Sustaining Urban Greening Projects

Abstract

Maintenance of urban greening projects goes beyond physically caring for sites. It involves building local knowledge about how to care for projects, putting systems in place to support green space—building policy, creating a workforce— and changing expectations about what urban green space should look like. These changes require multidirectional vision that recognizes the past processes that created vacant land and infrastructure problems, sees the present issues of physical maintenance requirements and community needs for stabilization, and looks forward to changes that will be necessary to support building healthier, resilient neighborhoods.