The Inherent Politics of Managing the Quality of Urban Green Spaces

Abstract

Although the term ‘quality’ has a universal positive connotation and typically is framed by a focus on improvements, its application includes as well as excludes the access, values and world views of particular actors and interests. In this article, we highlight the relevance and implications of such ‘inherent politics’ through a case study of a widespread approach to operationalizing quality in urban green space management. We conclude that adoption of any quality model has both limiting and enabling implications for public participation and decision-making and that a critical stance is needed within both research and practice for the development of quality models that connect to values of broader societal relevance.

Keywords::

• management
• politics
• public service provision
• quality
• urban green space

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank colleagues at Centre for Organization, Management and Administration (COMA), Aalborg University, as well as colleagues within the Nordic Green Space Award (NGSA) project for comments and discussions on quality.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.