OpenSpaceSystems/Open_Space_ Systems/Malmo_Case_Study.pdf. Accessed 18 June 2019 O’Gorman R, Werry M (2012) On failure (on pedagogy): editorial introduction. Perform Res 17(1):1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/13528165.2012.651857 Pawson R (2006) Evidence-based policy: a realist perspective. SAGE, London Polanyi M (1966) The tacit dimension. Doubleday, New York Powell M, Carlin B (2018) Save our parks! Victory as Government orders local councils to stop selling off green spaces after army of readers, experts and celebrities back Mail on Sunday campaign, Daily Mail. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6248277/Save-parks-VictoryGovernment-orders-local-councils-stop-selling-green-spaces.html. Accessed 22 Feb 2019 Schön D (1983) The reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. Arena Books, Basingstoke Scott AJ, Carter C, Hölzinger O et al (2014) Tools – applications, benefits and linkages for ecosystem science (TABLES), final report to the UNEP-WMC Research Councils UK, Welsh Government and Defra, June 2014. http://uknea.unep-wcmc.org/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=D YBPt9wHeYA%3d&tabid=82. Accessed 22 June 2019 Smith H, Pereira M, Hull A et al (2014) The governance of open space: decision-making around place-keeping. In: Dempsey N, Smith H, Burton M (eds) Place-keeping: open space management in practice. Routledge, London, pp 52–775 Taeby M, Zhang L (2019) Exploring stakeholder views on disaster resilience practices of residential communities in South Florida. Nat Hazards Rev 20(1):04018028 Texas Parks and Wildlife (2018) Texas outdoor recreation plan 2018, Texas Parks and Wildlife Recreation Grants Branch State Parks Division, Austin. https://tpwd.texas.gov/business/grants/ pwd_rp_p4000_1673_TORP.pdf. Accessed 22 June 2019 The Parks Agency (2002) Parks reborn: a record of the heritage lottery fund’s urban parks programme, The Parks Agency, London. http://www.parksagency.co.uk/wp-content/ uploads/2018/06/Urban-Parks-Programme-report.pdf. Accessed 12 Jan 2019 Thorp L (2019) Liverpool Council LOSES Calderstones Park battle in High Court as campaigners score historic victory, Liverpool Echo. https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news/liverpool-news/ liverpool-council-loses-calderstones-park-15696153. Accessed 26 June 2019 Westminster City Council (WCC) (2007) City of Westminster open space strategy. WCC, London. http://transact.westminster.gov.uk/docstores/publications_store/Open_Space_Strategy_ March_2007.pdf. Accessed 26 June 2019

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Chapter 9

Realigning Knowing and Doing: An Agenda for Reflection and Action Nicola Dempsey and Julian Dobson

Abstract  As both a reflection on the book and a proposal for next steps, this chapter emphasises the importance of context in its widest (social, cultural, political, ecological, economic…) sense when seeking to understand the limits to many urban green spaces’ positive contributions to human wellbeing. Exploring the mismatch between policy rhetoric, practice on the ground and lived experience, Dempsey and Dobson underline the significance of political buy-in which does not always result in the ‘best’ urban green space for the people who live there. The chapter, and the book overall, aims to contribute a nuanced understanding of challenges faced by decision-makers involved in the cross-sector and cross-disciplinary domain of ‘healthy urban green spaces’, which are context-specific and often constrained by longstanding organisational rules and practices. We reflect on how the time is ripe to revisit and question some of these rule-bound behaviours and procedures in order to institute appropriate codes, cultures and knowledge to underpin urban green space management in the twenty-first century. Keywords  Context · Mismatch · Policy rhetoric · Policy implementation · Future research · Decision-making

9.1  A Need for Reflection As both a reflection on the book and a proposal for next steps, this chapter emphasises the importance of context in its widest sense when seeking to understand how urban green spaces positively contribute to human wellbeing. This is because one’s experience in and of urban nature depends on the wider context. Part of that context

N. Dempsey (*) · J. Dobson Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 N. Dempsey, J. Dobson (eds.), Naturally Challenged: Contested Perceptions and Practices in Urban Green Spaces, Cities and Nature, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44480-8_9

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is nature itself. As Bradshaw et al. succinctly put it in Chap. 3: “the nature of the ‘natural’ is important for how people engage with it”. This wider context varies politically, economically, socially, culturally and ecologically. It influences the ways in which managers, planners and designers conceptualise nature; and these may converge, or diverge, from those held by users. The assumptions made by the Victorian politicians and philanthropists when creating parks in nineteenth century urban Britain (Chap. 5) are not the same as those held by, say, the Nicaraguan politicians creating open spaces in Managua (Chap. 3) or by the politicians in rural West Sussex stepping back from flood prevention responsibility and increasing the reliance on volunteers (Chap. 6). But they all have an important bearing on the local landscapes that are experienced on a daily basis. This chapter aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the challenges faced by decision-makers involved in the cross-sector and cross-disciplinary domain of ‘healthy urban green spaces’. As well as being context-specific, these challenges are often constrained by longstanding organisational rules and practices. We reflect on how the time is ripe to revisit and question some of these rule-bound behaviours and procedures as part of a growing body of knowledge which explores the mismatch between policy rhetoric, practice on the ground and lived experience. This chapter also outlines how the agenda for how future debates, research and practice can be focused around some of the challenges set out in the book. We pose these as three questions. We can answer them in part now, but will need to address them more fully in the future.

9.2  P  erceptions in (and of) Urban Green spaces Are Contested: So What? The preceding chapters present a wide range of perceptions of urban nature held by different stakeholders. Hoyle (Chap. 2) examines the relationship between aesthetic appreciation of urban nature and health and wellbeing. Her extensive examination of existing research in the UK shows that ‘most people respond positively to colourful, flowering planting in urban spaces’ because they find it attractive and stimulating, and when they need spaces for calm and restoration, they value green spaces over others. For Bradshaw et  al., the understandings that research participants in Brazil and Nicaragua hold of ‘nature’ are fluid and occur along a spectrum of ‘natural’. As you read this book, you may have taken umbrage at the highly unnatural ‘Trees of Life’ in Nicaragua and question the politicians’ belief that they will ‘bring … joy to the people’. But how very different are these to the floral (and highly unnatural) designs that were a common feature using bedding plants in Victorian parks? We can still see floral clocks and other elaborately designed displays celebrated by parks managers. Along with the Trees of Life, these are all manifestations of political perceptions of urban nature, predicated on an assumption that they will be appreciated and respected by users. More fundamentally, they are

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also predicated on an assumption that people will be attracted to, and spend time in, urban nature. This idea posits that people have the agency, capacity and desire to come to urban nature and reap its mental health and wellbeing benefits. This is an assumption held by decision-makers and professionals who perhaps already ‘get’, or have a tacit understanding of urban nature and cannot relate closely to people for whom urban nature is not of interest. Whitten and Dempsey (Chaps. 5 and 8) both discuss how green space strategies are often based on the notion that because urban nature is there, people will use it – if the access, quality and facilities are improved (improvement usually being the focus of strategies). But doesn’t this mean that only part of the population will ever be served when decisions are underpinned by such assumptions? This is demonstrated when looking at the global popularity of parkrun as mentioned by Hoyle (Chap. 2). Parkrun is an organised 5 km run every Saturday morning which community groups and parks managers aspire to host if their park is large enough. However, it is not clear how inclusive it is. For example, there are real disparities in the numbers of runners in different parks across Sheffield. The Sheffield Hallam parkrun in Endcliffe Park in the west (and more affluent part) of the city has on average 439 runners per week, while the Manor Castle parkrun in Manor Fields Park in the more deprived east has on average 50 runners per week and Concord Park (also in the east) has an average of 63 (Parkrun 2019). This means that the average number of runners per week in the leafier, and richer, part of the city is up to 8 times those in the more deprived parks of the city. The fact that the activity is parkrun (rather than parkwalk or parkjog) means that parkrun may be more attractive to people who are already active and potentially more inclined to get outdoors than their less active neighbours. Hoyle cites research in 5 European cities which shows that walking is the most popular activity in parks, not running. However, Whitten (Chap. 5) points out that there is increasing policy emphasis on addressing mental health and wellbeing through active sport and recreation. This evidence would suggest that this is limited in its attraction to new park users based on their propensity to engage in active sports and recreation, rather than, say, (dog) walking. Bradshaw et  al. illustrate the social importance of urban nature in their findings that most people went to their local park in Nicaragua because the features that had been installed were about socialising outdoors, including access to the free wifi meaning people go to ‘WhatsApp’iar’ their friends and family. Gearey (Chap. 6) also discusses the importance of the social dimension of urban nature, finding that volunteering is sustained by the social interaction that volunteers enjoy. This echoes recent research elsewhere by Birch and Rishbeth, who developed urban nature interventions which purposefully did not take place in nature. Their starting point was not the usual assumption that if you want to measure or understand people’s connection with nature, you need to be ‘in nature’. It permitted a wider conception of nature connection that can be understood as more than access to green space (Birch et al. 2020; Birch 2017). It is therefore clear that choice needs to be provided, but that choice cannot be predicated on an assumption that people necessarily do or would go into nature. As Bradshaw et al. point out, urban nature can be considered highly risky for people’s

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health. In Belo Horizonte, Brazil, for example, going outdoors can be dangerous as people may be ‘hit by a stray bullet…’. Such choices around urban nature allow people to select from different options when they, say, suffer from depression or have to deal with a life event which detrimentally affects their mental health. These choices should be locally driven and be about the strategic provision and management of varied urban nature for the benefit of local populations – both human and non-human. So decision-makers should aspire to create a spectrum of ‘natural’ as Bradshaw et al. discuss, rather than a ‘must-have’ list of features based on a traditional view of what should be in our urban green spaces, which takes ‘active’ activities as the starting point.

9.3  H  ow Can We Address the Misalignments Between What We Know About Green Space and What We Do in Practice? We do not need to keep trying to prove the value or the wellbeing benefits of urban nature. The discussions in this book, and the growing body of empirical evidence, strongly indicate that this is no longer a priority. Calling on the discussion around powerful ideas set out by Henneberry et al. in Chap. 4, the value of urban nature is so ‘obvious’ that it is no longer called into question. This sends us back to the question in the Introduction: why is it apparently so difficult to do what appears so obviously necessary? We have shown that that there are difficulties in translating and interpreting those ‘ideas of value’ (Chap. 1) which we each hold because they rest on very different premises and can lead to very different conclusions. For example, there is a challenge in translating academic language into lay terms. Academics are good at measuring the measurable and this favours reducing our understanding of urban nature to numbers. As Henneberry et al. point out, laypeople tend not to appreciate trees for their ecosystem services such as their capacity to reduce pluvial run-off. But it is considerably easier for researchers to measure this than to grapple with a measurement of the beauty of trees. For Henneberry et al., ‘by attaching numbers to bits of nature we imbue nature with the properties of numbers’. This requires engagement with an academic jargon which is not necessarily spoken or understood by the general population. Yet as Hoyle shows, people can and do appreciate urban nature, even if they are not particularly skilled at identifying specific species. This does not limit their potential to connect with nature and enjoy its benefits. But academia needs to engage with practitioners in plain language to communicate the benefits of urban nature to help inform the wider public about the implications of their behaviours and decisions. How might academia help inform that Brazilian resident who removed the tree from her back yard because of the potential threat it posed, and regretted that decision ever since? It will not be through numbers or by shying away

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from people’s emotional or aesthetic perceptions of urban nature. Academics need to ask a different set of questions. Academia needs to pay more attention to the contexts within which policies are shaped, and policy rhetoric is implemented, to explore whether the perceived knowledge gaps justify inaction as Dobson and Dempsey in Chap. 7 hypothesise. As discussed earlier, the book shows how there is a mismatch between decision-makers who value ‘objective’ measures while users are led by their perceptions of beauty and their subjective feelings in urban nature. This mismatch needs to be better examined and understood. As Henneberry et al. show, we have to challenge the reliance on numbers as “purveyors of accuracy and truth”. Whitten’s chapter shows how more research is needed into how conceptualisations of multifunctional urban green space are implemented, and the processes involved, again underlining the importance of context in our examinations. Without better understandings of context and process, we argue that “business as usual” will prevail. This can mean that wellbeing benefits are missed. It is also more likely to lead to a poorer quality of urban nature, because, as Dobson and Dempsey argue, it favours capital investment over ongoing management. The implications are discussed below.

9.4  Why Is “Business as Usual” No Longer Good Enough? Dempsey and Whitten write of the practice of setting out unachievable goals in the ubiquitous green space strategies which, elsewhere, have been shown to be misaligned with other strategies (Heykoop 2019; Franchina et al. 2017). More work is needed to explore this potentially widespread practice so we can better understand what drives practitioners to make impossible promises about, say, improving access to green space in increasingly urbanising settings (Chap. 8). We would suggest that the impact of austerity policies has meant that it is simply not possible for many UK cities’ green space strategies to be implemented. Many of these cities’ strategies are ‘live’ but their updating or realignment within a changed context is not a priority (e.g. because of a lack of resources). Dempsey highlights that when standardised mechanisms such as funding programmes are employed, “business as usual” prevails. The longstanding focus on capital-intensive physical, or ‘place-making’, interventions relies on traditional procedural mechanisms which are dictated by a short-term funding stream without any ring-fenced post-intervention revenue budget or ‘place-keeping’. This echoes the ‘myth and ceremony’ discussed in Chap. 7 and the underpinning bureaucratic principles which prevail in organisations. Dobson and Dempsey discuss how “business as usual” (which often equates to inaction) can also prevail if decision-makers do not call on the right evidence. For example, it is very difficult to demonstrate the (e.g. health and wellbeing, play and recreational) benefits of a single piece of playground equipment. In fact, the long list of green space interventions that were whittled down to five in the IWUN research project (Chap. 7) did not include playground facilities as an intervention recognised as being beneficial for health and wellbeing. Despite this lack of evidence, local

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authorities and community groups commonly prioritise investment in playground equipment over all other facilities in a park – despite the small demographic group that this serves. We of course recognise that politically, the idea of not investing in children’s play where green space funding is available might be impossible to contemplate. But it shows quite clearly that we need to disturb these long-held ideas of what, and who, a park is for. Shining a light on such decision-making practices can help show why we should also reimagine the scales that we apply to urban nature. The rigid boundaries of an administrative area demarcated in a green space strategy bear no or little resemblance to the urban nature experienced by walkers following long-trodden paths or birds seeking out food and nesting sites. Nature is not short-term like these strategies or the political terms within which elected members operate. Gearey demonstrates how problematic this can be in west Sussex, where the ramifications of flooding are felt over a long period of time, extending well beyond political tenures. Whitten discusses other working practices that can exacerbate logics of inaction. She cites how one part of a council can charge out its green space management services to another part. This can detrimentally affect any fostering of truly collaborative or partnership working, as it engenders a transactional relationship which may be based on scales of economy and cost-reductions, particularly in times of austerity (also see Dempsey et al. 2016). Other opportunities are being missed. The wide scope and reach of urban nature is becoming increasingly clear to decision-makers as they recognise how it can support statutory services, such as health and education. However, as Whitten points out, organisational working practices and governance structures have not changed in tandem and can pose significant barriers to effective implementation of policy rhetoric. We can also ask if the organisational barriers are themselves real or perceived (or perhaps they are the self-same thing). Dobson and Dempsey’s identification of logics of inaction point to a process of self-preservation where ‘business as usual’ serves the people whose usual business is it: because – put starkly – if they didn’t do it, they’d be out of a job. But more and more, we are faced with “game-­ changers” and it’s no longer enough that our responses are the “compensatory small acts of preservation” discussed in Chap. 1 (Macfarlane 2019). That is small comfort to the rural Sussex residents that Gearey interviewed in Chap. 6 who, when their houses were flooded, felt the effects of austerity politics when it became clear that ‘there was no-one to help them’.

9.5  A  Realignment Towards Learning from All, Not Just Good, Practice Unlike most books which explore green space management, we have avoided focusing only on examples of good practice and embraced the lessons that can be learnt from the not-so-good and poor practice. As Matthew Syed (2015 p. 94) argues: ‘if

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we edit out failure…we are effectively destroying one of the most precious learning opportunities that exists’. If ‘business as usual’ prevails, we increase the chances of creating poor quality urban landscapes underpinned by conceptualisations of nature that are, literally, out of place. Such landscapes can negatively affect people’s wellbeing. We have also shown how urban nature does not fit neatly as an objectively measurable concept. This fact in itself is not enough to justify inaction. The stakes are getting higher as awareness of the effects of climate crisis grows. The Extinction Rebellion movement has taken the world by surprise, and schoolchildren have led the outrage and protest against generations of environmental inaction. We believe that ‘we have always done it this way’ will no longer wash. We have to talk more about failure and what doesn’t work, in the pursuit of what can work better. We may have to achieve this by stealth. We should plug into existing mechanisms and working practices and question them, talking more across disciplines and interpreting better our shared languages across sectors. Henneberry et al. remind us that the language or system we plug into requires numbers to tell the ‘truth’ but they do not tell the whole story. We also need to acknowledge that we are not reinventing the wheel. Our conclusions are not new and their implications are not new either. This is why we need to closely examine the interpretive slippages between policy and practice. We need to be more honest about the role of individuals in decision-­making processes. In Chap. 7, Dobson and Dempsey state how “‘choices are made on the basis of inadequate information... ‘what works’ is a question of what works for whom in what circumstances. An intervention is a mechanism adopted within a context, and its effectiveness is influenced by context.” The ramifications of what we do and what we have done need to be more fully understood. We need to engage in evaluation which explores how individual interpretation, overarching context, time and scale all play a part in the decision-making processes between an idea and its implementation. We need to take stock of Syed’s reminder that ‘when we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter out beliefs’ (2015 p.  80, author’s emphasis). If we don’t recognise the limitations of our own perceptions of urban nature, how can we expect to understand the implications of different and potentially conflicting perceptions? The act of acknowledging that there are deep-rooted and longstanding logics behind inaction can prompt different ways of looking at old problems. Is the first, small, step a simple matter of identifying a problem as ‘ours’ rather than spending time, money and resources on trying to prove how the problem is ‘theirs’? If we are all prepared to learn from our mistakes because it is the obvious and acceptable thing to do, this could be an incredibly powerful step towards a new equilibrium in which the creation, management and sustainability of ‘healthy urban green spaces’ becomes the new ‘business as usual’.

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References Birch J (2017) Connecting with nature in the city is more than visiting ‘green space’. Society Matters, Nov 1, 2017, http://bit.ly/2qWc8Gn Birch J, Rishbeth C, Payne SR (2020) Nature doesn’t judge you  – how urban nature supports young people’s mental health and wellbeing in a diverse UK city. Health & Place, 102296. ISSN 1353-8292 Dempsey N, Burton M, Selin J (2016) Contracting out parks and roads maintenance in England. Int J Public Sector Man 29(5):441–456. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJPSM-02-2016-0029 Franchina A, Scott AJ, Carter CE (2017) The green living spaces plan: Evaluation and Future Prospects. Report submitted to Birmingham City Council. Birmingham City University. https:// mainstreaminggreeninfrastructure.com/reports/The_Green_Living_Spaces_Plan_Evaluation. pdf Accessed 24 Jun 2019 Heykoop L (2019) Green infrastructure for a healthy city. Green Party, London. https://greenworld.org.uk/article/green-infrastructure-healthy-city. Accessed 24 June 2019 Macfarlane R (2019) Underland: a deep time journey. Penguin Random House, London Parkrun (2019) Parkrun events list, parkrun, Twickenham. https://www.parkrun.org.uk Accessed 24 June 2019 Syed M (2015) Black box thinking. John Murray Publishing, London

Index

A Accidental nature, 11 Active citizenship, 118 Activism, 118, 121, 129, 133, 136–139 Aesthetics, 6, 10, 15, 17–27, 31, 32, 40, 47, 49, 55, 190, 193 Agenda, 93, 94, 136, 144, 146, 172, 189–195 Air quality, 12–13, 137, 158 ‘Alien’ species, 18 Allergenicity, 13 Assets, 38–54, 62, 63, 69, 70, 74, 79, 126 Attention Restoration Theory, 14 Austerity, 31, 89, 99, 105, 118, 121–127, 129–132, 135–139, 144, 145, 147, 149, 171, 175, 176, 180, 182–184, 193, 194 Austerity urbanism, 147 B Bari, Italy, 14 Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 3, 192 Berlin, Germany, 13, 17, 18, 26 ‘Best practice’, ix, 149, 181, 184 Biodiversity, ix, 2, 6, 10, 11, 15–22, 28, 30–32, 40, 64, 91, 96, 97, 99, 103, 107–109, 119, 120, 137, 148, 152, 158, 172, 173 Biodiversity-recognition, 18–20 Biophilia, 27 Biospheric, 15 Blue spaces, 13, 15, 38–40, 42, 52, 53, 121, 137 ‘Broken window syndrome’, 168

Building design, 119, 170 Built environments, 11, 14, 40, 42, 48, 55, 97, 120, 184 Bureaucracy, 148, 162 Business as usual, 169, 178, 194, 195 C CABE Space, UK, 172 Café, 6, 77–80, 152 Calculative practices, 4, 60–83 Capacities, 41, 81, 118–120, 127, 128, 144, 146, 155, 160, 191, 192 Capital assets (CA), 39, 46 Cardiovascular disease (CVD), 71–73 Central Park, New York, USA, 168 Children, 12, 15, 16, 30, 31, 45, 52, 95, 98, 99, 104, 121, 128, 130, 152, 174, 194 Circumplex Model of Affect, 24 Civic identities, 6, 118–139 Civic logics, 157 Civic responsibilities, 6 Civil society organizations, 146, 147 Climate change, 6, 18, 45, 99, 100, 104, 110, 111, 119–121, 158, 169 Cognitive hierarchy, 15, 16, 29 Colourful flowering, 11 Colours, 17, 18, 20–24, 29, 46, 52, 55 Community logics, 157 Constructions of nature, 54–55 Contested perceptions, 2–7, 9–32, 38–55, 60–83, 88–111, 118–139, 143–162, 167–184, 189–195

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198 Contexts, ix, 3, 5, 11, 15, 19–22, 24, 25, 28, 30, 31, 38, 41, 44, 54, 55, 62, 67, 69, 73, 81, 89, 91, 97, 102, 103, 120, 144, 146–149, 151, 153, 159, 161, 162, 168, 170–173, 181–184, 189, 190, 193, 195 Cost-benefit analysis (CBA), 72, 77–80, 82 Cross-cutting policies, 146 Cross-disciplinary, 190 Cues to care, 25, 27, 31 Cultivated nature, 11 Cycling, 13, 40, 92, 153, 154, 156 D Data availability, 79 problems with, 183 Decision-makers, 6, 104, 148, 149, 160, 161, 190–194 Decision-making, 2, 5, 60, 62–64, 67, 95, 97, 107, 123, 137, 144, 151, 152, 161, 176, 177, 180, 194 Decision-making processes, ix, 146, 151–153, 170, 195 Depression, 12, 14, 96, 151, 192 “Diversity in nature”, 10, 15, 17–26 ‘Dose of nature’, 149 ‘Duchenne’ smile, 22 E Ecology, 10, 136 Economy, 12, 61, 62, 64, 82, 123, 143, 146, 156, 157, 159, 194 Ecosystems services, 119 Edinburgh, Scotland, UK, 13, 14, 17, 26 Education, 16, 19, 27, 28, 39, 40, 99, 104, 105, 108, 109, 121, 127, 146, 152, 172, 194 Egoistic, 15 Environmental awareness, 99–100 Environmental citizenships, 6, 118, 121–127, 138 Environmental logics, 158 Everyday activities, 2 Evidence gaps, 6 Exotic species, 18 The extinction of experience, 12 Extinction Rebellion, 118, 195 F Failures, 2, 5, 158, 180–184, 195 Fear of nature, 30

Index Financial logics, 156 Firth Park, Sheffield, UK, 176 Fitness for purpose, 90–91 Flooding, 50, 119, 122, 130–132, 169, 194 Flowering herbaceous planting, 11 Football pitches, 94, 98 Fractured governance, 146–150 Fragmentation of responsibilities, 109 Funding, 55, 89, 90, 96, 99, 100, 104–106, 108, 120, 121, 126, 132, 133, 138, 144, 145, 147, 149, 155, 156, 160, 168–170, 172, 176, 178, 180–182, 184, 193, 194 Future research, 181 G ‘Game-changers’, 194 Gardens, 5, 6, 11, 19, 23, 25, 28, 29, 40, 41, 46, 47, 49, 54, 88, 95–98, 103, 129–131, 158 Gender, 27–28, 53, 138 ‘Geographies of austerity’, 121 Gerontocracies, 122, 133, 134, 137, 138 ‘Good’ practice, 147 Governance, 2, 6, 60, 62, 64, 91, 100, 105–106, 108, 118–139, 144, 146–150, 152–160, 169, 176, 194 ‘Governing by numbers’, 60 Green and open space strategies, 172, 173, 175, 182, 183 Green infrastructure (GI), 11, 13, 15, 17 Green roofs, 11, 95, 106, 108, 111, 120 Green space design, 109 Green space interventions, 153, 167–184, 193 Green space management, 88, 97, 108, 168–171, 175, 177, 182–184, 194 Green space planning, 95, 97, 101 Green space provision, 93, 97, 104, 107, 145, 173–175, 178 Green walls, 95, 96, 106, 111 Green wedges, 120 Grey power, 136–139 H Habitat types, 19 Health and wellbeing, ix, 38, 39, 91–93, 95, 96, 99, 104, 105, 109, 118–139, 144, 149, 150, 159, 190, 191, 193 Health benefits of urban green space mental, 44 physical, 44, 79 ‘Highly mediated spaces’, 11

Index Housing, 25, 38, 42, 50, 74, 97, 98, 105, 107, 108, 110, 111, 120, 121, 123, 145, 152, 153, 156, 158, 177 Human-nature binary, 10 Hydrocitizens, 126 I Infrastructure, 26, 30, 39, 41, 50, 52, 62, 91, 100, 101, 104, 106, 107, 109, 110, 119–121, 137, 144–145, 148, 156, 157, 172, 174 Institutional boundaries, 148 Intended and achieved, 182 Investments, 39, 41, 62, 63, 79, 81, 126, 144, 145, 148, 149, 156–162, 170, 178, 193, 194 Islington, London, 91, 104, 106–109

199 Medical practitioners, 149, 159 Mental health, 4, 12, 44, 70, 72–74, 77, 92, 94–96, 128, 137, 146, 148, 150, 151, 153, 191, 192 Mental ill-health, 12, 72 Migration, 30–31 Millennium Ecosystems Assessment (MEA), 40, 64, 67, 68 Moral wellbeing, 95–97 Multifunctional benefits, 104, 110 Multiple health conditions, 96 Mundane, 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 14, 18, 25 ‘Myth and ceremony’, 6, 144, 160, 193

L Lake Managua, 39, 41 Land managers, 21, 25, 31, 174 Leisure, 3, 49, 91, 92, 94–96, 106, 109, 153, 172 Ljubljana, Slovenia, 13, 17, 26 Local communities, 6, 44, 93, 118, 123, 124, 126, 128, 133, 134, 145, 176, 177 Local governments, 77, 78, 105, 108, 122, 127, 130, 133, 137, 145, 146, 153, 159 Localism, 123, 129–132, 136–138, 147 Logics, ix, 5, 6, 69, 81, 136, 144, 151, 153, 155–158, 160, 194, 195 Logics of appropriateness, 148, 151 ‘Logics of inaction’, 4, 6, 151 London boroughs, 88, 89, 91, 93, 97, 173 Long-term, 5, 14, 94, 119, 129, 138, 148, 155, 160, 168–171, 176, 177, 181, 182 Low-income communities, 39

N Narratives, 121, 151 National Health Service, UK, 146, 149 National Lottery Heritage Fund, previously Heritage Lottery Fund, UK, 126, 170 Native planting, 18 Natural assets, 40, 41, 46–48, 54, 61, 69, 70 Natural capital accounting, 63, 67, 74, 80, 82, 148 Natural environments, 2, 4, 5, 13, 14, 16, 17, 22, 38, 41, 43, 44, 48, 50, 55, 60, 63, 65–67, 69, 92, 94, 95, 121, 150, 151, 161, 162 Nature based solutions, 119, 120 Nature contact, 10–12, 15, 32 ‘Nature dose’, 15 Nature interactions, 10 ‘Nature on display’, 11, 25 Neighbourhoods, 13, 25, 49–52, 55, 72, 120, 133, 152, 157, 159, 174 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK, 144, 183 New public management, 60, 147, 161 19th century rural ideals, 100–102 Non-native planting, 18, 19 Non-profit organizations, 64 Non-statutory, 105, 121, 172, 184 ‘Not-so-good’ practice, 194

M Malmo, Sweden, 13, 17, 26 Managua, Nicaragua, 3 Manufactured landscape, 6 Markets, 42, 60, 61, 63, 74, 123, 126, 132, 143, 144, 156 Meadow mixes, 20 Measurements, 60, 63, 67, 68, 81, 82, 183, 192

O Objectives, 15, 17, 26, 27, 30, 62, 67, 81, 82, 92, 104, 127, 147, 149, 157–159, 172–176, 182, 193 Older people, 16, 131 Organisational culture, 151 Organisational logics, 157, 158 Organized sports, 94

K ‘Knowledge-based experts’, 148

Index

200 P Parkland walk, London, UK, 15, 110 Park regeneration, 177, 181 Parkrun, 14, 15, 191 Parks staff, 153 Park users, 6, 13, 79, 91, 170, 191 Partnerships, 55, 126, 148, 169, 171, 173, 176, 194 Patios, 39, 41, 46, 47, 54 Perceived attractiveness, 22, 23 Perceptions, 6, 10, 15–32, 40, 50, 54, 82, 111, 170, 180, 183, 190, 193, 195 Peri-urban, 3, 38, 39, 42, 120, 121 Physical activity, 12–14, 71, 92, 95, 137, 153, 155 Physical health, 6, 14, 71, 95, 101, 110, 150 Place-keeping, 169, 176, 178, 180, 181, 193 Place-making, 171, 178, 181, 193 Planned urban green space, 38, 48–50, 109 Planning designations, 100, 102–103 Planning practice, 110 Planting structure, 24, 25 Policies, ix, 2–7, 26, 31–32, 60, 64, 67, 79, 81, 82, 91, 93, 94, 97, 99–101, 103, 104, 106, 118, 120, 121, 137, 143–145, 147–151, 157, 159, 161, 162, 167–172, 174, 176, 184, 191, 193, 195 Policy decisions, 6, 134 Policy goals, 94, 159 Policymakers, ix, 5, 17, 93, 103 Policy misalignment, 4 Policy rhetoric, 168, 171, 173, 183, 190, 193, 194 Political economy, 60, 62–64, 82 Pollinators, 19, 25 Pollution, 44, 81, 129, 133, 156 Ponderosa Park, Sheffield, UK, 73–80 ‘Poor’ practice, 194 Post-implementation, 167–184 Post-occupancy evaluation (POE), 170, 171, 184 Power, 7, 22, 39, 50, 61, 63, 65, 67, 68, 73, 81, 82, 88, 107, 123, 147, 169, 183 Practices, ix, 2–7, 14, 16, 31–32, 38, 60, 62, 63, 65, 67–69, 72, 81, 82, 100, 103, 109, 110, 118, 121, 129, 130, 144, 147, 149–153, 158–161, 167–184, 190, 192–195 Practitioners, 4, 7, 92, 146, 150–153, 158–160, 172, 173, 178, 180, 182, 184, 192, 193 Preferences, 17–22, 27, 29, 31, 48, 97, 99, 156, 180 ‘Pristine wilderness’, 10

Processes, 2, 14, 15, 38, 41, 61, 62, 65–67, 70, 81, 82, 99, 101, 105–108, 110, 127, 134, 137, 145, 147, 150, 151, 161, 168, 169, 171, 175–178, 180–184, 193, 194 Products, 40, 60, 63, 171 Professional background, 27, 29 Public outcry, 183 Public services, 121, 144, 145, 150, 178 Q Quantifying nature, 64 R Rain gardens, 120 Rationales, 62–64, 91–97, 122 Recreation, 11, 13, 40, 49, 55, 88, 92–97, 101, 102, 104, 109, 111, 172, 174, 191 Redbridge, London, 93 Reflections, 96, 109, 138, 160, 178, 180, 182, 189–195 Remnant nature, 11, 18 Residential areas, 18 Resilience, 99, 104, 105, 111, 120, 121, 123, 129–132, 137, 158, 169 Resources, 4, 5, 11, 40, 60, 63, 64, 67, 104, 105, 118, 120–125, 127, 130, 134, 144–149, 153, 157, 160, 161, 168, 172, 175, 180, 184, 193, 195 Restorativeness, 23 Revenue funding, 170 RHS Wisley, 22 ‘Right to the city’, 38 Rising Up!, 118 River Adur, Sussex, UK, 123, 124, 135 Roadside swales, 120 Rules, 3, 82, 126, 145, 151, 160, 161, 190 Running, 13, 62, 88, 129, 133, 145, 191 Rural England, 2 Rural Sussex, 6, 194 Rural volunteers, 122, 123 S Sabarmati Riverfront Park, Gujarat, India, 102 Safety, 49, 53, 54, 126, 155, 176, 180 ‘School Strike for Climate’, 118 Sedentary lifestyles, 12 Sheffield, UK, 150–151 Slippages, 6, 195 Social altruistic, 15 Social cohesion, 12–14, 88, 137

Index Social logics, 158 Social meanings, 149 Social prescribing, 16, 92, 155, 158 Social return on investment (SROI), 148 South Street Park, Sheffield, UK, 176, 177, 179, 181 Statutory designations, 104–105 Strategies, ix, 7, 64, 82, 92–94, 96, 98, 103, 104, 109, 118, 120, 138, 144, 149, 155, 168, 171–176, 182–184, 191, 193, 194 Streetscapes, 17, 18, 26 Stress reduction, 12, 14–15 Subjective, 15, 17, 38, 40, 55, 80, 155, 176, 193 Success, 5, 67, 169, 176, 181, 182 T Technologies, 61–63, 67, 161 Toilets, 6, 77, 79, 80, 153 Tower Hamlets, London, 88, 91, 92, 94, 97, 98 Town planning, 101, 119, 148 Trees, 3, 6, 11–14, 21, 23, 25, 39, 40, 42–48, 52, 54, 55, 65, 66, 69, 81, 95, 106, 111, 120, 127, 128, 152, 158, 173, 178, 183, 190, 192 ‘Trees of life’, 53, 190 Tree species, 13 U UK government, 138, 143, 145, 146 Unnatural assets, 54 Urban green spaces, ix, 3, 4, 7, 14, 19, 41, 44, 48–50, 73, 87–111, 137, 144, 148, 150, 162, 167–184, 189–193, 195 Urban nature, ix, 3–6, 9–32, 44, 109, 111, 144, 148, 150, 162, 189–195 Urban parks, 10, 13, 15, 41, 72, 94, 100, 101, 160 Urban trees, 12

201 Urban vegetation, 12 Urban volunteers, 128, 133 Urban Wetlands, 122, 132, 134 V Valuation, 17, 18, 41, 60, 65, 70, 80, 81, 149 Values, 2–6, 13–16, 18, 25, 29, 40, 42, 46, 48, 49, 51, 53, 61, 63–65, 67, 69–71, 74–77, 79, 80, 91, 98, 100, 111, 144, 145, 148–151, 155–159, 161, 180, 190, 192, 193 Valuing nature, 4, 54, 63, 64, 69–80, 145 Victorian parks, 3, 4, 102, 170, 190 Victoria Park, London, UK, 88–90 Viewing nature, 12 Volunteering, 122–123, 127–129, 134, 138, 153, 155, 157, 178, 191 Volunteers, 5, 121–123, 125–129, 132–134, 137, 138, 146, 152, 153, 155, 176–178, 190, 191 W Walking, 13, 25, 27, 28, 30, 49, 51, 52, 55, 74, 77, 92, 93, 95, 128, 129, 153–156, 191 Walthamstow Wetlands, London, UK, 124, 126, 133 Wandsworth, London, 91, 106–108 Wastelands, 17, 18, 26, 29, 31 Water-sensitive urban design, 120 Wellbeing, ix, 3–5, 39, 54, 63, 64, 82, 95, 98, 99, 109, 110, 119, 125, 138, 143–162, 189, 192, 193, 195 Westminster features in C8, 173–176, 183 Wetland management, 121 Wild, 3, 11, 18, 19, 25, 26, 29, 148, 155, 176 Wilderness, 3, 10, 11, 16, 30, 31 Woodlands, 13, 15, 18, 21, 24–28, 30, 31, 65, 66, 69, 73, 74, 77, 119, 152, 153, 159