{"title":"Blame it on austerity? Examining the impetus behind London’s changing green space governance","authors":"M. Whitten","doi":"10.3351/PPP.2019.8633493848","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3351/PPP.2019.8633493848","url":null,"abstract":"Urban green spaces play a critical role in the economic, environmental and social sustainability of cities, including London, where 47 per cent of the city is considered green. Yet, a dedicated, sustainable stream of funding for green space does not exist. Cyclical funding and underfunding over the past several decades demonstrate the vulnerability of these non-statutory spaces to changing budgets and government policies. Recent austerity measures are blamed for a decline in green spaces. However, this overlooks urban socioeconomic processes already in motion, particularly relating to a growing and aging population. To counter green space cuts, local authorities are turning to local community organisations – namely, friends groups – to take on green space management. Yet, while these local organisations can fill a gap left by councils, they are not a panacea, and challenges remain for ensuring the long-term, strategic viability of London’s urban green spaces.","PeriodicalId":162475,"journal":{"name":"People, Place and Policy Online","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125308084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Greenspace and Environmental Justice: the case of Newcastle upon Tyne","authors":"E. Brooks, S. Davoudi","doi":"10.3351/ppp.2018.3835242525","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3351/ppp.2018.3835242525","url":null,"abstract":"The benefits of urban greenspace are both manifold and well-established; its relationship to social and spatial inequalities less so. Drawing on and updating a fivepart framework (distribution, recognition, participation, responsibility and capabilities), we explore the justice dimensions of urban greenspace in Newcastle upon Tyne. We argue that justice in this respect is not just about where greenspace is located in a city, but concerns the characteristics of the greenspace itself, how these relate to the characteristics of local communities, their wellbeing and opportunities. In the context of Newcastle’s changing demography and contemporary moves to transfer the management of Newcastle’s parks and allotments to a charitable trust, we make the case for participation as the central Environmental Justice (EJ) dimension for the city.","PeriodicalId":162475,"journal":{"name":"People, Place and Policy Online","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130975077","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review - Health Divides: Where you live can kill you","authors":"L. Such","doi":"10.3351/PPP.2018.9357954766","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3351/PPP.2018.9357954766","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":162475,"journal":{"name":"People, Place and Policy Online","volume":"16 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116215518","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From contest to context: urban green space and public policy","authors":"Julian Dobson","doi":"10.3351/PPP.2018.3824435278","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3351/PPP.2018.3824435278","url":null,"abstract":"The role of urban green spaces in supporting mental and physical wellbeing is well evidenced. At a time when mental ill-health is seen as a major factor limiting the life chances of the poorest groups in society, the case for the provision and protection of natural urban environments would appear indisputable. Yet establishing direct causal links between natural environments and specific health outcomes is complex and problematic. Different green spaces contribute to experiences of wellbeing in different ways for different people. Public policies that seek to employ green space to achieve health objectives through ‘interventions’ or ‘prescriptions’ are thus fraught with difficulties. Rather than seeing green space as an instrumental factor or ‘dose’ in improving wellbeing, this paper, based on emerging findings from research in Sheffield, UK, argues that policymakers need to think of multifunctional natural environments as essential contexts for the promotion of wellbeing. Urban austerity, however, acts as a countervailing context-changing driver, reframing wellbeing within a narrative of public service cost control.","PeriodicalId":162475,"journal":{"name":"People, Place and Policy Online","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117164136","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review - The Right to Buy? Selling Off Public and Social Housing","authors":"J. Harding","doi":"10.3351/PPP.2018.2492747929","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3351/PPP.2018.2492747929","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":162475,"journal":{"name":"People, Place and Policy Online","volume":"47 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121712361","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Book review - Whose Land is our Land? The Use and Abuse of Britain’s Forgotten Acres","authors":"A. Zieleniec","doi":"10.3351/PPP.2018.4866732969","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3351/PPP.2018.4866732969","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":162475,"journal":{"name":"People, Place and Policy Online","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115198961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Whose Park? The forty-year fight for Folkets Park under Copenhagen’s evolving urban managerialism","authors":"R. Rutt, S. Loveless","doi":"10.3351/PPP.2018.6224795825","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3351/PPP.2018.6224795825","url":null,"abstract":"This paper interrogates the evolution of struggles over a park in Copenhagen, Denmark. This evolution is situated between local residents’ efforts to obtain socioenvironmental justice, and attempts to manage the space by municipal authorities for different agendas. Analytically bringing the concepts of environmental justice and urban managerialism into focus and drawing from lessons and stories of the past, we show how managerial practices and justice struggles evolve iteratively over time. We document how the beginnings of Folkets Park (the People’s Park) in the late 1970s were characterized by struggles over distributional justice between economically marginalized residents and urban managers. The conflicts changed to contestation over procedural and interactive justice, due to the formalization of the park and expanding struggles for recognition and claims to the space by a diversifying population. Trends of decentralization to municipal levels and greater inclusivity have also taken root, maintaining urban managers as distributors of justice. Yet, we demonstrate that urban managers do not act in isolation. Local activists are an important force in urban development, producing an iterative evolution of strategies of management and justice struggles in this neighbourhood. Urban managerialism in Copenhagen, including the more contemporary efforts at inclusion, is also (re)shaped, inhibited, and co-opted by the larger context of increasingly neoliberal and socially divisive political agendas. By examining this micro-cosmos of a contested urban park, we show that urban planning and development is an inherently political and contested practice, and argue for urban managers to continuously seek inspiration from local activism in the pursuit of just cities of today and tomorrow.","PeriodicalId":162475,"journal":{"name":"People, Place and Policy Online","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125009927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Policy review - The Future of Public Parks in England: Policy Tensions in Funding, Management and Governance","authors":"L. Crowe","doi":"10.3351/ppp.2018.9443828693","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3351/ppp.2018.9443828693","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the challenges for effective public parks management caused by increasing pressures on local authority funding due to the UK government's austerity measures. Current policy discourse calls for innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to resolving these challenges. This can bring real benefits and creative approaches to parks management, not least in terms of community engagement and the recognition of the wider public services provided by parks. But tensions can also develop due to increasing dependency on volunteers and third sector organisations, the commodification of spaces and the commercialisation of services, even privatisation. Such conflicts may potentially undermine democratic accountability and a sense of community ownership, and potentially threaten the effective management of parks generally. The paper concludes that current UK government policy is moving away from a social welfare model of public parks provision, and that we need to fully understand the impacts of these changes in order to avoid inadvertently reinforcing this approach to public service provision.","PeriodicalId":162475,"journal":{"name":"People, Place and Policy Online","volume":"43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128317675","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"PPP Special Issue Editorial: Part I","authors":"E. Bennett, Jill Dickinson, William Eadson","doi":"10.3351/PPP.2018.5463926534","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3351/PPP.2018.5463926534","url":null,"abstract":"We know from existing research the vital role that greenspaces play in areas such as environmental quality and health and well-being (Gore et al, 2013; Medford, 2012; Wolch et al, 2014) as well as being sites of community organising and action. Greenspaces make an important contribution to urban life as – at their best – democratic spaces open to use by all urban citizens. Yet they are also subject to continual contestation, with the history of public parks marked by struggle, contest and cycles of underfunding and relative decline. As places where the interests of multiple urban stakeholders often converge in terms of working practices and values, the future funding and management of such greenspaces is coming under particular pressure within the context of fiscal contraction, resultant shrinking public sector budgets and development pressures. This Special Issue therefore comes at an important moment, when new management structures and approaches are being considered, and decisions are being taken about the future of many green spaces.","PeriodicalId":162475,"journal":{"name":"People, Place and Policy Online","volume":"62 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124195690","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An exploration of unsheltered homelessness management on an urban riparian corridor","authors":"Milo Neild, Jeff Rose","doi":"10.3351/PPP.2018.6244452285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3351/PPP.2018.6244452285","url":null,"abstract":"Park managers are increasingly faced with responding to the recent rise of those experiencing unsheltered homelessness residing in urban green spaces. In response, researchers have explored and attempted to mitigate a variety of negative social and ecological impacts associated with unsheltered homelessness in urban parks. However, these impacts are often mitigated through the enforcement of policies criminalizing homeless park use or through environmentally harmful changes to landscapes. To help generate more equitable and beneficial solutions to unsheltered homelessness in urban green spaces, this study based in the United States interrogated a variety of stakeholders’ perspectives, including park managers, local community members, and relevant social service organizations. Overall, data expressed how unsheltered homelessness and related cyclical mitigations negatively affected the social and environmental benefits of urban park systems, as well as illuminating the need for a more informed citizenry about the challenges facing individuals experiencing homelessness through public education. Implications for urban park managers and stakeholders are discussed.","PeriodicalId":162475,"journal":{"name":"People, Place and Policy Online","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130287631","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}