Wastelands to Wetlands: questioning wellbeing futures in urban greening

ABSTRACT With a myriad of associated health, ecological and social benefits, urban greening has become a prominent policy strategy to renew historically neglected sites in cities, so popular that its implementation often eludes scrutiny. Utilising resident interviews, this paper investigates the distribution of ‘wellbeing’ narratives and objectives in such transformations. We demonstrate how affinities with nature are utilised to hasten green happy-futures, whilst neglecting to address ongoing questions of social and environmental justice. This paper foregrounds these injustices by attending to the affective dimensions of past and present experiences of environmental damage, advocating for the prioritisation of caring-futures over happy-futures in urban greening imaginaries.