Transformative or piecemeal? Changes in green space planning and governance in eleven European cities

ABSTRACT

Green (and blue) spaces receive attention as important components of cities that can help to mitigate the effects of climate change, support biodiversity and improve public health. Green space planning aims to transform cities towards urban sustainability and resilience. In a longitudinal study, representatives from eleven European municipalities that had previously been interviewed in 2014 were re-interviewed in 2020–2021 on changes in urban greening and related practices. The interviewees reported mainly advancements in dealing with ecological issues, such as new plans, strategies, regulations or funding programmes for climate adaptation or biodiversity support, as well as some progress in co-governance with non-governmental stakeholders. Promising developments include breaking professional silos by creating new units that can better deal with complex urban issues. In a few cases, high-level local politicians induced profound changes. These changes stimulated the development of new planning and governance cultures, resulting in more co-creation of urban green spaces. However, from a transformation studies perspective, incremental strategies dominate, and even when municipal representatives are aware that substantive changes are needed, they often lack the means to act. For more radical system change, significant extra efforts are needed.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-governance
• participation
• climate change
• sustainability transformations
• green infrastructure

Acknowledgement

This research is a follow-up to GREEN SURGE, a collaborative EU-research project. A large number of researchers contributed to the base line data, in particular former task leaders Clive Davies and Raffaele Lafortezza. We would like to thank Elena Simon who helped to prepare the data and supported the coordination of this follow-up study. Furthermore, we would like to thank the representatives of the studied cities who generously provided their experiences and opinions. We dedicate this paper to the memory of Birgit Elands, who passed away in 2022. She was fundamental during the GREEN SURGE project and also helped developing this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 In this area, two research strands are present: one on transitions and another on transformations. Both concepts have nuanced differences but are also frequently used as synonyms. Both refer to radical, non-linear and structural change as discussed by Hölscher, Frantzeskaki, and Loorbach (2019). For the sake of consistency, we will use ‘transformation’, even when the original used ‘transition’.

2 It should be noted that several of the interviews took place during the first year of the pandemic and that some cities have since implemented measures such as temporary or permanent bike paths or closing of streets.

Additional information

Funding

This study did not receive any funding. It builds on research that was supported by the European Union’s Research and Innovation funding programme for 2007–2013 FP 7 (FP7-ENV.2013.6.2-5-603567).