Challenging dichotomies – exploring resilience as an integrative and operative conceptual framework for large-scale urban green structures

Abstract

Urban planners and urban planning as a field face a major challenge in balancing urban development interests against the need to safeguard socially equitable and ecologically functional green space. This need is still commonly seen through a modernist lens, whereby large-scale green areas are viewed as an antithesis to the city, creating a polarised landscape seemingly free from cross-scale social and ecological interactions. This study reports on a transdisciplinary work process that aimed to challenge this polarisation by exploring more integrative and operative planning approaches to large-scale urban green structures, using the concept of resilience, both as a theoretical umbrella and in relation to a case study in Stockholm, Sweden. The exploration took the form of a series of workshops in which professionals from the fields of planning, urban design, ecology, landscape architecture, and environmental history, as well as city-wide and regional planning, took part. Throughout the process, tentative designs served as “touchstones”, bringing questions from a theoretical level to a hands-on, specific, local context. This paper identifies three ways that resilience science can be useful in the planning and management of large urban green structures. Firstly, resilience can introduce complexity and thus make visible synergies and “win–win” situations within planning. Secondly, in highlighting change, resilience can offer alternatives to present conservationist perspectives on green space planning and thus offer constructive ways out of planning-related deadlocks. Thirdly, resilience can be advantageously combined with the concept of “legibility” in clarifying common goals and thus helping to build a constituency which will sustain large-scale green structures over time.

Keywords:

• urban development
• nature conservation
• resilience
• integrative and operative approaches
• transdisciplinary
• green wedges
• Stockholm
• Sweden

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank all workshop participants for lending us their time and for contributing to inspiring discussions. We would also like to especially thank Henrik Ernstson, Andreas Zetterberg, and Sverker Sörlin for valuable and insightful input. Joint funding was provided from Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) and Stockholm Resilience Centre. A smaller part of the research was also supported by the FORMAS funded research programme Ekoklim.

Notes

1. The use of the term transdisciplinary is in accordance with the definition given by Tress, Tress and Fry (2005).

2. Workshop participants included (1) leading ecological researchers specialising in socio-ecological systems, network analysis and resilience research from the following institutions: the Department of Systems Ecology and Stockholm Resilience Centre at Stockholm University, the Department of Land and Water Resources Engineering at KTH and Beijer Institute at the Royal Swedish Academy of sciences, (2) scholars within environmental history, planning and urban design from the Department of History of Science and Technology and the Department of Architecture and Critical Theory of Design at KTH (several of these participants also have practice-based expertise within the field), (3) practitioners from the Swedish Museum of Natural History in Stockholm (an ecologist) and from the landscape/urban design firm COMBINE in Stockholm (an urban designer) – both with specific experience of working in the Järva area, (4) key planning officers, including the head of Regional Green Structure Planning in Stockholm, a planning officer responsible for developing scenario techniques within regional planning and consultants responsible for developing the green wedge concept at Office of Regional Planning and Urban Transportation (RTK). the head of strategic planning in the City of Stockholm (SBK) responsible for Stockholm Comprehensive Plan (Vision 2030), the head ecologist within strategic planning in Stockholm municipality, and planning officers involved in comprehensive planning.

3. The initial dialogue between authors of this paper became formalised through a commission by the Regional Planning Office of Stockholm (RTK), the major authority for large-scale urban planning in Stockholm where they asked for an extensive inquiry into the future role of the regional green structure in the growing Stockholm region (as part of the work for the forthcoming regional plan, see Erixon et al., 2008; Regional Planning Office Stockholm County, 2010). Formally responsible for the commission were Hanna Erixon and Alexander Ståhle. Please note that the Office of Regional Planning and Urban Transportation (RTK) has changed its name to Regional Growth, Environment and Planning (TMR) since the time of the study.

4. The material included (1) a revised section of the commission report for RTK (please see previous note) describing the scientific framing and excerpts of the design models. Note that this material had been prepared by the authors together with fellow scholars Henrik Ernstson and Andreas Zetterberg (2) an agenda of discussion points based on the core aspects of resilience thinking set in the context of the case study area. Each workshop was opened with a detailed presentation of the material and the most recent version of tentative designs.

5. The designs were partly based on previous studies by Erixon (2005).

6. The areas surrounding the Järva green space demonstrate significant socio-economic variations. In Rinkeby and Tensta the unemployment is more than three times higher than in the adjacent areas of Spånga and Kista and the numbers of individuals in need of financial support are four times higher. The proportions of first and second generation immigrants also vary noticeably between the areas. For example, in Kista, north of Järva green space, 60% of the population are foreign-born. In Rinkeby, south of the green space, the same group represents 89%. Still farther south, in the adjacent detached housing area Flysta in Spånga, fewer than 20% of inhabitants are foreign-born or have foreign-born parents. All figures are from Stockholms Stads Utrednings-och Statistikkontor (USK).