This book offers original theoretical and empirical insight into the social, cultural and ecological politics of rapidly changing urban spaces such as old factories, rail yards, verges, dumps and quarries. These environments are often disregarded once their industrial functions wane, a trend that cities are experiencing through the advance of late capitalism. From a sustainability perspective, there are important lessons to learn about the potential prospects and perils of these disused sites. The combination of shelter, standing water and infrequent human visitation renders such spaces ecologically vibrant, despite residual toxicity and other environmentally undesirable conditions. They are also spaces of social refuge. Three case studies in Milwaukee, Paris and Toronto anchor the book, each of which offers unique analytical insight into the forms, functions and experiences of post-industrial urban greenspaces. Through this research, this book challenges the dominant instinct in Western urban planning to "rediscover" and redevelop these spaces for economic growth rather than ecological resilience and social justice. This book will be of great interest to students and researchers of Urban Planning, Ecological Design, Landscape Architecture, Urban Geography, Environmental Planning, Restoration Ecology, and Aesthetics.

Post-industrial urban spaces typically include abandoned factories, disused rail lines, old pits and quarries, and de-commissioned landfills. In these places, different visions compete for dominance with respect to current and future land uses. Neighbours often view such urban greenspace as polluted, unkempt and weedy, harbouring undesirable biophysical features and people. These are spaces that often become the focus of some form of revitalization, reinvestment and restoration. From the perspective of civic authorities and urban planners, transforming post-industrial landscapes into disciplined and tended greenspace creates the urban conditions and signals of popular contemporary taste that attract investors, gentrifiers, and tourists. But post-industrial spaces are also places where unique and unpredictable human and ecological associations can emerge spontaneously. Such places may contain considerable ecological integrity and biodiversity and host human populations who find a home and respite in such ecologies. They also tell stories of an industrial and urban past that should be acknowledged, understood and (if suitable) celebrated. This volume explores the environmental justice and injustice dimensions of emerging urban post-industrial landscapes, including the ecological politics, cultural representations and aesthetics of these spaces. This bookw as published as a special issue of Local Environment.

Guide to post-industrial site restoration and re-establishment of rich communities of plant species for the provision of key ecosystem services In line with the UN sustainable development goals, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on Post-Industrial Land is an expert guide to ecological restoration of post-industrial lands, explaining how to re-introduce biodiversity and ecosystem services by implementing natural processes in the rehabilitation of disturbed sites. It covers both the initial stages associated with the improvement of physicochemical and biological substrate characteristics as a precondition for continuous vegetation, as well as the subsequent re-establishment of rich communities of plant species and how these communities may be optimized for their biodiversity and ecosystem services such as pedogenesis, nutrient cycling, habitation for other organisms, food plants for herbivores, carbon sequestration, and aesthetic value. Case studies of successful restoration of industrial sites from Asia, Africa, North and South America, and Europe, which include coal and mineral mining sites, oil drilling sites, and dumpsites, complement the conceptual part of the text and demonstrate how to put the theory into practice. Written by an experienced researcher in the field, Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on Post-Industrial Land includes information on: Mining sustainability in arid zones, aromatic plants for phytoremediation, and spontaneous flora growth on metalliferous sites Resilience of plant diversity, ecosystem services from rehabilitated waste dumpsites, and plantation forestry for eco-restoration Soil biodiversity and plant-microbe interactions, afforestation of former asbestos mines, and bauxite mine restoration and management Role of the local government in re-use of sites, restoration of wetlands in oil and gas exploration areas, and carbon sequestration in revegetated coal mine soil Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on Post-Industrial Land is an essential guide for environmental managers, scientists, ecologists, and engineers tasked with restoring post-industrial sites, managers in mining, oil, gas, and other heavy industries, and NGOs involved in sustainable land use.

Mapping Possibility traces the intertwined intellectual, professional, and emotional life of Leonie Sandercock. With an impressive career spanning nearly half a century as an educator, researcher, artist, and practitioner, Sandercock is one of the leading figures in community planning, dedicating her life to pursuing social, cultural, and environmental justice through her work. In this book, Leonie Sandercock reflects on her past writings and films, which played an important role in redefining the field in more progressive directions, both in theory and practice. It includes previously published essays in conjunction with insightful commentaries prefacing each section, and four new essays, two discussing Sandercock’s most recent work on a feature-film project with Indigenous partners. Innovative, visionary, and audacious, Leonie’s community-based scholarship and practice in the fields of urban planning and community development have engaged some of the most intractable issues of our time – inequality, discrimination, and racism. Through award-winning books and films, she has influenced the planning field to become more culturally fluent, addressing diversity and difference through structural change. This book draws a map of hope for emerging planners dedicated to equity, justice, and sustainability. It will inspire the next generation of community planners, as well as current practitioners and students in planning, cultural studies, urban studies, architecture, and community development.

Landscape Citizenships, featuring work by academics from North America, Europe, and the Middle East, extends the growing body of thought and research in landscape democracy and landscape justice. Landscape, as a milieu of situated everyday practice in which people make places and places make people in an inextricable relation, is proving a powerful concept for conceiving of politics and citizenships as lived, dialogic, and emplaced. Grounded in discourses of ecological, environmental, watershed, and bioregional citizenships, this edited collection evaluates belonging through the idea of landscape as landship which describes substantive, mutually constitutive relations between people and place. With a strong international focus across 14 chapters, it delves into key topics such as marginalization, indigeneity, globalization, politics, and the environment, before finishing with an epilogue written by Kenneth R. Olwig. This volume will appeal to scholars and activists working in citizenship studies, migration, landscape studies, landscape architecture, ecocriticism, and the many disciplines which converge around these topics, from design to geography, anthropology, politics, and much more.

City greening has been heralded for contributing to environmental governance and critiqued for exacerbating displacement and inequality. Bringing these two disparate analyses into conversation, this book offers a comparative understanding of how tensions between growth, environmental protection, and social equity are playing out in practice. Examining Chicago, USA, Birmingham, UK, and Vancouver, Canada, McKendry argues that city greening efforts were closely connected to processes of post-industrial branding in the neoliberal economy. While this brought some benefits, concerns about the unequal distribution of these benefits and greening’s limited environmental impact challenged its legitimacy. In response, city leaders have moved toward initiatives that strive to better address environmental effectiveness and social equity while still spurring growth. Through an analysis that highlights how different varieties of liberal environmentalism are manifested in each case, this book illustrates that cities, though constrained by inconsistent political will and broader political and economic contexts, are making contributions to more effective, socially just environmental governance. Both critical and hopeful, McKendry’s work will interest scholars of city greening, environmental governance, and comparative urban politics.

Merging together the fields of urban ecology, environmental justice, and urban environmental education, this book promotes building fair, accessible, and mutually beneficial relationships between citizens and the soils, water, atmospheres, and biodiversity in their cities.

Cities are raucous, cacophonous, and complex. Many dimensions of life play out and conflict across cities’ intricate landscapes, be they political, cultural, economic, or social. Urban policy makers and analysts often attempt to “cut through the noise” of urban disagreement by emphasizing a dominant lens for understanding the key, central logic of the city. How To Think About Cities sees this tendency to selective vision as misleading and ultimately unjust: cities are many things at once to different people and communities. This book describes the various ways of seeing the functions and landscapes of the city as place frames, and the constant process of negotiating which place frames best explain the city as place-making. Martin and Pierce call for an explicitly hybrid perspective that shifts between many different frames for making sense of cities. This approach highlights how any given stance opens up some lines of inquiry and understanding while closing off others. Thinking of cities as sites of contested perspectives promotes a synthetic approach to urban analysis that emphasizes difference and political possibility. This mosaic view of the city will be a welcome read for those within urban studies, geography, and social sciences exploring the many faces of urban life.

This multidisciplinary book covers all aspects of planning, designing, establishing and managing forests and trees and forests in and near urban areas, with chapters by experts in forestry, horticulture, landscape ecology, landscape architecture and even plant pathology. Beginning with historical and conceptual basics, the coverage includes policy, design, implementation and management of forestry for urban populations.

Ecosystem services are the resources and processes supplied by natural ecosystems which benefit humankind (for example, pollination of crops by insects, or water filtration by wetlands). They underpin life on earth, provide major inputs to many economic sectors and support our lifestyles. Agricultural and urban areas are by far the largest users of ecosystems and their services and (for the first time) this book explores the role that ecosystem services play in these managed environments. The book also explores methods of evaluating ecosystem services, and discusses how these services can be maintained and enhanced in our farmlands and cities. This book will be useful to students and researchers from a variety of fields, including applied ecology, environmental economics, agriculture and forestry, and also to local and regional planners and policy makers.