Urban Gardening and Green Space Governance: Towards New Collaborative Planning Practices

Abstract

In the context of urban densification and central urban areas’ lack of open spaces, new forms of small-scale urban gardening practices have emerged. These gardening practices respond to urban pressures and open new modes of green space governance, presenting alternative and multifunctional ways to manage and revitalise cities. Focusing on the case of Geneva, the article unfolds two levels of discussion. On the one hand—and with reference to the theorist Habermas—it examines how multiple actors with different interests interplay and cooperate with each other in order to negotiate over open space, while discussing implications for local politics and planning. On the other hand, it describes how these negotiations result in new, innovative, and hybrid forms of public green space. The main findings indicate emerging forms of collaboration, partnerships, and governance patterns that involve public and private sectors and increase participation by civil society actors. Cooperation amongst several interested groups and the collective re-invention of public urban spaces increase these spaces’ accessibility for multiple users and actors, as well as present possibilities for alternative and diversified uses and activities. This might underline the hypothesis that future cities will be governed in less formalised ways, and that urban forms will be created through spontaneous, temporary, mobile, and adaptive negotiation processes.

Social Sustainability: A New Conceptual Framework

“…In addition, these practices and visions or imaginaries are sometimes conceived as revolutionary, posing an alternative to the neoliberal mode of consumption and production [94], and sometimes as an evolutionary state of the capitalist mode of production, giving way to a better, more humane as well as environmental friendly stage [95,96]. Examples of these practices and vision can be found in the concepts and practices of community economies, in alternative local gardening and food systems [97][98][99][100] in cooperative models of housing, workplaces, banking and financing, and consumption [101], and in various models of operation in the established movement of transition towns [102]. These diverse and newly evolving modes of economic organization, which we refer to as Eco-prosumption, in fact facilitate both environmental and social resilience of communities and therefore complete our quadruple framework.…”

Placemaking in Action: Factors That Support or Obstruct the Development of Urban Community Gardens

“…We encountered a lesser degree of difficulties and conflicts between gardeners and local governments, administration, and authorities in our cases than in the literature. This may be explained by a shift in planning practices towards a more institutionalised integration of CGs into urban development policies and planning, as well as by emerging cultures of cooperation [132,140,141].…”

Integrating User Preferences Into Urban Green and Blue Infrastructure Planning: Insights From Halle, Germany and Stockholm, Sweden

“…This potential to foster community action for GBI maintenance has been revealed by different studies (e.g. [31], [32]) and offers a significant potential to relieve burdens on public funds regarding the long-term maintenance of GBI.…”