1st Edition

Urban Forests, Trees, and Greenspace A Political Ecology Perspective

Edited By L. Anders Sandberg, Adrina Bardekjian, Sadia Butt Copyright 2015
    350 Pages 70 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    350 Pages 70 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Urban forests, trees and greenspace are critical in contemporary planning and development of the city. Their study is not only a question of the growth and conservation of green spaces, but also has social, cultural and psychological dimensions. This book brings a perspective of political ecology to the complexities of urban trees and forests through three themes: human agency in urban forests and greenspace; arboreal and greenspace agency in the urban landscape; and actions and interventions in the urban forest. 

    Contributors include leading authorities from North America and Europe from a range of disciplines, including forestry, ecology, geography, landscape design, municipal planning, environmental policy and environmental history.

    1. Introduction 

    L. Anders Sandberg, Adrina Bardekjian, and Sadia Butt 

    Part 1: Human Agency in Urban Forests and Greenspace 

    2. Urban Forests are Social Natures: Markets, Race, Class, and Gender in Relation to (Un)just Urban Environments 

    Harold Perkins 

    3. From Government to Governance: Contribution to the Political Ecology of Urban Forestry 

    Cecil C. Konijnendijk van den Bosch 

    4. A Genealogy of Urban Forest Discourse in Flanders, Belgium 

    Ann Van Herzele 

    5. Institutions, Law, and the Political Ecology of Urban Forestry: A Comparative Approach 

    Blake Hudson 

    6. Manufacturing Green Consensus: Urban Green Governance in Singapore 

    Natalie Gulsrud and Can Seng Ooi 

    7. The Places of Trees in Honduras: Contributions of Public Spaces and Smallholders 

    Joby Bass 

    Part 2: Arboreal and Greenspace Agency in the Urban Landscape 

    8. (Urban) Places of Trees: Affective Embodiment, Identity and Materiality 

    Owain Jones 

    9. Order and Disorder in the Urban Forest: A Foucauldian-Latourian Perspective 

    Irus Braverman 

    10. High and Low, West and East: Four Arboricultures of the Tokyo Metropolis 

    Jay Bolthouse 

    11. The Unruly Tree: Stories from the Archives 

    Joanna Dean 

    12. Seeking Citizenship: The Norway Maple in Canada 

    Brendon Larson 

    13. Queering the Urban Forest: The Ecological Ethics and Politics of Arboreal Entanglement 

    Darren Patrick 

    14. The Thin End of the Green Wedge: Berlin’s Planned and Unplanned Urban Landscapes 

    Cynthia Hammond 

    Part 3: Actions and Interventions in the Urban Forest 

    15. "A Few Trees" in Gezi Park: Resisting the Spatial Politics of Neoliberalism in Turkey 

    Bengi Akbulut 

    16. Constructing New York City’s Urban Forest: The Politics and Governance of the MillionTreesNYC Campaign 

    Lindsay Campbell 

    17. Promoting Green Space in Cape Town, South Africa: The Role of the African Centre for Cities 

    Pippin Anderson 

    18. Cultivating Citizen Stewards: Lessons from Formal and Non-formal Educators 

    Greg Smith 

    19. Learning and Acting through Participatory Landscape Planning: The Case of the Bräkne River Valley, Sweden 

    Helena Mellqvist and Roland Gustavsson 

    20. A Step, A Stitch, A Sense of Self: Woods Walking as an Artist’s Path to Creating Identity 

    Kathleen Vaughan

    Biography

    L. Anders Sandberg is Professor and former Associate Dean in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Toronto, Canada. His two most recent books are The Oak Ridges Moraine Battles: Development, Sprawl and Nature Conservation in the Toronto Region (2013) and Urban Explorations: Environmental Histories of the Toronto Region (2013). 

    Adrina Bardekjian is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Toronto, Canada, where she studies under-represented narratives and strategic visioning for urban forestry praxis. She is an urban forestry researcher, writer and educator, and works with a number of organizations on a diversity of projects and initiatives.  

    Sadia Butt is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto, Canada. She has worked in urban forestry for the last 15 years as a practitioner, reseracher and volunteer in raising urban forest awareness through environmental education.

    "This book is the first to use the lens of political ecology to understand urban forests and finally provide us with a much needed politicized view of these spaces, based on case studies from around the globe." – Guy Baeten, Lund University, Sweden. 

    "This wonderful volume incorporates new theoretical ground in the field of political ecology. Diverse chapters bring nuanced and balanced attention to the social and ecological dynamism that shapes the myriad ways through which urban forests constitute and are constituted by everyday lived experiences, politics, and institutional dynamics of today’s cities. Through engaging exploration of diverse cases around the world and their beloved as well as neglected trees, parks, and other spaces, the chapters provide rich analyses of distinctive place- and regionally-oriented histories, changing market and economic dynamics, emergent forms of governance and institutional contexts, and ecological and social complexity, all framed within the central thematic dimension of power."Patrick Hurley, Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA, USA. 

    "A collection that makes urban political ecology accessible to a wide readership without losing the sophistication needed to handle the complexity and contradictions of the field. Its compelling narratives stretch from unruly trees and people in diverse cities around the world, to original ways of thinking about nature and the city." – Alan Mabin, Research fellow, Capital Cities project, University of Pretoria, South Africa.

    'This remarkable book brings a new perspective to urban forests and green spaces as political and social constructs. ... For critical readers at any level, nothing could be more valuable. Summing Up: Highly recommended'  -S. Hammer, Boston University , CHOICE, April 2015