This book aims to understand how the wellbeing benefits of urban green space (UGS) are analysed and valued and why they are interpreted and translated into action or inaction, into ‘success’ and/or ‘failure’. The provision, care and use of natural landscapes in urban settings (e.g. parks, woodland, nature reserves, riverbanks) are under-researched in academia and under-resourced in practice. Our growing knowledge of the benefits of natural urban spaces for wellbeing contrasts with asset management approaches in practice that view public green spaces as liabilities. Why is there a mismatch between what we know about urban green space and what we do in practice? What makes some UGS more ‘successful’ than others? And who decides on this measure of ‘success’ and how is this constituted? This book sets out to answer these and related questions by exploring a range of approaches to designing, planning and managing different natural landscapes in urban settings.

EPDF and EPUB available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Focusing on material and social forms of infrastructure, this edited collection draws on rich empirical details from cities across the global North and South. The book asks the reader to think through the different ways in which infrastructure comes to be present in cities and its co-constitutive relationships with urban inhabitants and wider processes of urbanization. Considering the climate emergency, economic transformation, public health crises and racialized inequality, the book argues that paying attention to infrastructures' past, present and future allows us to understand and respond to the current urban condition.

This international volume explores the transformations of public space and public transport in response to COVID-19, both those resulting from official governmental regulations and from everyday practices of urban citizens. The contributors discuss how the virus made urban inequalities clearer, and redefined public spaces in the “new normal”.

This fascinating book examines how microsites of spontaneous nature can reframe our understanding of the relationship between urban development and green space. Metropolitan cities are facing stark inequalities of green space distribution, hindering goals of sustainable development. But outside of human control, spontaneous nature grows in spaces that are neglected or are unaccounted for. Drawing on existing literature and primary research in a range of towns and cities, including Quito in Ecuador, Bengaluru and Kolkata in India, and Whitby in the United Kingdom, the book delves into the morphology, meanings, and values of those small-scale assemblages of wild growth which are typically overlooked. Discussing instead how such settings can be integrated into everyday urban life, the book offers a fresh perspective on issues around green infrastructure, heritage conservation, and environmental education, enabling cities worldwide to become more nature-positive. A unique examination of an under-researched topic, this book will appeal to students, researchers, and professionals across landscape architecture, urban planning, urban ecology, and all related fields.

This book focuses on the politics of street trees and the institutions, actors and processes that govern their planning, planting and maintenance. This is an innovative approach which is particularly important in the context of mounting environmental and societal challenges and reveals a huge amount about the nature of modern life, social change and political conflict. The work first provides different historical perspectives on street trees and politics, celebrating diversity in different cultures. A second section discusses street tree values, policy and management, addressing more contemporary issues of their significance and contribution to our environment, both physically and philosophically. It explores cultural idiosyncrasies and those from the point of view of political economy, particularly challenging the neo-liberal perspectives that continue to dominate political narratives. The final section provides case studies of community engagement, civil action and governance. International case studies bring together contrasting approaches in areas with diverging political directions or intentions, the constraints of laws and the importance of people power. By pursuing an interdisciplinary approach this book produces an information base for academics, practitioners, politicians and activists alike, thus contributing to a fairer political debate that helps to promote more democratic environments that are sustainable, equitable, comfortable and healthier.

This book provides the reader with an understanding of the impact that different morphologies, construction materials and green coverage solutions have on the urban microclimate, thus affecting the comfort conditions of urban inhabitants and the energy needs of buildings in urban areas. The book covers the latest approaches to energy and outdoor comfort measurement and modelling on an urban scale, and describes possible measures and strategies to mitigate the effects of the mutual interaction between urban settlements and local microclimate. Despite its relevance, only limited literature is currently devoted to appraising—from an engineering perspective—the intertwining relationships between urban geometry and fabrics, energy fluxes between buildings and their surroundings, outdoor microclimate conditions and building energy demands in urban areas. This book fills this gap by first discussing the physical processes that govern heat and mass transfer at an urban scale, while emphasizing the role played by different spatial arrangements, manmade materials and green infrastructures on the outdoor microclimate. The first chapters also address the implications of these factors on the outdoor comfort conditions experienced by pedestrians, and on the buildings’ energy demand for space heating and cooling. Then, based upon cutting-edge experimental activities and simulation work, this book demonstrates current and forthcoming adaptation and mitigation strategies to improve the urban microclimate and its impact on the built environment, such as cool materials, thermochromic and retroreflective finishing materials, and green infrastructures applied either at a building scale or at the urban scale. The effect of these solutions is demonstrated for different cities worldwide under a range of climate conditions. Finally, the book opens a wider perspective by introducing the basic elements that allow fuel poverty, raw materials consumption, and the principles of circular economy in the definition of a resilient urban settlement.

This edited volume examines how to develop a planning and design process with green infrastructure that creates technical answers to the social and ecological function of the city’s climate change adaptations demands. In this context, it proposes a process that engage the values linked to the art and culture of the place, capable of generating adoption by the population and promoting the right to landscape. Since the nineteenth century, many theoretical and practical experiences have integrated urban and environmental issues, revising the understanding of nature as an object and thinking of nature and culture in conjunction. However, consensus of the methodological strategies needed to guide the development of multi-scale landscape planning and design capable of responding to the climate emergency, heritage, water, biodiversity and social inclusion, among other issues has not been achieved. Green infrastructure has emerged as a tool to link considerations of the planning and design process to examine the impact urban nature can have at a global and a local scale. The book gathers together authors from different parts of the world and disciplines to showcase conceptual thinking, best practices and methodological strategies relating to landscape planning and design with green infrastructure adapted to climate change. The topic of this book is particularly relevant to scholars, practitioners and developers around the world who have an interest in planning and environmental management, landscape architecture, and socio-cultural understandings of landscape.

This edited volume centers around the concept of BioCities, which aim to unify nature and urban spaces in order to reverse the effects of global climate change and inequity. Following this principle, the authors propose multiple approaches for sustainable city growth. The discussed concepts are not only relevant for newly constructed cities, but offer transformative perspectives for existing settlements as well. Placing nature at the forefront of city planning is not an entirely new concept, so the authors build on established ideas like the garden city, green city, eco-city, or smart city. All chapters aim to highlight aspects to develop a city that is a resilient nature-based socio-ecological system. Many of these concepts were formed in an effort to copy the best traits of a forest ecosystem: a home for many different species that build complex communities. Much like many of our forests, urban areas are managed by humans for multifunctional purposes, using living and abiotic components. This viewpoint helps to understand the potential and limitations of sustainable growth. With these chapters, the authors want to inspire planners, ecologists, urban foresters and decision makers of the future.

Landscape architecture is one of the key professions dedicated to making cities hospitable and healthy places to live, work and play, while respecting and enhancing the natural environments and landscapes we inhabit. This edited collection presents current writing about the pivotal roles that landscape architects play in addressing some of the most pressing problems facing the planet, its environments and its populations through their research, analysis and speculative practice. The book has assembled current writings on recent research structured around five major themes: governance, power and partnership; infrastructure, systems and performance; environment, resilience and climate change; people, place and design; and culture, heritage and identity. As a collection, the chapters demonstrate the diversity of themes and topics that are expanding the scholarly body of knowledge for the discipline and its relevance to the practice of landscape architecture. The contributors to this book are academic researchers and practitioners from the discipline of landscape architecture. The chapters draw on their research, teaching and experience as well as analysis of project examples. Fifty-two contributors from the United Stsates, United Kingdom, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Malaysia, Spain, Colombia, Australia, New Zealand and Canada discuss a diverse range of contemporary themes in urban landscape architecture. Collectively, the contributors demonstrate the breadth of experience, shared concerns and distinct issues that challenge urban landscape architecture and cities in the 21st century.

This book presents new research results on the challenges of local politics in different European countries, including Germany, the Netherlands, the Nordic countries and Switzerland, together with theoretical considerations on the further development and strengthening of local self-government. It focuses on analyses of the most recent developments in local democracy and administration.