Whose Green City?: Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe (Sustainable Development Goals Series) 3031046358, 9783031046353

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SDG: 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

Bianka Plüschke-Altof Helen Sooväli-Sepping   Editors

Whose Green City? Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe

Sustainable Development Goals Series

The Sustainable Development Goals Series is Springer Nature’s inaugural cross-imprint book series that addresses and supports the United Nations’ seventeen Sustainable Development Goals. The series fosters comprehensive research focused on these global targets and endeavours to address some of society’s greatest grand challenges. The SDGs are inherently multidisciplinary, and they bring people working across different fields together and working towards a common goal. In this spirit, the Sustainable Development Goals series is the first at Springer Nature to publish books under both the Springer and Palgrave Macmillan imprints, bringing the strengths of our imprints together. The Sustainable Development Goals Series is organized into eighteen subseries: one subseries based around each of the seventeen respective Sustainable Development Goals, and an eighteenth subseries, “Connecting the Goals,” which serves as a home for volumes addressing multiple goals or studying the SDGs as a whole. Each subseries is guided by an expert Subseries Advisor with years or decades of experience studying and addressing core components of their respective Goal. The SDG Series has a remit as broad as the SDGs themselves, and contributions are welcome from scientists, academics, policymakers, and researchers working in fields related to any of the seventeen goals. If you are interested in contributing a monograph or curated volume to the series, please contact the Publishers: Zachary Romano [Springer; [email protected]] and Rachael Ballard [Palgrave Macmillan; rachael. [email protected]].

Bianka Plüschke-Altof • Helen Sooväli-Sepping Editors

Whose Green City? Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe

123

Editors Bianka Plüschke-Altof School of Nat Sciences and Health Tallinn University Tallinn, Estonia

Helen Sooväli-Sepping School of Nat Sciences and Health Tallinn University Tallinn, Estonia

University of Westminster, Tallinn University, Norwegian University of Science and Technology ISSN 2523-3084 ISSN 2523-3092 (electronic) Sustainable Development Goals Series ISBN 978-3-031-04635-3 ISBN 978-3-031-04636-0 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04636-0 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 Chapters 1, 5, and 6 are licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). For further details see license information in the chapters. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Color wheel and icons: From https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment, Copyright © 2020 United Nations. Used with the permission of the United Nations. The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bianka Plüschke-Altof and Helen Sooväli-Sepping

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Urban Green Spaces and the Question of Environmental Justice A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access to Urban Green Areas by People in Wheelchair from an Environmental Justice Perspective: A Stockholm Case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Annika Dahlberg, Sara Borgström, Max Rautenberg, and Nienke Sluimer

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Not My Green Space? White Attitudes Towards Black Presence in UK Green Spaces. An Auto-ethnography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Beth Collier

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Environmental Justice in the Post-socialist City. The Case of Riga, Latvia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Guido Sechi, Māris Bērziņš, and Zaiga Krišjāne

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Contested Urban Green Spaces Private Events in a Public Park: Contested Music Festivals and Environmental Justice in Finsbury Park, London . . . . . . . . . . Andrew Smith, Guy Osborn, and Goran Vodicka

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Contested Urban Green Space Development: Rolling Back the Frontiers of Sustainability in Trondheim, Norway . . . . . . . . . . 103 Bradley Loewen, Stig Larssæther, Savis Gohari-Krangsås, Heidi Vinge, and Alenka Temeljotov-Salaj Same, Same but Different? The ‘Right’ Kind of Gardening and the Negotiation of Neoliberal Urban Governance in the Post-socialist City . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Lilian Pungas, Bianka Plüschke-Altof, Anni Müüripeal, and Helen Sooväli-Sepping

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Science, Art and Other Ways of Knowing: A Proposal from a Struggle Over a Helsinki Green Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145 Eeva Berglund Contingent Urban Nature and Interactional Justice: The Evolving Coastal Spaces of the City of Tallinn . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Tarmo Pikner

Contents

Contributors

Berglund Eeva Aalto University, Espoo, Finland Bērziņš Māris Department of Human Geography, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia Borgström Sara Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering, The Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden Collier Beth Wild in the City, London, UK Dahlberg Annika Department University, Stockholm, Sweden

of

Physical

Geography,

Stockholm

Gohari-Krangsås Savis Department of Architecture and Planning, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway; Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway Krišjāne Zaiga Department of Human Geography, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia Larssæther Stig Department of Energy and Process Engineering & NTNU Sustainability, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway Loewen Bradley Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway Müüripeal Anni School of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia Osborn Guy University of Westminster, London, UK Pikner Tarmo School of Humanities, Centre for Landscape and Culture, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia Plüschke-Altof Bianka School of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia; School of Economics and Business Administration, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

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Contributors

Pungas Lilian Institute of Sociology, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Jena, Germany; International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Hague, The Netherlands Rautenberg Max Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Sechi Guido Department of Human Geography, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia Sluimer Nienke Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden Smith Andrew University of Westminster, London, UK Sooväli-Sepping Helen Rector’s Office, Tallinn Technical University & School of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia Temeljotov-Salaj Alenka Department of Engineering, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway

Civil

and

Environmental

Vinge Heidi Institute for Rural and Regional Research, Trondheim, Norway; Faculty of Education and Arts, Nord University, Levanger, Norway Vodicka Goran Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK

Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe Bianka Plüschke-Altof and Helen Sooväli-Sepping

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Green Spaces in Times of Urbanisation: Between Sustainability, Contestation and Environmental Justice

Against the backdrop of accelerating global urbanisation, with the percentage of people living in cities rising up to 70% by 2050 (UN 2018), nature-based solutions to ecological, climatic or social challenges to urban sustainability have become ever more important. The role of urban nature for enhancing sustainability has increasingly been acknowledged in European and international policy, most notably as part of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. Sustainable Development Goal No. 11, which focuses on “making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable,” has set the provision of “safe, inclusive and accessible green and public space” as a central objective (UN 2015). Accordingly, urban greenery has also

B. Plüschke-Altof (&) School of Economics and Business Administration, & School of Natural Sciences and Health, University of Tartu, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] H. Sooväli-Sepping Rector’s Office, Tallinn Technical University & School of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: [email protected]

become a popular topic of research and a subject of European and local policy intervention (Clark 2017; European Commission 2020), including the 2013 European Union Strategy on Green Infrastructure and the EU’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation policy agenda on Nature-Based Solutions and Re-Naturing Cities. This edited volume adds to this debate by discussing sustainability through the prism of green spaces in times of increasing urbanisation. It follows from the growing interest in green space research that uses of the terms vary. In their comprehensive review on green space definitions across disciplines and research fields, Taylor and Hochuli (2017) suggest working definitions for each research context. In this volume, we follow the green space definition proposed by Clark (2016, p. 2f), who describes them as: “large and small (sometimes very small) areas of urban open space, normally with vegetation, which are not built up or constructed over, which can be privately or publicly owned, and which have different and changing purposes and perceptions over time”. As such, urban greenery encompasses different kinds of green spaces such as parks and gardens, street trees, cemeteries, sports facilities, balconies, urban forests as well as urban wastelands and wilderness (ibid.). This includes public and private (e.g. private backyards, apartment building courtyards and corporate campuses (Wolch et al. 2010)), as well as common green spaces (Petrescu et al. 2016). While parks and gardens have been the main

© The Author(s) 2022 B. Plüschke-Altof and H. Sooväli-Sepping (eds.), Whose Green City?, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04636-0_1

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focus of research over time (Brantz 2017), other areas including urban wastelands and wilderness (Bonthoux et al. 2014; Brun et al. 2018; Gandy 2018; Kowarik 2018; Threlfall and Kendall 2018) and relatively new phenomena such as civic or guerrilla gardening (Barron 2016; Bendt et al. 2013; Benjamin 2020; Tornaghi and Certomà 2019) have recently received crucial attention. In line with this definition, the array of green spaces studied in this volume is wide. They range from public parks (Loewen et al. 2022; Smith et al. 2022), over urban gardens (Pungas et al. 2022) and green–blue spaces (Berglund 2022; Pikner 2022) to window-view, nearby and informal green spaces (Dahlberg and Borgström 2022; Pikner 2022; Sechi et al. 2022). Green spaces at a macro-scale, i.e. city-level or regional, are also studied (Collier 2022; Dahlberg and Borgström 2022; Loewen et al. 2022; Sechi et al. 2022). Post-modernist planning principles evolving around the ideas of green, resilient, smart, and sustainable city (e.g. Anguluri and Narayanan 2017, for a critical evaluation, see: Kaika 2017) and cities for people (e.g. Gehl 2010) in particular have shifted our attention to the benefits and affordances that different kinds of green spaces have for sustainable city development, in particular in terms of ecological, health and economic benefits (Anguelovski et al. 2020). This is supported by a substantial body of research that points to the positive effects of green spaces for the urban environment and climate and as enablers of community health and individual well-being (Akpinar 2016; Carpenter 2013; Clark 2016; de Vries et al. 2013; Hitchings 2021; Kondo et al. 2018; Ward Thompson et al. 2012) —effects often discussed in terms of ecosystem services (Baró et al. 2020). The positive impacts that green spaces have on human well-being have come even more to the forefront of academic and public discussions during the ongoing Covid-19 crisis (Kleinschroth and Kowarik 2020; Nieuwenhuijsen 2020; Nigg et al. 2021; Samuelsson et al. 2020). Moreover, from an economic standpoint, green or smart growth

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strategies follow the promises of real-estate development, business creation and effective place marketing for tourists, residents and investors (Anguelovski et al. 2020). Despite these benefits and the increasing self-portrayal of cities as sustainable and green (Berglund and Julier 2020; Davidson 2010; Lindholst et al. 2016), urban green spaces are under threat. Green space provision and access is diminished by heavy densification in city centres as part of the wider sustainability narrative (Brantz 2016; Haaland and van den Bosch 2015), which often puts housing and green space provision in competition with one another (Benjamin 2020; Schmelzkopf 2002): urban sprawl occurs at the cost of surrounding green spaces (Sharma-Wallace 2016), and neoliberal urbanism fuels green space privatisation and commercialization (Smith 2018) as well as green gentrification (Checker 2011; Rigolon and Németh 2018; Wolch et al. 2010). Starting from the paradox of the well-known benefits of urban green spaces and multiple challenges in their provision in times of intense urbanisation, this edited volume treats green areas as contested spaces in the city and views these through the prism of environmental justice. By addressing urban sustainability, which ultimately aims to create “green cities, growing cities, just cities” (Campbell 1996), from the perspective of environmental justice, this book responds to recent calls for a systematic integration and reflection of environmental justice concerns in planning for urban sustainability (Agyeman and Evans 2004; Anguelovski et al. 2020; Baró et al. 2020; Boone and Fragkias 2013; Plüschke-Altof and Sooväli-Sepping 2020). As there is often “an implicit assumption of ‘green’ trickle down effects spreading to benefit all” (Anguelovski et al. 2020, p. 1744), it is crucial to ask “whose green city” is created and thereby question the prevalent “discourse of unproblematic economic, ecological, social and health cobenefits from urban greening” (ibid.). Doing exactly that, the book starts from the premise of unequal rights to the city (Harvey

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2003) and, by extension, to cities’ green spaces for different residential groups. For whom and for what purposes are urban green spaces accessible, and; even more importantly; for whom not? Whose needs and interests are (not) involved or are (less) considered in planning and decision-making? Former research indicates highly uneven access to and usage of urban greenery along demographic lines of age, gender, ethnicity or socio-economic background but also in relation to the type and quality of urban greenery or the individual living situation (Cohen et al. 2010; Krenichyn 2006; Lipsanen 2017; Sang et al. 2016; Schetke et al. 2016). This in return also affects the access to health and well-being benefits that (urban) nature can provide (Kabisch et al. 2017). Studies by Hitchings (2013) and Boyd et al. (2018); in particular; have pointed out that green space usage does not solely depend on their provision, accessibility and usability for different groups. This is a fact that is often assumed in green space studies, including from an environmental justice perspective (Cohen et al. 2010; Kabisch et al. 2017; Krenichyn 2006; McCormack et al. 2010; van Hecke et al. 2018). Instead, the reasons for use or non-use might go much deeper, shedding light on daily routines, surrounding socio-spatial structures and culturehistorical contexts (Anguelovski et al. 2020). It is exactly at this point—the underlying reasons, dynamics and processes of unequal access and inclusion—where this edited volume joins into the debate on green spaces. All nine chapters of this book challenge the assumption that “if green spaces are available nearby, we should logically expect to see people going to them” (Hitchings 2013, p. 99), which has been so prevalent in green space studies as to blind researchers to the wider contextual reasons of non-use (Bell et al. 2015; Hitchings 2013). Rather than focus on individual life worlds and demographics, daily routines or life stages (Hitchings 2013; Lebowitz and Trudeau 2017; Sang et al. 2016), the studies joined here, however, zoom into the wider socioeconomic, political and cultural context that structures the use of green spaces.

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More Than a Question of Distributive Justice: Environmental Justice Perspectives on Urban Green Spaces

With this political ecology approach (Boone and Fragkias 2013; Heynen et al. 2006), this volume understands green space access and use as a question of environmental justice. In a nutshell, environmental justice studies explore, map and understand how environmental “goods” and “bads” are endured or enjoyed, by whom, why and with what effects (Walker 2009). Accordingly, distributive justice is at the core of most environmental justice approaches (Schlosberg 2004), placing focus on the “distribution of environmental benefits and threats in relation to social groups, most often defined by race, ethnicity, and class” (Boone and Fragkias 2013, p. 5). In its beginnings, environmental hazards and the unequal distribution of associated risks were at the forefront in studies on distributive justice (for example, see Bullard 1990), with the premise of “bringing the human back” into environmentalism by scrutinising environmental questions through a justice lens. Over time, however, the other side of the coin also gained more prominence: who benefits from nature’s amenities; and; more importantly, who does not? In the field of urban green space studies, distributive justice approaches concentrate on the question of whether green areas are equally distributed amongst city districts and are accessible to different residential groups (De Sousa Silva et al. 2018; Kronenberg et al. 2020; Rigolon 2016). While often focused on distribution in quantitative terms, also the quality of green spaces in cities varies considerably, pointing to issues of maintenance and unequal siting of green interventions to adapt to climate change (Boone and Fragkias 2013; Finewood et al. 2019; Kronenberg et al. 2020). Green space research through a distributional justice lens also includes critical studies on the contribution of green interventions to displacement by processes of green gentrification (Anguelovski et al. 2020;

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Checker 2011)—a topic that is prominent in critical urban studies as well (see below). However, other environmental justice aspects have also gained more prominence over time (Schlosberg 2004; Walker 2009). We would like to point out three dimensions here that altogether examine the fairness and participation in environmental decision-making, hence the very procedures that lead to distributive injustices (Boone and Fragkias 2013). First, procedural justice describes the equal access to (green space) planning and management processes and to related information, hence addresses questions of inclusion and exclusion in decision-making processes (Schlosberg 2004; Walker 2009). Second, interactional justice focuses on the right to recognition by questioning whether the full diversity of stakeholders and their experiences, needs, values and preferences are recognised in distributive and procedural justice (Schlosberg 2004). Interactional justice thus goes beyond spatially distinct patterns of distribution by focusing on socially differentiated needs and their recognition in green space planning (Anguelovski et al. 2020). Third, inequalities emerge in terms of capabilities, which acknowledges that people have different capacities to change unjust situations (Rutt and Gulsrud 2016; Schlosberg 2007; Walker 2011). The focus on recognition and capabilities in particular raises the issue of underlying power relations, as “urban greening is a deeply political project often framed by technocratic principles and promotional claims” (Anguelovski et al. 2020, p. 1743). For the study of urban green spaces, questions of environmental justice relate to the “right to the city” debate. Coined by Lefebvre (1968) and Harvey (2003), this debate focuses on the exclusion of urban residents from the city’s resources, decision-making and common narratives, thereby raising the question of whose city it is (Mayer 2017) and urging for inclusion. This question has informed discussions on participative urban planning since the 1960s (Leyden et al. 2017). For the field of green spaces, this means that the traditional dichotomy between a green space supply (architects, planners, city councils) and

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demand side (users) is gradually overcome by involving other stakeholders such as developers, investors or green space managers and maintainers (Clark 2016; for an exemplary case study; see: Bonow et al. 2020). This also means that users are no longer confined to passive recipients but are acknowledged as those transforming urban green spaces from below through their habits, routines and engagement in planting, decorating and maintaining (Clark 2016). Following this gradual extension of environmental justice research, the studies in this book scrutinise different aspects of environmental justice, including distributive, procedural and interactional justice as well as the question of capabilities. While a recent special issue indicated how a translation of the environmental justice approach to green space planning might be carried out in a city context (Baró et al. 2020; Langemeyer and Connolly 2020), the studies presented here take more a critical theory approach. Pellow (2016) and Anguelovski et al. (2020) have called for an advancement of critical environmental justice studies that pay close attention to the “invisible or situated experiences and everyday practices of urban green injustices” (ibid., p. 1744). This is what the chapters in this book aim to do (see Table 1) by studying environmental justice issues through the eyes of those with limited green space access (Collier 2022; Dahlberg and Borgström 2022; Smith et al. 2022). Moreover, they seek to shed light on hitherto understudied aspects of procedural and interactional justice (Berglund 2022; Loewen et al. 2022; Pikner 2022; Smith et al. 2022) by uncovering the knowledges, testimonies and practices that are legitimated and/or pushed aside. And finally, they discuss the underlying dynamics of environmental justice concerns, i.e. their social, economic, political and cultural contexts (Berglund 2022; Collier 2022; Pungas et al. 2022; Sechi et al. 2022; Smith et al. 2022). By studying environmental justice issues through the eyes of those with limited green space access, the contributions of Collier (2022), Dahlberg and Borgström (2022) and Smith et al. (2022) fine-tune the concept of access and

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Table 1 Studied Dimensions of Environmental Justice in Urban Green Space Use and Planning

Just access to UGS • distributive justice • procedural justice

Disputes on UGS development • procedural justice

accessibility in multiple ways. Going beyond more common conceptualisations of physical and social access, in the case of people with impaired mobility in Sweden and people of colour in the UK, Dahlberg and Borgström (2022) and Collier (2022) emphasise psychological barriers to green space use that have hitherto received less attention (for an exception, see Park 2017). These studies also exemplify unequal capabilities to contribute to environmental decision-making (Schlosberg 2007; Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020), as in the case of Black Minority Ethnic (BME) groups in the UK due to racial discrimination by the environmental sector, or by the non-acknowledgement of heterogeneity within marginalised groups, as in the case of people in wheelchairs in Sweden. Anguelovski et al. (2020) have identified such cases as “testimonial injustice” as the knowledge and experiences that groups hold are less acknowledged and, in case of Collier (2022), also deemed less credible than others. By focusing on minority residents and people with impaired mobility, both contributions add to the research on green space access of understudied marginalised groups (with a few exceptions, e.g. Corazon et al. 2019; Jay et al. 2012; Lipsanen 2017; Stigsdotter et al. 2018). Analysing the dispute about private festivals in public parks in London, the contribution by Smith et al. (2022) points to a temporal dimension of non-access and inaccessibility of green spaces that is caused by their neoliberal commodification.

Underlying dynamiques of UGS use and development • effecting all environmental justice dimensions

With their case studies on disputes around green space development, four chapters from Berglund (2022), Loewen et al. (2022), Pikner (2022) and Smith et al. (2022) shed light on the understudied procedural and interactional dimensions of environmental justice (Rutt and Gulsrud 2016). Pikner (2022), for example, demonstrates how non-human agents can gain voice in public discussions on green space development, even if these more-than-human voices are mediated by human voices. The case of disputes on waterfront access and use in Estonia exemplifies the potential agency of ecologies and landscapes that has been at the core of more-than-human studies (Maller 2018). In the case of environmental activism to protect an island from real-estate development in the Finnish capital, Helsinki, Berglund (2022) challenges the epistemic framework in which participation in urban planning and environmental decision-making has operated. Using the term “epistemic justice” (cf Anguelovski et al. 2020), the dominance of top-down expertise and nomothetic methodologies of “knowing” spaces is questioned, which sheds light on excluded voices, forms of knowledge and its production— a central issue of recognition in interactional justice (Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020). While participative decision-making has become a trend in urban governance in general and green space planning in particular (Leyden et al. 2017), the studies convey problems on the field of procedural justice, by the marginalisation of

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community groups (Loewen et al. 2022) and criminalisation of activists’ views (Pikner 2022) in decision-making process, or the disregard of (privileged) residential concerns to limited green space access and ecosystem health as NIMBYism (Berglund 2022; Smith et al. 2022). Several studies presented here also seek to deepen understandings of the surrounding systems in which environmental injustices are embedded. In the case of Northern Europe, which is the regional focus of this book, neoliberal urban governance forms a central theme (see in particular Loewen et al. 2022; Pungas et al. 2022; Smith et al. 2022). On one hand, this manifests in the neoliberal contestation of urban space. The exchange value that neoliberal urban governance ascribes to space (Peck et al. 2009) stands in stark contrast to the high use value of green spaces. This results in land use conflicts between green areas and more profitable uses of space such as housing (Benjamin 2020; Schmelzkopf 2002)—a main subject of the “green commons” debate (Petrescu et al. 2016). In other cases, it is abundant green spaces that raise the exchange value, resulting in limited access to green spaces for vulnerable groups through green gentrification (Rigolon and Németh 2018; Wolch et al. 2010) or green space commodification (Smith et al. 2022). Finally, neoliberal urban governance impacts the spatial appearance and preferred aesthetics of green spaces (Pungas et al. 2022). On the other hand, neoliberal urban governance also influences participative aspects of justice as it tends to favour managerialism and self-responsibility over empowerment and co-produced democracy, thereby often co-opting demands and achievements of activist groups (Petrescu et al. 2016; Pungas et al. 2022, see also: Anguelovski et al. 2020). These neoliberalisation processes are even more pronounced when intersected with post-socialist spatialities, as discussed by Pikner, Pungas et al., and Sechi et al. in this volume. Their contributions draw attention to the specific dimensions that have to be considered in postsocialist space where urban green space might be abundant also in less affluent districts due to the modernist city planning of the socialist era

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(Kronenberg et al. 2020). Amongst these specifics are the unequal distribution of green space quality instead of quantity (Sechi et al. 2022), challenges in terms of procedural justice (Pikner 2022; Sechi et al. 2022) and a neoliberal shift of responsibility for public space (Pungas et al. 2022).

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Shifting the Gaze: The Region of Northern Europe

Contestations over green spaces and questions of environmental justice are studied here in the context of Northern Europe. The case study areas in this volume range from the United Kingdom (Collier 2022; Smith et al. 2022), over the Nordic countries of Norway, Sweden, and Finland (Berglund 2022; Dahlberg and Borgström 2022; Loewen et al. 2022) to the Baltic countries (Pikner 2022; Pungas et al. 2022; Sechi et al. 2022). While the UK studies provide insights into green space development in the context of neoliberal austerity (Smith et al. 2022) and postcolonialism (Collier 2022), the green space dynamics studied in the cases of Estonia and Latvia outline the specifics of the post-socialist context (Pikner 2022; Pungas et al. 2022; Sechi et al. 2022). The three studies from the Nordic countries, however, shed light on critical cases of green space development and usability in countries that are regularly seen as forerunners of urban sustainability (Berglund and Julier 2020). The marginalisation of community stakeholders in Norway (Loewen et al. 2022), green space users with impaired mobility in Sweden (Dahlberg and Borgström 2022), and alternative forms of environmental knowledge in Finland (Berglund 2022) raise important contradictions between sustainable images and existing challenges in practicing sustainable realities. Beyond the regional specifics, the focus on a Northern European context aims to offer alternative insights to the often US-centred research on urban green spaces and environmental justice (Kabisch et al. 2017; McCormack et al. 2010; Van Hecke et al. 2018). Moreover, it enables us to shift the gaze from “poor or otherwise

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vulnerable victims of environmental injustice” (Berglund 2022; see for example Atikur Rahman and Zhang 2018; Bullard 1990) to the affluent societies who are typically seen as privileged. It is exactly the “wealthiest and most comfortable” (Berglund 2022) who seldom feature in the research (Wells and Touboulic 2017; Wiedmann et al. 2020). The studies by Collier (2022) and Berglund (2022), in particular, focus on white environmentalism. Collier’s (2022) sensitive auto-ethnography reveals the impacts that attitudes and practices of white environmentalists have on black non-presence in green spaces. While the fact that white affluent people often live unsustainable lifestyles is acknowledged in different studies (see Wiedmann et al. 2020), Collier (2022) emphasises the way in which they impede other groups’ abilities to partake in the benefits of nature visits. Berglund (2022) also acknowledges the negative impact of white affluent lifestyles on sustainability. She also warns, however, of quickly dismissing the affluents’ claims to environmental justice as NIMBYism (as is done in the case presented by Smith et al. 2022) and considers them against the backdrop of a shared planetary backyard whose gradual degradation might affect all—although to different extents—and thus raise genuine concerns.

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Zooming in: The Mixed-Method Approach

The contribution of this edited volume to the green space debate is also methodological. In their mixed-method approaches, the chapters of this volume go beyond the dominance of nomothetic studies utilising quantitative methods that have been prevalent in green space research and environmental justice studies alike (see review by McCormack et al. 2010; for quantitative examples, see Biernacka and Kronenberg 2018; de la Barrera et al. 2016; Gupta et al. 2012; Heckert and Rosan 2016; Kabisch et al. 2017; Rigolon 2016; Wang et al. 2015). As Berglund (2022) points out, the dominance of nomothetic studies is also resembled in planning practice and

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environmental activism. Hitherto, qualitative methods have been employed to a much lesser extent in green space research—mainly utilising in situ observations and in-depth and expert interviews as well as discourse analysis (Bell et al. 2015; Brantz 2016; Hitchings 2013; Lebowitz and Trudeau 2017; Lertzman 2015; Lipsanen 2017; Woodgate and Skarlato 2015). Only by zooming in with long-term and mixedmethod studies, however, it is possible to understand how established measuring standards, such as distance or availability, fit the life worlds of different groups (Anguelovski et al. 2020). While also working with quantitative methods (foremost see Sechi et al. 2022), the contributions thus mainly offer alternative methodological approaches to studying green spaces and environmental justice. Through the usage of idiographic methodologies, the majority of chapters aims to deeply understand meaning-making and discourses, experiences, needs, and human-nature relationships of green space users and activist groups. As a result, the studies can describe feelings of being overlooked (Dahlberg et al. 2022), unwanted (Collier 2022) or unknowledgeable (Berglund 2022) and how these impact green space use and elements of participative justice (i.e. procedures, recognition, and capabilities). Moreover, the qualitative research approach enables researchers to zoom into so-called “confounding variables” of green space use across social, economic, political, and cultural contexts. Amongst these variables are urban neoliberal governance (Loewen et al. 2022; Smith et al. 2022) and its intersection with post-socialist spatialities (Pikner 2022; Pungas et al. 2022; Sechi et al. 2022), racial discrimination (Collier 2022) and hegemonic knowledge systems in urban green space planning (Berglund 2022).

5

Overview of the Book Structure and Chapters

This edited volume is divided into nine chapters. The introductory chapter provides the overall direction of the book. The other eight chapters address the issues of contested urban green

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spaces and questions of environmental justice from various angles. The book is divided into two main sections. The first section focuses on questions of environmental justice from the perspective of vulnerable groups: people with impaired mobility (Dahlberg and Borgström 2022), people of colour (Collier 2022), and people from poor socio-economic backgrounds (Sechi et al. 2022). The second section zooms into the issue of green space contestations by focusing on disputes over green space development and the contexts enabling environmental injustices (Berglund 2022; Loewen et al. 2022; Pikner 2022; Pungas et al. 2022; Smith et al. 2022). The book contributes to the international and multidisciplinary character of the Sustainable Development Goals series by comprehensively introducing the work of authors from multiple disciplines: urban planning, environmental anthropology, psychology and sociology, landscape architecture, human geography and recreational studies on the example of multisided case studies from the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia, which are united by a common concern over just cities and contested green spaces in a sustainability context. In the first chapter, Annika Dahlberg, Sara Borgström, Max Rautenberg and Nienke Sluimer tackle a central topic of environmental justice: access and accessibility. In the case of Stockholm, Sweden, the authors address urban green space access from the viewpoint of people whose mobility is dependent on a wheelchair. The chapter thus focuses on an understudied, vulnerable group (Atikur Rahman and Zhang 2018; Boyd et al. 2018) and—with its primarily qualitative research design—widens the conceptualization of access and accessibility. While the few former studies in this field put physical access into focus (Burns et al. 2013; Corazon et al. 2019; Stigsdotter et al. 2018), the authors argue to include social and mental dimensions (for a study on psychological park accessibility, see Park 2017). Next to this multidimensionality, access as a concept also needs to be broadened in terms of scale to include the whole route from home and back again as well as

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green spaces on a spectrum, from window-view to an urban national park. Otherwise, if access does not work all the way, “in the end it is not worth the trouble” (interview respondent, Dahlberg et al. in this volume). From an environmental justice perspective, it then follows that inclusion and access for people with impaired mobility needs to be accounted for in distributive terms, but also in the fields of procedural and interactional justice. This means that the needs and experiences of people in wheelchairs must be considered in all stages of planning and maintenance, while at the same time acknowledging heterogeneity within this group. The chapter concludes that it is only such a holistic approach that can minimise situations where “a nearby park or forest can become Mount Everest” (Dahlberg et al. in this volume). Beth Collier continues with a study that explores the limited accessibility to (urban) nature and green spaces for people of colour in the United Kingdom. It thereby adds an in-depth study to the research on green space use by ethnic minority groups (Harper et al. 2009; Jay et al. 2012; Lipsanen 2017). From an environmental psychology background, the author analyses how dynamics of environmental racism and othering create emotional boundaries to accessibility and a sense of not belonging for black people. Collier (2022) proceeds to enlarge our understanding of environmental injustices for minority groups in terms of green space access. While former studies have rather focused on distributive aspects (Rigolon 2016), her study helps to better understand the limited capabilities of Black Minority Ethnic (BME) groups to contribute to environmental decision-making due to racial discrimination in the environmental sector. The chapter presents auto-ethnographic research (McClaurin 2001) from working in the field of human-nature relationships with a focus on urban residents. The results strongly question the notion of “the environmental field and the countryside as welcoming to all” (Collier in this volume) against which black absence in nature is often interpreted as a lack of interest. Instead, Collier’s analysis portrays black disenfranchisement from nature that is embedded in systematic

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racism leading to multiple exclusions from the environmental field. The chapter thus shifts the focus from black absence in green spaces towards the attitudes of white people to black presence in nature, which presents the question “whose green city” in a very different light. As a result, the author argues for a reframing of the problem—from black non-use of green space to the impact that white attitudes and practices have on the disenfranchisement of black people from nature and nature’s effects on health and wellbeing. Guido Sechi, Maris Bērziņš, and Zaiga Krišjāne study green space availability in the post-socialist planning context in Latvia’s capital, Riga. Their study follows calls for a more thorough consideration of the specifics of the post-socialist planning context in studies on environmental justice (Kronenberg et al. 2020). Utilising a multi-method approach, the authors argue for a greater consideration of procedural and interactional aspects of environmental justice through studies that consider green space quality instead of quantitative measures of access and availability. Due to the specifics of the socialist modernist planning context, green spaces are usually abundant in post-socialist cities. However, as the authors’ analysis of distributive justice in green space availability shows, green space quality varies substantially. This is mainly caused by the lack of protection of informal green spaces (Feltynowski et al. 2018) that often suffer from abandonment and poor maintenance. The results of the analysis show that it is the poorer residents in Riga who are more likely to be “bound” to residential areas with low quality green space, while wealthy residents concentrate in areas with higher green space quality (hence to increasing segregation in post-socialist cities, Leetmaa and Hess 2019). These findings are illustrated with examples of contested green spaces that point to two main issues in terms of procedural and interactional justice. The first refers to the increasing neoliberalisation of spatial governance fuelled by the extensive privatisation of public land during the transformation period (Golubchikov 2016). This limits possibilities for green municipal land use and fosters

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the prevalence of more profitable land uses. The second refers to insufficient participatory decision-making practices, which rather resemble a “top-down management of interest conflicts associated with the recognition and management of public spaces” (Sechi et al. in this volume). Distributive inequalities in green space quality, insufficient and biased stakeholder inclusion in terms of procedural and interactional justice, and the neoliberalisation of land use suggest an overall increase in environmental injustice that needs to be studied with approaches that go beyond the quantitative provision of urban green spaces. In their chapter on contested music festivals in public parks, Andrew Smith, Guy Osborn and Goran Vodicka analyse temporal green space accessibility. Through fieldwork and document analysis studying the shift towards parks financed by commercial income in London (UK), the authors reveal the negative effects of public park commercialization on green space accessibility for the broad public. Employing the theory of juridification (Blicher and Molander 2008; Talbot 2011), the chapter portrays the dispute around the Wireless Music Festival in Finsbury Park to analyse the negative impacts of commercialization on the free use of public space. On one hand, the commercial income from festivals affords park maintenance and additional revenues for the municipality. Moreover, the festivals advertise green space use to wider groups, and in the case of the Wireless festival, also specifically celebrate diverse inclusivity of urban space. On the other hand, the extensive permission of commercial festivals in parks substantially limits access for those residents who are not paying festival visitors. As the chapter critically scrutinises, these limitations are spatial—by cutting off substantial areas of the park from public use— and temporal, as the festival season coincides with peak usage months, while the closure encompasses not only the festival duration but also extensive periods of preparation and dismantling of the festival grounds. The study on contested urban green space development in Norway focuses on shifting discourses of sustainability in public disputes on

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green space use. The authors, Bradley Loewen, Stig Larssæther, Savis Gohari Krangsås, Heidi Vinge and Alenka Temeljotov-Salaj, peek into the issue of procedural and interactional justice. The chapter starts from a critique on “sustainability as an ideological praxis” (Davidson 2010, p. 390). Davidson critically scrutinises sustainability as an empty signifier that is used for various social, economic and ecological purposes. Using a multi-actor perspective (Avelino and Wittmayer 2016), the contribution critically scrutinises “just sustainability” (Agyeman and Evans 2004, p. 155) by studying the way in which different stakeholders, their values, needs and discourses are represented in decision-making processes surrounding green space use. On one hand, the integration of multiple stakeholders exemplifies a case of striving towards transformed stakeholder relationships that go beyond a supply and demand division in which green space users are confined to a passive role (Clark 2016). On the other hand, the study shows, in the case of Trondheim, how in a country where planning and governance structures are oriented towards sustainability, urban green spaces fall under neoliberal development pressures which are potentially exacerbated by the underrepresentation of the community sector in decision-making processes. The results suggest the need for collaborative governance structures across sectors to support a deeper integration of multiple perspectives—a central topic of procedural and interactional justice. The chapter by Lilian Pungas, Bianka Plüschke-Altof, Anni Müüripeal and Helen Sooväli-Sepping approaches the topic of environmental justice via neoliberal contestations over the “right kind” of urban green spaces. Hence, based on the analysis of extensive fieldwork since 2017, the authors shed light on the question “whose green city” by putting urban gardeners into focus. In particular, it focuses on two forms of urban gardening in the postsocialist city of Tallinn, dacha allotment gardens and community gardens, that are both fostering urban sustainability while being treated very differently (cf. Bendt et al. 2013; Jehlička et al. 2013). While the former are often

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negatively associated with a post-socialist “survival strategy of the poor”, community gardens are embraced for the transformative potential with regard to health, active citizenship, social cohesion and environmental learning. By critically scrutinising the neoliberal urban governance practises that co-produce environmental injustices in the post-socialist context (Jehlička et al. 2013; Kronenberg et al. 2020; Stenning et al. 2010), the chapter uncovers the underlying dynamics of this preferential treatment and thereby dives into what Tornaghi and Certomà (2019) have termed the “politics of gardening”. The analysis of neoliberalised socio-spatial discourses, spatial materialities and cultivated subjectivities (Barron 2016) negotiated in both gardening types conveys that dacha gardens rather quietly maintain the neoliberal governance system, while community gardens contribute to its thriving process by being visible, actively engaging with and supported by it. This preferential treatment, however, comes at a price of higher vulnerability to co-optation attempts and neoliberal control of space and human-nature interactions, to which dacha gardens have hitherto resisted. Eeva Berglund addresses the topic of environmental justice and contestations over green spaces from their epistemological groundings. In the case of contestations over the island of Vartiosaari located in the Finnish capital of Helsinki, she focuses on epistemic injustices arising from privileging expert knowledge over other forms of knowledge in environmental struggles. Berglund’s (2022) analysis of the environmental activism organised to save Vartiosaari island from real-estate development illustrates the binary opposition between rational calculative knowledge built on a trust in numbers (Porter 1995) and affective romantic ways of knowing the environment. While the activists commonly used expert-based knowledge, they also actively proposed art-based forms of learning and knowing the environment. As a result, by drawing on Stengers’ Another Science is Possible (2018), the author uses the example of artinflicted activism around Vartiosaari to question existing forms of knowing the environment and

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pursuing environmentalism. Firstly, the case study critically scrutinises the common antagonism between middle-class activists and poor or otherwise vulnerable victims of environmental injustice. While acknowledging the negative impact of affluent lifestyles on sustainability, also in “a lucky, green city like Helsinki”, Berglund urges to carefully consider this opposition, which as a result often dismisses affluent claims to environmental justice as NIMBYism. Against the backdrop of a shared planetary backyard, affluent struggles for environmental justice in Vartiosaari could instead be interpreted as an attempt to challenge hegemonic and exclusionary knowledge practises, while at the same time making way for others. Secondly, and related to the former, the chapter reveals that the different ways of knowing the environment do not merely represent a binary, but rather a hierarchy privileging rational knowledge that draws on technocracy, procedure, expert knowledge and numbers, which offer a “seductive sense of clarity and the promise of keeping value judgements and politics out of human affairs” (Berglund in this volume). This stands in stark contrast to the “overwhelming bodily experience, nourishing all the senses” (ibid.) in Vartiosaari and other urban green spaces. The chapter thus concludes that the hegemony of rational knowledge practises should be questioned—in environmental justice practice and research. The final chapter by Tarmo Pikner on the topic of contested waterfronts in Estonia’s capital, Tallinn, focuses on interactional justice. It argues for a more thorough integration of contingent relations between humans, non-humans and the surrounding environments, thus seeking to address the critique that there is “little environment in environmental justice” (Boone and Fragkias 2013, p. 2). Even as humans negotiate the role of nature in urban areas through their representations of space, the study describes how these representations reflect more-than-human agency. Pikner contends that non-human entities and surrounding environments form a crucial stakeholder whose needs and agency have to be considered for achieving interactional justice in the city. This point is exemplified in the case of blue-green spaces in Tallinn. Common to the

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discontinuities of green space in other postsocialist cities (Haase et al. 2019; Kronenberg et al. 2020), Tallinn’s natural environments at the waterfronts could develop with less human imprint due to disturbance-related ecologies (Tsing 2015) and longer time frames of closure to the public followed by interim uses. In recent disputes on the future of Tallinn’s waterfronts, the ecologies and landscapes that evolved as a result of the partial non-accessibility of the seashore during the Soviet era has given voice to environmental justice concerns. In both cases, the evolved landscapes and ecologies were represented by interest groups to argue for more balanced private real-estate developments that would consider the right of human and morethan-human species to access nature.

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Concluding Remarks and Future Research Agenda

What unites these chapters is that they address questions of environmental (in)justices in the case of urban green spaces from unusual angles. While two chapters apply a more direct environmental justice approach (Dahlberg and Borgström 2022; Sechi et al. 2022), the rest of the contributions (Berglund 2022; Collier 2022; Loewen et al. 2022; Pikner 2022; Pungas et al. 2022; Smith et al. 2022) stems from the fields of environmental psychology, cultural geography, recreational studies, environmental anthropology, urban sociology and planning. As a result, the chapters present interdisciplinary and multimethod studies that enrich discussions on contested urban green spaces and environmental justice in urban greening. They do so by providing in-depth research of the life worlds of those with limited green space access, thereby uncovering understudied dimensions of accessibility (Collier 2022; Dahlberg and Borgström 2022; Smith et al. 2022). Moreover, they discuss the epistemic (Berglund 2022) and testimonial injustices (Collier 2022) as well as the marginalisation of human and non-human stakeholders in decision-making and participation processes (Berglund 2022; Loewen et al.

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2022; Pikner 2022; Smith et al. 2022). And finally, the chapters of this book offer in-depth analyses on the contexts of injustices in green space use and development (Berglund 2022; Collier 2022; Pungas et al. 2022; Sechi et al. 2022; Smith et al. 2022). In Northern Europe, which is the geographical scope of this book, neoliberalisation of urban governance (Loewen et al. 2022; Smith et al. 2022), post-colonialism (Collier 2022), a nomothetic knowledge episteme (Berglund 2022) and the specifics of the postsocialist context (Pikner 2022; Pungas et al. 2022; Sechi et al. 2022) are amongst the most influential. With these foci, the edited volume advances the research agenda of critical environmental justice studies (Anguelovski et al. 2020; Pellow 2016) while at the same time also giving insights for urban sustainability studies. Recent studies have already set the path on how to transfer such critical insights into green space planning (Anguelovski et al. 2020; Baró et al. 2020) and we follow them by calling for a more consistent inclusion of justice concerns into urban sustainability studies in general and green space studies in particular as to go beyond the “orthodox, positivist green discourse and practice in cities” (Anguelovski et al. 2020, p. 1746). Based on the cases studied here, we suggest future research on urban green spaces to focus on foremost three aspects. First, to go beyond quantifiable factors and universalistic measurements of green space (non-) use. The research by Hitchings (2013, 2021) and Anguelovski et al. (2020) in particular have drawn attention to the contextual factors that influence who can take advantage of green space benefits in the city. Next to individual life worlds and cultural aspects of (non-)use, also knowledge hegemonies, institutional structures, spatial orderings, political power relations, as well as historical and socioeconomic contexts play a crucial role, which calls for a more holistic study of green space use and planning. This would not only put green space nonuse and its reasons into focus, but also shed light on the ways in which dilemmas surrounding green space planning and its potential benefits and pitfalls are negotiated locally. Amongst those are the tensions between community stewardship of green spaces and the shift of responsibility from the state

B. Plüschke-Altof and H. Sooväli-Sepping

to its citizens (in neoliberal settings in particular), the acceptance of green space renewals versus the risk of displacement (i.e. green gentrification), or the active co-creation of green spaces versus a potential co-optation of activists’ demands and achievements. Finally, we call for widening the spatial contexts of knowledge production in green space, environmental justice, and sustainability research. On one hand, former reviews have acknowledged the dominance of US-centred research on urban green spaces and environmental justice (Kabisch et al. 2017; McCormack et al. 2010; Van Hecke et al. 2018). On the other hand, Jehlička (2021) critically noted that due to the current power relations in knowledge production, some regions are generally not considered a theorygenerative context in sustainability studies. This puts considerable restraints to understanding and theorising green space use and planning, thereby impeding the sustainability agenda in urban scholarship and practice. After all, a green city should be a city for all. Personal Acknowledgement This edited volume is part of the project “Human-nature interactions in the city” supported by the Tallinn University Research Fund (TF519), which focuses on environmental behaviour from an interdisciplinary perspective in the case of urban green space (non-)use. Additional funding was provided by the Horizon 2020 project “GoGreenRoutes: Resilient Optimal Urban Natural Technological and Environmental Solutions” (under grant agreement No. 869764). We thank the Springer editorial team for encouraging and bearing with us during this process. The language check for this introduction was conducted by Dr. Bradley Loewen (NTNU) and formal proofs for the book chapters by Kadi Karmen Kaldma (Tallinn University). Our special gratitude goes to the authors for their valuable contributions, the reviewers for their fruitful feedback as well as to the research participants in the individual cases. Without their participation, this edited volume would not have been possible. We are very happy to see the discussions that started at the 2019 Nordic Geographers’ Meeting on “Sustainable Geography—Geographies of Sustainability”1 in Trondheim, Norway, come to life and hope that it will be an inspiring and intriguing read!

Thematic panel entitled “(Not) My Green City? The Role of Green Spaces in Times of Urbanization”, hosted by Helen Sooväli-Sepping and Bianka Plüschke-Altof, 16-19 June 2019, Trondheim (Norway).

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Urban Green Spaces and the Question of Environmental Justice

A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access to Urban Green Areas by People in Wheelchair from an Environmental Justice Perspective: A Stockholm Case Annika Dahlberg, Sara Borgström, Max Rautenberg, and Nienke Sluimer

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Introduction It is not only the physical place you are going to that must be accessible. This is because access is a huge concept as it has to work the whole way. If it doesn’t, even if the place you are going to is accessible and fantastic – it isn’t if access does not work the whole way [from home and back]. In the end, it is not worth the trouble. (Woman in wheelchair, Stockholm)

Who are ‘the people’? Do they include people with impaired mobility, people in a wheelchair? ‘The people’ should have access to and enjoy urban and peri-urban green areas, and through this benefit from these visits. It is for ‘the people’ that we seek to plan our cities towards sustainable urban development. The UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 is focused on cities and

A. Dahlberg (&) Department of Physical Geography, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] S. Borgström Department of Sustainable Development, Environmental Science and Engineering, The Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] M. Rautenberg
N. Sluimer Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] N. Sluimer e-mail: [email protected]

constitutes a global policy framework of high relevance here. SDG Target 11.7 specifically mentions access to urban green space (United Nations 2021). In policy and planning briefs, the general rule is to talk about ‘the people’— although at times broken down into different categories, such as children, older adults and socioeconomically vulnerable groups. In a recent article by Loftus (2020), the concept of ‘the people’ is explored, and although his context differs from ours, his conclusions are highly relevant. He stresses the need to learn “from ordinary people and their situated knowledges and practices” (Loftus 2020: 987), rather than accept blanket descriptions of ‘the people’ as one homogenous group, and highlights political ecology as an approach well suited for such studies. Political ecology focuses on human–environment interactions and stresses power relations and aspects of environmental justice (Bassett and Gautier 2014; Robbins 2020). The latter studies people in relation to the existing environmental bads and goods (Walker 2009; Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020). If one considers all inhabitants as constituting ‘the people’, many injustices are left uncovered. Olsson et al. (2020) emphasise how SDG 11 means a focus on justice issues in terms of accessible urban green areas, accessibility understood in a broad sense. Studies on immigrant groups in relation to urban green areas have shown that injustices exist, in terms of proximity, quality, and realised access

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Plüschke-Altof and H. Sooväli-Sepping (eds.), Whose Green City?, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04636-0_2

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(Jay et al. 2012). In a similar vein, studies explore access to urban green areas for children (Giusti et al. 2014). But there is a dire lack of published studies on other groups, such as people with mobility impairments, e.g. those in wheelchairs (but see Burns et al. 2013; Stigsdotter et al. 2018; Corazon et al. 2019). The mere existence of varied types of urban green areas is not a guarantee that they are accessible. Cities around the world are growing through densification and sprawl, where the total area of urban green areas decreases, and there is an increased demand for diversification of use that occurs in parallel with privatisation (Hansen et al. 2019). This influences urban green areas and the possibilities to use them (Turner et al. 2004; Soga and Gaston 2016). One example is that distance to larger green areas increases and thereby the importance grows of local, often small, green spaces such as parks, street trees, community gardens, backyards and “spaces in-between” (Lin and Fuller 2013; Haaland and van den Bosch 2015). Thus, it is essential to understand and discuss whether the remaining green commons, intended for everyone, actually are accessible to all—which includes discussing physical, realised and perceived accessibility (Ribot and Peluso 2003). This should be part of environmentally just sustainable urban development as expressed by city decision-makers and stakeholders. There is an emerging academic, policy and practical interest in understanding different conceptions of urban green area accessibility. So far, these efforts have mainly been focused on conceptualisations of accessibility and quantifications of distance and barriers, but seldom on a certain group within the heterogeneous urban population (Schipperijn et al. 2010; Wang et al. 2015; Biernacka and Kronenberg 2018). To the extent that heterogeneity has been addressed, it is mainly based on quantitative census data such as age, ethnicity, socio-economic situation or health (Barbosa et al. 2007; Kabisch and Haase 2014; Rigolon 2016; Atikur Rahman and Zhang 2018; Artmann et al. 2019). This study contributes to ongoing research by an in-depth mixed methods approach to one part of this heterogeneity—how people using a wheelchair experience values of

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and access to urban nature, a group that within themselves is highly heterogeneous. People with impaired mobility, e.g. using a wheelchair, is one example of a group whose relationship and access to urban green areas has not been well studied. This group includes people using various mobility devices and who may use them only temporarily. However, our sample only includes people who require a wheelchair permanently for all outdoor visits. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to increase our understanding of accessibility for this group in a broad sense— social, mental and physical—to urban green areas. Our specific objectives explore (1) the values of urban natures to people in wheelchairs, (2) factors that act as enablers or barriers to urban green area access to this group and (3) the implications of these issues analysed from an environmental justice perspective. Here we use examples from Stockholm, Sweden. In this chapter, we use the concepts “urban green area” and “urban nature”. An urban green area here includes strictly designed inner-city parks, backyards, gardens, mixed used parks, dense and sparse vegetation, cemeteries, golf courses, larger and more wild areas such as woodlands, as well as protected nature areas such as nature reserves or national parks. We use ‘urban nature’ primarily in the Result section to clarify that it is not only elements with a substantial spatial green cover that are included but also single trees, views from a window as well as water environments such as streams, shorelines and ponds. Our exploration is based on in-depth interviews with people who use a wheelchair for their everyday mobility, as well as interviews with organisations aiming to support this accessibility. To this is added an online survey with people using a wheelchair who were not interviewed. Our results are shaped by the respondents’ voices but are naturally also dependent on the framework of the study. It should be stressed that neither nature nor peoples’ realities are easily categorised (Dahlberg 2015), and therefore not “all” can be represented. Thus, this is a snapshot of realities—with general significance to the urban sustainability challenge of nature for ‘all’.

A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access …

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Access to Urban Nature: A Further Look at Current Research

Access is a multifaceted concept, including physical availability, knowledge and information and perceptions, where personal background and experience ranging from culture to gender and beyond are highly relevant (Ribot and Peluso 2003). Rigolon (2016) shows that it is essential to understand availability as access, i.e. you may have a forest close, but if you cannot get there, cannot get around within it, lack knowledge about it, or are not comfortable there, it is not accessible. Access can be understood as bundles of power spread unevenly throughout society (Ribot and Peluso 2003), which makes theories of environmental justice highly relevant (Walker 2009). For example, how and by whom are urban natures defined and valued, and which voices are heard in planning and management? One aspect is the multifunctional design ambitions, where improved access to urban green areas for some may dilute the nature experience for others (Hansen et al. 2019). Several studies of access to urban nature, including just access as discussed by Rigolon (2016), compare results which analyse quantitative data on residential proximity in relation to different socioeconomic and/or ethnic groups. A case study from Berlin exemplifies this, assessing how variation in the availability of urban green areas could be related to demographic aspects such as immigrant status and age, based on census data (Kabisch and Haase 2014). In a similar type of investigation, de Sousa Silva et al. (2018) found an unjust distribution of green area access related to demographic differences, such as cultural background, in two cities in Estonia and Portugal. However, there is an urgent need for more in-depth qualitative studies on the complexity of the access to urban nature, since many aspects of access still remain to be explored and understood.

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Access and Environmental Justice Studies that apply an environmental justice approach have increased, especially within the field of political ecology (Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020) including urban political ecology (Heynen et al. 2006). Briefly, environmental justice is about exploring, mapping and understanding how environmental bads and goods are endured or enjoyed, by whom, why and with what effects. An environmental good may be a park perceived as well managed and pleasant, or a combination of green–blue urban spaces as studied by Pikner (this volume). What we explore here is to whom such environmental urban goods, such as green–blue areas, are accessible, to which Smith et al. and Pungas et al. (this volume) add the perspective of neoliberalisation that might limit ways of access and use. We examine access in a broad sense. According to Schlosberg (2004), environmental justice was initially mainly about distribution, e.g. whether you have urban green areas close to where you live. However, it is also about recognition questioning whether the full diversity of stakeholders is recognised, including their experiences, needs, values and preferences (cf. Olsson et al. 2020). This includes access to recognition. You may have a legal right to being recognised, but without access to information and a justly situated possibility to come forward, you are still not recognised. Schlosberg (2004) also lists the importance of access to planning and management processes, i.e. procedural justice. All these dimensions are interlinked and need to function if environmental justice is to be achieved (Schlosberg 2004; Walker 2009). Later Schlosberg (2007) adds a fourth dimension of environmental justice, that of capabilities, which means that people have differential individual capacity to transform their present situation and thus create opportunities. For example, to what extent do people have the capability to change an unjust situation (Walker 2012). Rutt and Gulsrud

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(2016) discuss the concept of capabilities further and specifically explore the meaning of environmental justice in relation to urban green areas. Here we stress that all these justice dimensions concern access. Svarstad and Benjaminsen (2020) add several salient thoughts concerning the four dimensions within environmental justice research, e.g. that power issues be brought forward more clearly and that when discussing capabilities there is a risk that communities (or groups) are seen as homogenous when in fact they are not. This relates to the inherent risk in categorising people and nature (Dahlberg 2015). Furthermore, Svarstad and Benjaminsen (2020) stress that recognition must include the voices of people including their own knowledge production. Baró et al. (2021) focus on ecosystem services in urban green planning, but stress the need to include an environmental justice perspective in such analysis. Writing about environmental justice in an urban context, Anguelovski et al. (2020) argue that the four dimensions described above are not enough. They suggest an expanded theoretical approach using the following dimensions; emancipatory, antisubordination, intersectional, and relational (feminist) urban greening interventions. Whichever set of concepts one selects, they should be related to discussions about research on and with conceived vulnerable groups (e.g. von Benzon and van Blerk 2017), including the role of the researcher. Environmental justice studies often focus on marginalised groups, who may or may not consider themselves vulnerable, i.e. vulnerability must not hide or deny the capabilities found—which also should be explored.

Access to Urban Green Areas: For Whom? Research on the perceived and the measured value of interaction with nature is increasing. Conceptual ideas on how values and valuation in relation to nature, not only in an urban context, can be understood are presented in Pascual et al. (2017). They emphasise the need to recognize the

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existence of a diversity of values as well as differences in power relations between groups representing different values. It is documented well beyond doubt that spending time in nature brings with it benefits to health and well-being, physical and mental (Hartig et al. 2014; Sandifer et al. 2015; Bratman et al. 2019). Urban nature is therefore increasingly in focus, and while urbanisation proceeds densification and urban sprawl constitute threats to existing urban nature (Turner et al. 2004; Lin and Fuller 2013; Hansen et al. 2019). Most studies on access to urban green areas focus on the general population, although the needs, interests and challenges of all in the society cannot be generalised. As described earlier, there are groups in society where more knowledge is urgently needed, and while studies on children and immigrants have increased, there is little research concerning people with mobility disabilities (Stigsdotter et al. 2018). Specifically, there is a lack of qualitative studies on this group in urban settings, but see Corazon et al. (2019) where this approach is applied. Hitchings (2013) explores issues that prevent people from venturing into urban green spaces, even when they can be found nearby, and stresses that this is an underresearched topic. We need to become aware of these “hidden” groups that for a variety of reasons do not visit urban green areas, or do so only infrequently, or with difficulty. The majority of studies on the use of urban green areas are quantitative, relying on questionnaires or on spatial or census data (Rigolon 2016), while there is a lack of qualitative research, and research with an environmental justice approach (Rutt and Gulsrud 2016). There exists reasonably good data for specific cities, or areas, on numbers of visits to urban green areas, how distance from home or socio-economic situation impacts frequency of visits, and how this differs with seasons. However, we know less about the underlying needs, values and interests behind these visits—and especially the lack of visits, including challenges and barriers (Schipperijn et al. 2010). Hitchings (2013) highlights the value of applying a qualitative approach to green space experiences to capture the complexity of the emotions and practicalities involved.

A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access …

However, quantitative large-scale research is also necessary, e.g. to understand why people do not utilise green spaces (Hitchings 2013). In an attempt to partially fill this gap, Boyd et al. (2018) conducted a study based on data from 60,000 adults in England. They found that people who seldom used green spaces (urban and rural) tend to belong to marginalised and more vulnerable groups, including those who fear unexpected barriers (see also Collier in this volume). Boyd et al. (2018) found that having a physical disability was among the top eight reasons for not frequently visiting green areas. The authors conclude that this highlights the need to “understand and promote more inclusive, engaging nature experiences that respect and cater for diverse health conditions… […] …efforts to promote access…” (Boyd et al. 2018: 108). This includes feelings of safety, interest and pleasure —and does not lead to the exacerbation of experiences of exclusion because of a disability. Finally, they stress that “greater consideration is therefore needed regarding opportunities to better accommodate embodied diversity within more widespread, mainstream green space interventions that aim to promote population health and well-being” (Boyd et al. 2018: 110).

Access to (Urban) Green Areas and Mobility Disability There are very few studies on access to nature, especially urban nature, concerning people with mobility disabilities, and especially those who need a wheelchair (but see e.g. Burns et al. 2013). A recent Danish study used a quantitative approach to investigate mobility disability in relation to both urban and rural green area use (Stigsdotter et al. 2018). They used a nationwide survey (2005), and mobility disability was defined as people dependent on assistive devices for walking, hence not limited only to wheelchair users. The conclusion was that people with mobility disabilities overall visited green areas much less than others and that people that relied on a wheelchair were the least frequent visitors. The authors stressed that the number of

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participants was low, that replies were very diverse, and that results related to a wider group than wheelchair users. However, their findings indicate that access to green areas is negatively influenced by mobility disabilities (Stigsdotter et al. 2018). Corazon et al. (2019) made a follow-up qualitative study on access and use of urban and peri-urban nature by people with a mobility disability, including but not limited to, those who used a wheelchair. The aim was, similarly to our study, to capture experiences, preferences and constraints of visits to green areas, and they conducted individual and group interviews (in total 24 respondents) in different parts of Denmark. They explored why people with mobility disabilities visit green areas less frequently than the general population and concluded that the issue is complex, that planning needs to be contextualised and that “it is advisable to include the user group” (Corazon et al. 2019: 11). Concerning barriers, or constraints, for disabled people to visit green areas in the countryside Burns et al. (2009) stressed that although research still must investigate barriers, it should move beyond this and focus more on what this group actually want from nature experiences. Burns et al. (2013) in a later study on country side outings found that disabled people encounter many barriers, which have risks deterring many from even trying, while for others they can be perceived as a positive challenge. In an urban study, Corazon et al. (2019) found that barriers were multiple and of different character. Their results mainly bring up physical or structural constraints and they concluded that most intrapersonal constraints (e.g. fear of not coping) can be overcome through structural changes. These could include improved information (e.g. signs), infrastructure (e.g. toilets) and more suitable paving on paths.

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Case Area: Urban Green Areas in Stockholm

In Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, urban nature is interwoven throughout the urban fabric, and even in the more central parts, approximately

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90% of the population has less than 300 m to a green area (Stockholm Stad 2010). However, the Stockholm region with a present population of 2.4 million (SCB 2020) is rapidly urbanising by densification and sprawl (Lavalle et al. 2017), while physical access to nearby nature is decreasing (Furberg 2019). At the same time, there are political ambitions at local and regional level to preserve existing urban nature, add nature in new developments and enhance access (Stockholms läns landsting 2018). Even though Sweden has a long tradition of outdoor recreation, not least through the Right of Public Access, it was not until quite recently that national goals for outdoor recreation were formulated (Swedish Government 2012). Of these, three are of particular relevance here: accessible nature for all, access to nature for outdoor recreation and public access to urban nature. Governance of urban nature in Sweden is a local, cross-sectoral, multi-actor issue, where institutional responsibility differs for different green areas (Andersson et al. 2014), which becomes even more complicated when acknowledging the diversity among ‘the people’. To this is added a diversity in management of e.g. public transport, mobility services and maintenance of streets and sidewalk. This fragmented governance often leads to small-scale, short-term measures or projects, rather than strategic, long-term, cross scale and inclusive approaches (Borgström 2019). In the Stockholm (and Swedish) context, “urban green area” or “urban green space” are used in policy and practice and include a range of differently sized spaces, and with no specific property right regime attached (private, public, common).

4

Methodological Approach

Framed by a case study approach, qualitative data was collected by initial observations and semi-structured interviews in the Stockholm region. To this was added an online survey with wheelchair users from the whole southern part of Sweden, including Stockholm. Data was collected as part of two M.Sc. theses (Johansson

2017; Sluimer 2018), followed by the survey at a later date. The study aims to introduce relevant and seldom heard voices but does not aspire to be representative of any group or place. Observations and in-depth interviews were conducted in the winter and spring of 2017 and 2018. They consisted of attending five outdoor recreational tours for people in wheelchairs lasting 2–4 h in Stockholm’s green areas, through a private initiative “Skogstur” (Forest walks) and inventory walks arranged by e.g. the Stockholm section of the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation (Table 1). The interviews, in total 17 respondents (Table 1), followed thematic lists of questions with room for follow-up questions. Locating respondents proceeded through contacts with organisations, including Skogstur, and ensuing snowball sampling, resulting in a group of respondents who all accessed urban nature— although with different abilities, experiences, and ambitions. Respondents depended on a wheelchair, and/or they worked for an organisation whose responsibility included improving urban green area accessibility for this group, or for people with any disability (Table 1). Interviews were personal, except for one case where the respondent relied on an assistant who at times helped interpret what was expressed. The interviews were analysed by colour coding to identify similarities and differences concerning experiences related to our objectives and the main themes that were uncovered. The online survey was conducted from December 2018–February 2019, with assistance from four organisations representing people with disabilities. The questionnaire was distributed on the organisations’ Facebook sites, in newsletters and through their networks. The survey enquired about uses, interests and access in relation to urban green areas and was organised using the software program Survey Monkey. From a total of 62 responses, four were removed (not relevant), hence in the analysis 58 responses were included. Of these respondents, 67% identified 1

RBU—Rörelsehindrade barn och ungdomar, DHR— Delaktighet, handlingskraft, rörelsefrihet, RTP—Personskadeförbundet, FUL—Funktionsrätt Uppsala län.

A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access …

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Table 1 List of interview respondents (RBU—Rörelsehindrade barn och ungdomar, DHR—Delaktighet, handlingskraft, rörelsefrihet, RTP—Personskadeförbundet, FUL—Funktionsrätt Uppsala län) Wheelchair user (y/n)

Gender (m/f)

Age

Organisation (M—mobility, N—nature conservation and access)

Date

1

Y

f

30–50

–

2018-03-11, 2018-04-02

2

Y

m

20–30

–

2018-02-22, 2018-03-09

3

Y

f

20–30

–

2018-03-21, 2018-04-04

4

Y

m

65+

–

2018-03-21, 2018-04-04

5

Y

f

–20

–

2018-03-26, 2018-04-10

6

Y

m

20–30

–

2018-04-11, 2018-04-18

7

Y

m

65+

–

2017-05-04

8

Y

f

50–65

–

2017-05-02

9

Y

f

30–50

–

2017-05-02

10

Y

m

50–65

–

2017-04-19

11

Y

m

50–65

Skogstur (förening) [The association “Forest visits”] (M), Stockholm

2017-02-17

12

Y

f

50–65

Personskadeförbundet RTP [The Swedish Association for Survivors of Polio, Accident and Injury] (M), National

2017-02-21

13

Y

m

30–50

Delaktighet, Handlingskraft, Rörelsefrihet, DHR, [Participation, Decisiveness, Mobility] (M), National

2017-02-23

14

N

m

50–60

Tillgänglighet och miljö—Consultant firm (N), National

2017-02-14

15

N

f

50–60

Friluftsfrämjandet Mälardalen [Swedish Outdoor Association Mälardalen branch] (N), Stockholm

2017-02-22

16

N

f

50–65

Upplandsstiftelsen [The Uppland foundation] (N), Stockholm

2017-02-20

17

N

f

30–50

Naturskyddsföreningen i Stockholms län [The Stockholm County branch of Swedish Society for Nature Conservation] (N), Stockholm

2017-02-06

themselves as women and this overrepresentation is common in questionnaires (Žlender and Ward Thompson 2017). The majority of survey respondents were 30–49 years old (38%), 28% between 50 and 64 years old, 20% between 18 and 29 years old and 12% above 65 years old. The respondents were mainly living in urban areas (76%). The overall analysis applied a double perspective, that of the respondents and that of the researchers, where the voices of the respondents were the primary source of knowledge, but where research interests, e.g. environmental justice,

framed the questions and the search for common themes. Hence, we extracted what we deemed most relevant—i.e. the choice of the researcher, including how respondents’ narratives were parcelled up into themes/categories. The results from the interviews were complemented with the survey data, which provided a quantitative grounding for the identified themes. It should be noted that since there was not a complete overlap (geographical location and urban focus) between interviews and survey these data sets are not compared, but both add important knowledge to the overall analysis.

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5

A. Dahlberg et al.

Results and Analysis

The sole term respondent refers to individuals’ private experiences of urban nature using a wheelchair, and when respondents represent organisations, this is specified. Results and analysis are structured to best convey experiences expressed, i.e. the voices of respondents are our main focus.

Experienced Values of Urban Nature In the survey, 84% answered that to be outdoors in urban green areas is a valued part of their life, as did all the interview respondents. Significantly, one respondent stressed that if you are in a wheelchair, values of nature are “…the same as for all people”—which is illustrated in the responses below. Value is a multifaceted and complex concept, and here we focus on what was valued in urban nature, and why. What respondents valued most in urban nature included multiple examples, such as trees, flowers, grass, sun, water, fresh air, parks, neighbourhood green, forests and open spaces. Other values were changing seasons, colours, birds, “wild” parks and nature, parks with people, any green area, wildlife, beauty, to be close to nature, snow (to look at), sunsets, plantations, crops, herbs, allotment gardens and nature by a holiday house. A majority of the survey participants stated that what they valued most about urban nature was taking a walk, meeting with family and/or friends and having coffee outdoors (Fig. 1a). Survey participants stated that they missed such values as foraging berries and mushrooms and swimming, although 18 participants stated that there were no activities that they missed (Fig. 1b). Why urban nature was important to the respondents varied but contained many similarities. Among the latter were to achieve calmness, peace, quiet, being alone, get a different perspective, think about other things, sit in the sun, to focus, stimulate your senses, a love for nature and to gain energy. Since many of the respondents

spend much time indoors, watching nature through a window was important. Why urban nature was valued also included the ability to move around there, where some highlighted the importance of areas that allow for long walks, near or further away. Respondents also referred to exercise, a sense of freedom, to feel independent, have a change, the simplicity of ‘real’ nature, and to cultivate plants. Many mentioned seeing friends or family, having a picnic, or simply to be surrounded by people in a calm setting, as mirrored in the survey (Fig. 1a). A few respondents mentioned photography, to fish or drive out watching for wildlife. Most stressed that everyday access to nature was important for their wellbeing. Based on contact with members and own experiences, all organisation representatives stressed that all forms of urban nature visits are essential for mental and physical well-being. Respondents experienced disabilities with accompanying pains and other complications. They felt better if they could access urban nature, and that nature could be experienced as a saviour. One man told that six years of surgeries, infections and hospitalisation left him depressed. However, he had always loved nature and was able to use this as a driving force to regain his will for a better life. He succeeded in accessing varied natures and stressed that nature can be equally important to others. The organisations’ representatives had witnessed how access to nature was a strong inspiration for their members, as a driving force to improve health, find new interests, make new social contacts and avoid depression (Photo 1).

Importance of Nearby Nature Any nature experience brings benefits, but for many longer excursions often are not possible (see examples of barriers below), and the ability to access nearby nature was important to all respondents. The organisations’ representatives emphasised that access to nature is about democracy, and all NGOs represented had ‘access for all’ as part of their core aims. In the survey,

A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access …

a

27

What do you usually do when you visit urban green areas? 43

Taking a walk 34

Be with family and/or friends 21

Having coffee (fika) 13

Swimming 10

Barbequing/Cooking 4

Hunting and/or fishing

4

Birdwatching 3

Walking the dog* Foraging berries and mushrooms

2

Taking photographs*

2

Resting, sunbathing and reading*

2

Cultural events*

1

Biking*

1

Exercising at outdoor gym

1 2

Nothing 0

b

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Are there activities you want to do, but cannot do when visting an urban green area? 21

Foraging berries and mushrooms 19

Swimming 11

Exercising at outdoor gym 10

Taking a walk 9

Having coffee (fika) 7

Be with family and/or friends 6

Barbequing/Cooking 5

Hunting and/or fishing 3

Birdwatching Walking the dog*

1

Relaxing*

1 18

Nothing 0

5

Fig. 1 a The survey participants’ (#58) activities while visiting urban nature. *marked alternatives were mentioned in the open question where a participant could add

10

15

20

25

other activities than those listed. b Activities that survey participants would like to do, but cannot do

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Photo 1 An outing in urban green where a mixed group is one means to increase a sense of security in case of unforeseen barriers. Here in Jordbro, in the southern outskirts of Stockholm (Photo by Max Rautenberg, 201706-17)

76% answered that the places they visited were nearby so that the only transport necessary is their wheelchair. However, 29% disagreed or partly disagreed with the statement “there is one or several green areas nearby where I can do the activities I want to”—indicating either a lack of urban nature nearby, lack of access to such, or lack of support for these activities. Some respondents travelled to work or studies, and one man said, “During weekdays I am usually too tired [to go out], but I may take a walk in the nearby nature. That is why it is good that there is so much green area in Stockholm. … I just have to go to the end of the street and then I am out on Gärdet [a large green area in Stockholm, part of the urban national park]—and that is very good”. During weekends he often went on longer trips, visiting different peri-urban green areas. Other respondents lived a more restricted life, forced to spend much time at home due to more severe disabilities. One woman spent much time alone and needed help with all practicalities. For her it was essential to be outside in nature, even just sitting in the sun outside her house. Almost every day she and her assistant went to the nearby park or to the waterfront near her home, i.e. urban nature close-by which she was familiar with and felt secure visiting, and which provided

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opportunities for exercise. To her, nature was a wide concept, including the changing colours of the street trees outside her window. These examples mirror all respondents’ views on the importance of nearby urban nature. However, living conditions differ, as does mobility and personality. Some respondents lived in a house with a garden, close to peri-urban forests or had access to an allotment garden. They all described how this nearby nature meant much to them. A woman explained that she enjoyed visiting nature areas that were more demanding in terms of length and complexity of the trip involved, a nature she had not visited before, and with a less modified nature. However, she found it tiring due to all the planning needed to feel secure in terms of access (in a broad sense). If on her own, it was more relaxing to visit a city park, lie down in the grass near her house, or go to the nearby waterfront, “…for me that is nature even if there is a lot of asphalt”. Another woman lived close to a nature reserve, which she sometimes could visit, but stressed the importance of being able to see nature through her window. An elderly man, when weather permitted, was outside almost every day. He appreciated the direct access to nature without being dependent on transport, “… you sit down in the yard and watch birds and vegetation”. A woman said that having urban nature nearby allowed her to be independent since she could get out on her own almost every day. However, a male respondent commented, “But I think there’s a threat against it [the green]; […] And they are decreasing so much of the green areas because they are building everywhere”. A woman shared similar fears since her neighbourhood green areas had become depleted due to urban development through new buildings and infrastructure. She stressed the importance of being able to access nature as part of her daily routine. It was clear that for many respondents it was essential to be able to access everyday nature in Stockholm, close to where they lived or worked—since so much planning and effort was involved for a longer excursion.

A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access …

Barriers to Access: More than Ground Cover Studies on barriers to access are often divided into physical and social/mental barriers and all our respondents mentioned both these as important. The organisations’ representatives put efforts into removing or decreasing such. One representative described how they work with three types of barriers, physical (e.g. type of path), mental (e.g. fear of venturing out) and structural (e.g. type of wheelchair, the right to an assistant), and that physical barriers were the easiest to work with. Several organisation representatives stressed that people in wheelchair face stronger mental barriers to access nature than most other people. To visit a green area necessitates more planning, more time, more insecurity and results in more tiredness—as compared to someone not in a wheelchair. They also described difficulties in reaching people with no declared interest in nature visits—but for whom it may be beneficial. Here we present barriers as a sequence of interlinked experiences from initiating and planning a visit, going to (and from) a site, the actual visit and afterwards. We follow this time-line since it best mirrors the lived experiences generously shared with us. The

29

barriers identified are described below and summarised in Table 2. Our results show that experiences of barriers influenced decisions about future visits and thoughts about urban nature. Many respondents appreciated being challenged to some extent, trying to overcome a barrier. However, the many barriers exemplified below can become demotivating, making a visit stressful, and block an incentive for future excursions.

Before Visiting Green Spaces: Motivation and Planning According to the respondents perhaps the most important is to find the energy and will-power to overcome the initial hesitation of venturing out. A woman in her 60s said that when she had a dog this was a driving force for her to visit urban nature, but now she did not get out so often. She enjoyed being in green areas, but needed someone else to plan and organise, since otherwise, this involved too much time and effort, “You really need to be super motivated and feel that it is worth all your efforts and that you get some reward [from the excursion]”. A dog, family, an assistant, a holiday cottage, or knowing someone who organises nature visits, were examples of practical and social aids that helped inspire respondent’s own enthusiasm and motivation.

Table 2 Identified barriers, based on both survey responses and interviews, to access in relation to three phases of nature experiences—before a visit, going to and from a green area and during the visit Before visit

Going to and from

During visit

Physical/Structural barriers

Kind of wheelchair Weather conditions Assigned time of assistance

Surface condition Infrastructure (e.g. stairs, elevators) Means of transport (bus, train, subway, car) Crowdedness Kind of wheelchair Weather condition

Surface condition Topography Access to facilities Kind of wheelchair Weather conditions

Social/Mental barriers

Inner motivation/Driving force Need for careful planning Fear of barriers Lack of information about surface conditions, transportation logistics, facilities, etc.

Negative/unhelpful attitude among drivers/other passengers Fear of non-functional logistics Limited time for assistance lead to hard prioritisations

Fear of being stuck, not have access to facilities Incorrect information Negative attitude from other visitors

30

Photo 2 An example of barriers which make it complicated or impossible for people in a wheelchair to proceed on their nature outing. This from Lidingö, NE Stockholm (Photo by Max Rautenberg, 2017-06-15)

The removal of external barriers, whether those indicated above or others, makes it easier to find inner motivation (Photo 2). To visit an urban green area for the first time may necessitate planning—definitely so if you use a wheelchair. Especially the need for careful planning for a nature outing further away than one’s neighbourhood may be a barrier. However, such visits may bring a stronger sense of reward —as one man explained, “…and then you are far into the forest—and it is awesome, that it is”. He had much experience with outdoor recreation and went out even when necessary information was missing but had been forced to turn home due to unforeseen barriers. Others—due to less experience, a more severe disability and/or different personalities—stated that the need for planning and the remaining feeling of insecurity resulted in them not venturing out to new green areas on their own. All respondents stressed that much more information about green areas, including how to access them (and get home) is needed. This information needs to be relevant to wheelchair users and kept up to date. Access to information was also found to be an important aspect by 35 of 58 survey participants. An additional issue mentioned in the interviews concerned who determines what nature is accessible for wheelchair users or not. One male

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respondent described how they had planned a whole-day group outing in a national park close to the city, and been promised by a park guide that the route suggested was fine for wheelchairs, “But it wasn’t. There where so many stones and roots on that path so it was lucky that we had people with us who could push”. That particular path was named “The pram/stroller path” and the guide just assumed that it would be all right also for wheelchairs. Several respondents, especially the women, raised the issue of being able to be independent, within their capacity. When different aspects of transportation (including the attitude of bus and taxi drivers) did not work, when they felt insecure about getting home, having to rely on strangers, or that society did not care (such as denied aid, broken elevators, inaccurate information, lack of toilets and other facilities)—this could result in a decision not to visit urban nature again.

Getting Out There: Dependence on Unreliable Logistics and Rights to Assistance Many respondents stated they would visit larger, more remote, and more wild nature areas, more often if they felt safe about getting there and back. Are the subway elevators in operation, are bus time-tables correct and will necessary services be provided, will the mobility services be on time and be able to find the destination? To safely get to (and back from) a green area was by 80% of the survey participants indicated as one of the most important aspects of access. The survey clearly indicated that since this is not always possible the importance of nearby nature is high (44/58). Their own car or access to mobility services were important for transport to urban nature according to 23 and 20 survey responses respectively, whereas public transport was used by 20 of 58 participants, which might indicate that this is not the first option. For 38 survey participants travel time to the green area they visited most often was not more than 30 min, and none travelled for more than 1 h, which may indicate that longer trips meant higher uncertainty.

A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access …

Respondents had different experiences of transport, but all who used the subway complained about how a broken elevator can put an end to a planned visit to a green area (because the information was lacking beforehand)—and that elevators often stay out of use for many weeks. Some respondents were satisfied going by bus, but others described how buses could be crowded making it difficult or impossible to find space for a wheelchair, even when such a place is marked. Most buses in Stockholm now have ramps, but respondents described how bus drivers not always had the patience or inclination to lower these. Negative attitudes from personnel of mobility services were also mentioned, and respondents described how they started to avoid certain transport options, resulting in less frequent visits to green areas. Special equipment is often needed for people in wheelchairs to go beyond paved paths in green areas. For example, a motorised wheelchair, one designed for more difficult terrain, or special wheels that can be mounted on your own chair. However, as commented by one respondent, “[these special aids] are categorised by many as aids for your free time such as outdoor recreation, and you do not get these [for free] today. You get equipment that helps you handle your everyday life easier, but outdoor recreation is something you have to pay for yourself. But this differs between different regions [in Sweden]”, as well as between municipalities. One respondent had experienced how this also differed between men and women, where men more easily got access to outdoor equipment. One organisation representative highlighted that many people with disabilities were economically more vulnerable than the average, e.g. because they were unemployed, and could not pay for extra equipment. Interviews revealed experienced uncertainty regarding rights to different aids, e.g. who had the right to what equipment, as well as time with an assistant. There existed a feeling of injustice —since a lack of equipment or enough assistance time could prevent nature visits. One woman only had two trips with mobility service a week, and if she used these to shop, or visit the gym or friends—then she had no trips left for visiting a

31

green area. However, another respondent had unlimited rights to mobility service, although he seldom used it since he had his own adapted car. Some respondents could not manage their everyday life without an assistant, including visits to urban nature, and this could thus constitute a barrier. One organisation representative claimed that an interested assistant, not scared of the outdoor, could inspire a wheelchair user to venture out, but also the opposite, that a person in a wheelchair used to nature visits could inspire an assistant. She had organised study circles for assistants and wheelchair users to inspire nature knowledge, interest and experience. Assistants were an important company when visiting green spaces according to 28 of 58 survey participants. Family was another important company for green area visits for 36 survey participants. Several organisation representatives stressed that people with disabilities need to exert much physical effort just to manage their everyday life, wherefore they depend on home care. However, members had received official responses to the effect that if they could manage nature trips without an assistant they should manage their everyday life without extra help. Respondents argued that if they had to fix everything in their everyday life, they had no energy left for nature trips. It was a problem that authorities did not recognise individual needs but instead followed formal lists, so that right to aid depended on where you live, what administrator you have and how good you are to argue for your case. According to respondents, those who make decisions need to be more pragmatic and insightful.

Visiting a Green Area: Getting Around Once you arrive in a green area, new barriers might appear: are the paths and terrain accessible, are there necessary facilities, such as toilets for wheelchair users, rest areas where a wheelchair can be accommodated, proper maps and signposts with information at appropriate height? From the survey, it was very clear that difficulties in getting around in a green area was an important constraint to the majority of the participants (47/58) and for most an appropriate surface

32

condition was a key aspect of accessibility (56/58). The majority also stated that lack of service facilities was an important constraint to visiting green areas (41/58). One respondent stated that there is a need for more insight when planning infrastructure, such as toilets, “These should not be desktop products […] it is better to have someone with a wheelchair to test—then it would have been better”. What green areas you can visit also depends on what type of wheelchair you have, and your bodily strength. One man, who was very fit, used a manual wheelchair and could get around in quite a difficult terrain, while others were dependent on motorised wheelchairs. Some are designed for more difficult terrain—but these are very expensive and not always included in the list of assigned aids. This also relates to security since a visit to a green area may turn out to be impossible once you are there. A fear of ‘being stuck’ on a forest path prevented some respondents from even trying. Safety and security were depicted as an important aspect of access for 19 of 58 survey participants. According to several organisation representatives, information that makes people feel secure is essential to make nature excursions feasible for their members, and representatives stated that information is often lacking or poor. This included basic things such as signposts from the bus stop to the green area, that maps and information signs are legible, maintained and placed at an appropriate height for people in a wheelchair. Some stressed the importance of pictures and videos, as information material about an area— since these can add valuable information. Even when information was provided, or when efforts had been made to make an area more accessible, it often did not ‘go the whole way’. As expressed by one respondent, “…just because [other] people consider that something is accessible it does not mean that it is usable”. He added that people in a wheelchair often are made to feel welcome, but that this is not the same as the area actually being accessible. Organisation representatives see the need for more careful planning, done by people with true

A. Dahlberg et al.

insight, including people using a wheelchair, and that funding for this needs to be provided. Weather was mentioned as a barrier. One woman explained the risk of becoming cold outdoors and then having problems getting warm again. Rain can be a problem since the electronics in certain types of wheelchairs are too sensitive. However, the negative effects of weather were mainly due to a lack of maintenance. Too much snow or ice on paths, unploughed pavements or parking spaces designated for disabled, muddy paths and slopes, gravel not removed after snow-melt—all may pose barriers. All respondents visited urban nature much more in summer, but some were adamant that access to urban nature was essential to them also in winter. This was confirmed by the results from the survey that showed less frequency and duration of visits, and people not visiting green spaces at all during winter. For example, 29 of the survey participants answered that visits occurred for several hours in summer, whereas only 2 claimed this for the winter season (Fig. 2b). Thirty-seven survey respondents answered that they visit a green space more than once a week during summer, while in winter only 10 agreed with this statement (Fig. 2a).

Access Revisited: To “What Nature”? Several respondents claimed that they usually moved around in parks, rather than forests and less managed nature—since access was easier. However, they added that when they could access more ‘wild’ nature they really appreciated it. Many commented on the ambivalence they felt concerning making nature more accessible. According to some respondents a sense of ‘wild’ nature was partly lost if the path was paved, but that this might be the only way to make it accessible. One woman who enjoyed more unplanned nature still commented, “…it is hard if one is disabled to enter in the adventure of the nature experience, and stop and look [at nature], because you are totally busy with checking the ground, can I drive there or here. It is hard to

A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access … Fig. 2 a Seasonal variation of frequency of visits (#58). b Seasonal variation of length of visits to urban nature per season (#58)

Frequency of visits per season

a 40

33

37

35 30 25 20

15

14

15

13

10

10

6

4

5

7

5

5

0 More than once a week

Once a week

A few times per month Summer

Once a month or less often

Never

Winter

Time spent per visit per season

b 35

29

30 25

21

21

18

20

15

15 10 5

3

2

4 1

2

0 0-30 minutes

30-60 minutes

Several hours Summer

watch for birds and so because the effort of moving demands so much concentration if you are not on asphalt”. However, she added that for her the concept of ‘nature experience’ included to face physical challenges, “the prerequisites change compared to the everyday, and then you must see to it that [the nature] visit becomes a challenge in itself.” A young man thought it was good that the main paths were easy to move on with a wheelchair, but also that the forest was crisscrossed by natural paths, some of which he could partly access. The organisations’ representatives stated that for their members it was important to access more challenging nature, to venture out into places they first thought they

I am not outdoors during this season

I don't know

Winter

could not manage. This way they became more independent and dared to face other challenges in life. All organisations represented here worked with access to urban nature. They highlighted the need for strategies and tools to improve access and they perform inventories of nature accessibility and support their members to overcome barriers. Representatives had similar, but also diverging, thoughts about adaptations for increased accessibility. Some mentioned universal design, which means full accessibility and usability for all, where the individual does not experience a disability. As one representative expressed it, “… [if I can] walk with all others,

34

then I do not have a disability…[…] It is not my disability that messes things up but it is the surrounding”. Another representative was of a different opinion, “You have to have some balance and understanding for the overall society”, and he went on, “I want it to be as adapted as possible in nature, but you must not sacrifice the natural feeling, or sense of nature. […] There has to be a balance. That is very important. One organisation representative stated that one also had to consider how adaptations, “… may interfere with other peoples’ nature experience”. However, she added that approximately 20–25% of the population have some form of disability, and that “One has to consider them. End of discussion!”. According to her, there is so much nature in Stockholm so that if some are made accessible there is still much left. When adaptations are made in large urban green areas only a part is affected and there is much nature left for those who want to get away from paved paths and facilities. She added that in her experience when adaptations are made—that is where everyone walks and that many adaptations are already made to meet different interests, e.g. lightened trails, riding trails and motocross tracks, so why not prepare a suitable ground cover for wheelchairs. Another organisation representative stressed that since official proclamations talk about nature for ‘all people’, we must afford adaptations for people in wheelchairs (Photo 3).

Inventories with Limitations Inventories of access, and ways to improve access, to urban nature for people depending on a wheelchair usually started through short-term projects financed in different ways. These projects tended to depend partly on voluntary work and lasted for a few months to a few years. The idea to start such a project and apply for funding came from dedicated individuals inside or outside organisations. When the project ended, or the driving individual left, the organised nature

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Photo 3 Access to picnic areas and viewpoints also in tricky terrain can be made possible. Here in Flatens nature reserve, South Stockholm (Photo by Anders Andrae, 2019-05-05)

outings, or the maintenance of information and adaptations, usually ceased. Most private individuals interviewed were positive about these projects, and rarely commented on the fact that they were short-lived, but organisation representatives stressed the importance of not allowing these efforts to be a one-off occurrence. One can inspire people through guided tours and study circles, but for inexperienced nature visitors, this needs to be followed up—which brings us back to the vulnerability of projects. Once the initial idea had gained momentum, it is important with collaboration, personal networks and meetings with the users, local and regional authorities and other organisations. One organisation representative mentioned that municipalities often are interested in numbers, such as how many use a specific path or track, while he believed more qualitative studies were needed to understand why people use or do not use different green areas. Finally, some private respondents stressed how important it was to do follow-up visits to check that the changes installed really functioned and that the “paths” created were really used. Even more important was “to get things right from the start”, and this necessitated collaboration with people in wheelchairs with different degrees of disabilities.

A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access …

6

Discussion

One of our primary aims was to allow the voices of the participants of our study to be ‘heard’, as advocated e.g. by political ecology scholars such as Svarstad and Benjaminsen (2020) and Loftus (2020). Therefore, our discussion is structured in accordance with respondents’ lived experiences through time and space, and related to theories within the field of environmental justice, i.e. distribution, recognition, procedure and capability (Schlosberg 2004, 2007). We find that the theoretical approach to environmental justice described by Anguelovski et al. (2020) in essence is covered within the theories and concepts mentioned above, and we agree on the importance to stress the complexity of the field. Following Loftus’s (2020) exploration, this chapter started with questions concerning who are ‘the people’ and we highlighted how problematic it is to categorise people, groups, natures and themes, whereas, in reality, all categories tend to be ‘fluid’ (Dahlberg 2015). Environmental justice literature has had a tendency to see defined groups as homogenous, while in reality, circumstances within them differ (Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020). The participants in our study very well illustrate this diversity when talking about what is urban nature and what is access, where the main commonality is that they use a wheelchair. However, in spite of this, we found more common patterns than divergences.

Multiple Nature Values for All ‘the People’ as Part of Everyday Life Our results clearly show that what is valued and why, was very similar among respondents, and these values are basically identical to those found in the qualitative study by Corazon et al. (2019) and the quantitative study by Stigsdotter et al. (2018), both with a focus on people with mobility disabilities. This is also confirmed in a study by Burns et al. (2013) on people with disabilities (including wheelchair users) irrespective of whether the setting was urban or rural

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natures. Specific values include plants, animals, scenery, beauty, tranquillity as well as challenges and new experiences. Not surprisingly, these values compare very well with studies on the relationship to urban nature by society at large (Chiesura 2004; Bertram and Rehdanz 2015). However, even if these values are very similar across society, we show that they may be experienced as especially important by people in a wheelchair since access is much more limited. Our results highlight, which is mirrored in Corazon et al. (2019), that nearby green areas are highly valued because they are near, provide the possibility of everyday access, and where beauty and safety are assured. Neighbourhood access to nature allows viewing from home, short trips, less preparation, less stress, managed without the necessity of transport and with less need of assistance—and therefore stands out as a justice issue as compared to analysis of ‘all urban nature’ (Olsson et al. 2020). This also corresponds to findings by Schipperijn et al. (2010) who found that nearby nature is more important to those with reduced mobility, as compared to society in general. Some respondents described negative changes to their neighbourhood’s urban nature due to urbanization, where their everyday nature had diminished, which is also experienced by people in general (Turner et al. 2004; Soga and Gaston 2016)—but may be more important for those dependent on a wheelchair. Respondents, including voices from organisations described how they or their members, often have limited economical resources, e.g. to purchase a terrain wheelchair, and limited rights to assistance, which further limits mobility and thereby access to green areas. When urbanisation occurs through densification—e.g. in-between houses—at the expense of local green areas (Turner et al. 2004; and for Stockholm see Furberg (2019), urban landscape planning and management must safeguard and even increase nearby urban green areas that are varied, accessible, but still challenging and of high quality. Our results show that people value what they have, but if they get the opportunity to visit different types of urban and peri-urban nature,

36

their portfolios of values increase. For example, to be introduced to less managed nature areas in a safe manner (guided, well informed, smooth from planning to arriving back home) allows you to test and potentially increase your capabilities. Capability is an aspect of environmental justice that includes functioning (Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020), i.e. what people value doing or being (Walker 2012), and we stress that not only does this differ between individuals, but that capability can change—if opportunities are improved. This means that increased attention to support people’s capabilities is important to realise urban green area access for all, which the review by Rutt and Gulsrud (2016) also makes clear. Environmental justice is also about distribution (Schlosberg 2004), in our case access to urban nature in a wide sense, where our respondents mentioned the value of e.g. nearby parks, street trees and spaces with green in between houses, but also the accessibility of e.g. allotment gardens and more untouched nature whether situated in urban or peri-urban settings. However, it should be stressed here that distribution is not only about providing an environmental good but also the quality of that good (cf. Walker 2009; Hughey et al. 2016).

Barriers to Access and Means to Overcome Them Our results exemplify many barriers to accessing urban green areas experienced by people using a wheelchair as well as efforts to overcome these. The need for research on barriers to access is highlighted in Stigsdotter et al. (2018), where they found that people with mobility disabilities visit green areas less frequently than the general public. This ties into the study by Hitchings (2013) which focuses on why people do not visit urban green areas, although it is seemingly accessible. We have described a palette of barriers, mental, social and physical, organised as a time-line which Corazon et al. (2019) separate into barriers (physical) and constraints where the latter are personal, contextual and relational factors that “can be negotiated and possibly

A. Dahlberg et al.

overcome” (ibid.: 3). To some extent, our results agree with this, but that depends on who should do the ‘overcoming’. There are many more barriers to access urban green areas than the physical ones, which is also found by Corazon et al. (2019). According to our respondents, barriers include everything from thinking about a nature outing, planning it, getting there and back and the feelings afterwards. They start in our minds, where mental barriers concerning the effort a nature outing entails and are exacerbated by a lack of information, knowledge and experience, as well as opportunities. This is also exemplified in Burns et al. (2013), where in their study on countryside recreation they conclude that for some the risk involved is a stimulus, but that for others it means they stay at home. It is clear that decisionmakers, urban planners and managers of urban green areas (including peri-urban areas) and public transport (in multiple forms and including management and information), could and should go a long way to make visits to urban green areas more accessible and thereby more just. Thus, there is a need to take barriers, in a wide sense, into account. In Stockholm efforts are being made by various non-governmental organisations to improve access for people using a wheelchair, as exemplified in our results, and also stated as an ambition to recognize ‘all people’ in green area planning and management (Stockholm Stad 2017). However, our results indicate that these efforts usually occur as projects, something that has not been highlighted in previous research on people with mobility disabilities, although discussed elsewhere (Ehnert et al. 2018). Instead of more strategic, long-term and holistic, and wellanchored approaches, we see short-term projects that have a delimited coverage, funding and life span, and that appear quite external to mainstream decision-making (cf. Borgström 2019). The question is what happens to overall improvements when the project is ended, e.g. adaptations in urban green areas, in transport and trustworthy information. In addition, such projects build up valuable knowledge and experience, tied to individuals, and there is a risk that

A Nearby Park or Forest Can Become Mount Everest. Access …

this is lost when the project ends. Not to mention the money spent, that has short-term positive effects—and which with a different strategy could have more long-term positive effects. Furthermore, where and by whom these efforts are made seems to be partly by chance, through individual networks and largely dependent on engaged and idealistic individuals, which puts the endurance of the effort into question (cf. Olsson et al. 2020). Our results, both from organisations and private individuals, emphasise the need to involve people using a wheelchair in policy making, planning and individual projects, and not see them as a homogenous group. People in a wheelchair have different capabilities—and many voices need to be part of planning and testing how urban green areas and urban natures in a wider meaning can become more accessible. This means that they need to be recognised, as a group but also as a group with differences, as stressed by e.g. Schlosberg (2007) and Svarstad and Benjaminsen (2020). Apart from recognition —which is necessary—the group in question needs to be part of the planning and decisionmaking process, as illustrated above and discussed as procedural justice in e.g. Walker (2009, 2012), for just access to really come into effect in an actual green area. Our results indicate that although some voices are heard, this is not enough and seldom follows the path from recognition to the actual procedure.

Accessibility and “Untouched” Nature Our respondents described adaptations and improvements that would make their trips to urban and peri-urban green areas possible and/or more enjoyable. However, when it came to barriers encountered within more “wild” urban green areas many highlighted the need to find a balance between “adapted nature” and “untouched nature”. While respondents in our study wished to access “the wild”, they simultaneously acknowledged that large adaptations would be necessary if all urban nature should be accessible to them. This would change the nature experience for everyone, also for them, wherefore they

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called for a balance where “untouched nature” should be accessible to be experienced to varying degrees, even when this meant only seeing parts of it. That is, they accepted that ‘nature can impose its own barriers’. These findings correspond to those of Corazon et al. (2019) where respondents stated that it was important that the natural character of the areas should not be compromised. On the other hand, some organisation representatives in our study spoke about “universal design” implying that basically, everything should be accessible for all, although the ‘universality’ is debated also by those who advocate this stance. To this can be added the findings by Burns et al. (2013)—although not in an urban setting—that authorities in the UK are going all the way to minimize risk, including advising people not to venture out in not completely managed nature—thereby restricting the possibilities for people with mobility disabilities to experience values that might enrich their lives. One may think that justice means that all should have exactly the same, but in this case, environmental goods from an environmental justice perspective should be understood and planned so people can get access in line with their interests, needs and capabilities (Walker 2009). To achieve this, one has to consider all central components of environmental justice as explored by e.g. Schlosberg (2007), Rutt and Gulsrud (2016), Svarstad and Benjaminsen (2020) and others, i.e. distributional, recognition, procedural (or participation) justice and capabilities theory.

7

Conclusion: Access to Urban Green Areas Through the Lens of Environmental Justice

Our study focused on three main objectives. The first two, ‘values of urban natures to people in wheelchair, and how these may differ’, and ‘factors that act as enablers or barriers to urban green area access to this group’ are illustrated throughout the results and discussed in comparison with the few previous studies conducted on these themes. We hope to have conveyed not only their importance but also their complexity.

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The third objective, ‘the implications of these issues analysed from an environmental justice perspective’ is more analytical and our ambition has been to indicate and deepen various links to access and accessibility. The lens of environmental justice is useful for our understanding of what is lacking and what can be improved in terms of just access to urban nature. This includes all groups in society, also those dependent on a wheelchair. There needs to be a carefully planned distribution (Schlosberg 2004) of green areas, which reaches all neighbourhoods. In planning these green areas, one needs to recognize all voices—and show them that they are recognised (Walker 2009, 2012; Svarstad and Benjaminsen 2020). Once this is in place, various voices can claim a position in the procedurally just planning, i.e. inclusive participation in planning, decision-making and management (Schlosberg 2007). Throughout discussions of urban green areas and access, capabilities need to be recognised and treated fairly (Rutt and Gulsrud 2016). This is especially important in the context of rapidly densifying cities where many groups with impaired or restricted mobility— kids, elderly and disabled—are most affected when local green areas are exploited. Here we have focused on people in a wheelchair, a group that has been sorely neglected in studies of access to and use of urban green areas. For this group, as well as all ‘the people’ (Loftus 2020)— we agree with Rutt and Gulsrud (2016) on the strong need for further studies with an environmental justice perspective on how urban green areas are distributed, and how access to recognition and to the procedural levels in planning, decision-making and management functions in reality. Here also people that do not utilise urban green areas should be included. Acknowledgements We thank all who have participated in providing experiences and thoughts which have guided this study, i.e. all people interviewed and those who participated in the survey. We are very grateful for your open and insightful responses. We thank Anders Andrae for thoughts and photos. Finally, we thank our reviewers for their reflections which have improved the text. This research was funded by FORMAS (project number 201600331).

A. Dahlberg et al.

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Not My Green Space? White Attitudes Towards Black Presence in UK Green Spaces. An Auto-ethnography Beth Collier

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Introduction: Urban Green Space, Rural Green Space, Whose Dichotomy? I grew up on a smallholding in a rural village in East Anglia, immersed in nature. I learnt about the natural world wandering the fields, fens and heathlands that gave me a sense of home. I absorbed knowledge through a communion with nature observing and contemplating, and from elders who shared stories and knowledge about plants and animals. I was part of a very small minority of Black people in the UK who live in the countryside.1 In later life, moving into cities for work and community, I became interested in giving voice to Black people’s experiences of being in nature and to research the reasons why we are less present in natural settings in the UK than white people (Collier 2019b). As a Black naturalist working in environmental spaces where most people encountered are white (Ends Report 2020; Natural England 2018), I’ve spent a lot of time exploring issues around why Black people tend to spend more time in nature in countries of heritage than in the UK; looking at the factors which

1 Census figures from 2011 show that 1.8% of the UK population of people of Black African descent live in rural areas (UK Government 2018).

become barriers within our lives in the west, the consequences - what we miss out on due to having less contact with nature - and the ways in which we can rebuild bridges to the natural world. (Author)

Within the environmental field there is wide acknowledgement that Black people are less present in nature than white people (Natural England 2017, 2019). Predominantly white middle class, the sector has traditionally taken the view that people of colour are less interested in nature or that it isn’t within our culture. My research shows there is an alternative perspective centred in Black experience, indicating a need to reframe the issue of presence in nature to consider the impact of white attitudes within the environmental field and amongst the wider public, towards Black people in nature. This includes the impact of racism and ‘othering’ in creating an emotional boundary which serves to keep people away and emphasises a sense of Black people not belonging. The premise of this book about contested urban green space and environmental justice is that a distinction can be made between experiences in rural and urban green spaces (cf. Plüschke-Altof and Sooväli-Sepping in this volume), based on geographic markers. In a European context, the boundary between city green spaces and countryside might make sense for a white person, because their ethnicity means the issue is measured simply by the geography of

B. Collier (&) Wild in the City, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Plüschke-Altof and H. Sooväli-Sepping (eds.), Whose Green City?, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04636-0_3

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B. Collier

where you are,2 in an urban area or rural countryside. As a Black person it makes less sense, the boundaries are not so distinct, I’m deemed to be ‘the city’ whether or not I’m in the city. That rather than being judged by the geographic terrain, the ‘space’ I’m in is prejudged by the colour of my skin. That to be Black is to be urban—to have a city belonging—regardless of my being of the countryside. In the countryside, I’m constantly met with ‘you’re not from here are you?’ A presumption based on my visible ethnicity, rather than my history or my lived experience. Often when white people encounter me in nature the fact of where I grew up, live or where we are in that moment is irrelevant. I do not belong in nature. In this chapter I am contextualising issues of environmental justice related to race within green spaces per se. The documented experiences weave between urban and rural boundaries, confrontational responses in the city to my being in the ‘environmental space’, and hostile experiences in the countryside because I’m perceived as ‘the city’.

2

Conceptualisation

Black People in Nature The findings of my ethnographic research on people of colour's relationship with nature show that experience of racism and the fear of encountering racism are core reasons why Black people spent less time in nature in the UK than white people (see also: Collier 2019b). For many people of colour, the desire to be connected with nature is strong but in many cases it is the relationship with other humans that has made natural settings feel unsafe. Many respondents reflected on how, in countries of heritage, their family’s cultural life was embedded in knowledge of the land, plants and seasons. On migration, they gathered in cities 2

I acknowledge the simplification here, and that class and other factors have an impact on how urban and rural spaces are experienced by white people, but typically these other factors are less visible until revealed through interaction, whereas a person of colours’ out of placeness is marked visibly by their appearance.

for support networks and a sense of safety in numbers. Black people encountered hostile white attitudes in establishing themselves; ‘no Blacks, no dogs, no Irish’ was a common sign displayed by landlords. These white attitudes towards our presence framed where it felt safe to go. Experiencing racism in areas with higher numbers of people of colour is scary, the idea of encountering it in areas which are remote, with low numbers of people of colour and where you are more visible, is intimidating. For many, a desire to protect younger generations from racism meant elders dissuaded people from venturing into open countryside with the notion that ‘it’s not for us’. The erosion of our relationship with nature leads to loss; both a psychological loss of connection to a nurturing habitat and a loss of generational knowledge about the natural world, creating a trauma in being disconnected from green spaces. A means of coping can develop which involves denying the significance of nature within our lives. We become avoidant and nature is dismissed and trivialised, whilst the spaces that do feel safe(r) take on more significance, an urban identity comes to provide a sense of home and belonging. Spending time in nature becomes associated as being a white endeavour. It is revealing that it is the experience of how Black people were received by white people which impacted on where Black people felt safe to go, not the geographical terrain itself. In London, we mourn that postcode hostilities can restrict how safe some children feel to roam into adjacent streets (Thompson 2012). Black adults too can find themselves feeling restricted to limited areas of space in the country because we feel unsafe to roam outside of a certain distance or habitat, reducing the size of our personal geographical comfort zone. Racism forges psychological boundaries between us and the natural world, of where we see ourselves as (not) belonging. Racial trauma and a sense of risk plays a role in keeping us confined to city spaces. A significant theme emerging within my research was the negative responses of white people, practitioners and organisations towards Black people in nature, contributing to a feeling of not belonging. A colonial legacy still informs

Not My Green Space? White Attitudes Towards Black Presence …

dynamics of race in green spaces (Mbira and Ogoda 2016) with a perception of white people as superior custodians and gatekeepers, prompting an existential threat to Black individuals and organisations in environmental spaces.

Racism and ‘Othering’ in Natural Settings Within the UK, we’re more used to conceiving the geography of racism as being situated within concreted city contexts (98.2% of people of colour live in urban areas, UK Government 2018). Access to land isn’t typically seen as part of the UK experience of racism, in the way that it is in the African context (Mbira and Ogoda 2016), access includes being in the space as much as ownership. There is a racism that is specific to the presence of Black people in green open spaces, the sense of an intrusion is particular to this being ‘a green and pleasant land’, at risk from outsiders. We’ve negotiated space in the cities that we have yet to do in the countryside. There is an unspoken social contract that Black people are tolerable in cities but are overstepping by being in the countryside, which has operated as a colour bar. To contextualise the white attitudes encountered in natural settings and the environmental field, we need to understand the historical relationship between white supremacy and environmental movements, many of which, for example, WWF and National Geographic, were founded by eugenicists and white supremacists (Collier 2019a). The colonial rationale made correlations between a natural hierarchy of races (the superiority and purity of white people) and of pure and pristine landscapes, giving rise to the idea of white people as the better custodians of nature. The presence of Black people was seen to taint the landscape, and so were removed, brutally, from their homelands and in the process divesting peoples of their relationship with nature (Steinhart 2006). The mythologising of Black people as backward, primitive, ignorant and harmful to nature was used to justify this subjugation. The colonial lens (cf. Fanon 2008)

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stigmatised Black people, generating negative messages about our relationship with nature as either shameful (we’re primitive for being close to the natural world), or incompetent (we don’t know how to act in nature/we harm nature), whilst appropriating non-western traditional ecological knowledge. Our relationship with nature has been colonised; controlled and exploited. In my interactions within the environmental field it is evident that many people still see presence in nature through this colonial lens. We are welcome as long as we submit to white paternal gatekeepers, as long as the role we take is to follow. In nature we are there as ‘guests’ who need to be encouraged and supervised. Beginners but not independent experienced leaders.

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Methodology

Participant Observation: Black Ethnographer Witnessing Whiteness Between 2016 and 2019, I conducted ethnographic research exploring people of colors’ relationship with nature in the UK, documenting the causal flow which has led to a disconnection for many Black and Asian people living in the UK (Collier 2019b). I thereby seek to contribute to the research on green space (non)use of minority groups (see also: Dahlberg et al. and Pungas et al. in this volume). My research was conducted in London using participant observation, as a Black Nature Allied Psychotherapist3 and a naturalist working within the environmental field teaching woodland living skills and natural history. I’m the Director of Wild in the City, an organisation supporting the well-being of urban residents through a relationship with nature. We offer programmes in natural history, woodland living skills, hiking and eco-therapy; rebuilding the oral tradition for learning about 3 Nature Allied Psychotherapy is a modality of ongoing psychotherapy taking place in natural settings. In addition to exploring our human social relationships, it creates the opportunity to explore and develop our relationship with nature.

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nature. Through my work with Wild in the City, I led reflective sessions in the woods around the campfire, and as a Nature Allied psychotherapist facilitated one to one conversations within the psychotherapeutic process; exploring the role nature plays in our lives and the reasons why it may or may not feature strongly in our daily experiences. The research drew from engagement during Wild in the City programmes and events in London and the South East of England. Participants were of African, Asian and Native American ethnicity between the ages of 20 and 67 years, residing throughout London. Although London is typified as concrete sprawl, 47% of the capital is physically composed of green space, including 1,400 sites of importance for nature conservation, 3000 parks and two National Nature Reserves. There are extensive tracts of open countryside, woodland and grasslands within the London Boroughs. The core research centred around Nature Connectors, a six-week programme introducing people to local habitats and the wildlife living there, sharing knowledge about natural history, practical woodland living skills and having time around the fire to talk about our relationships with nature. Some attending had spent little time in nature before, for those that were experienced in nature they had often been the ‘only one’ in a group of white people. For most participants, Nature Connectors was a first experience of being with other people of colour in nature. I also collected reflective conversation during the Wild in the City Festival, monthly hikes and in conversation as part of the Black community. This chapter explores my experiences in the environmental field as a participant observer; as a Black naturalist, leading a Black focused organisation, whilst conducting ethnographic research. It provides an account of the layers of challenge in participating in the field, how systemic racism manifests and what exclusion looks like in environmental spaces. The case studies and examples are drawn from engagement with peer organisations, professional membership bodies, delivery in the field, policy development, sectoral meetings and conferences, leading groups in green spaces and consulting on race with

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environmental professionals. There is much material to share on these issues, only a small selection can be presented here in trying to find a balance between providing theoretical analysis and notes from the field. The focus lies on addressing the question of white attitudes within the environmental space towards Black people in nature and how they contribute to a lower presence of Black people in environmental space. Within this account I seek to elucidate the expressions of those white people who consciously and unconsciously resist Black presence in nature. Black presence in the ‘environmental space’ isn’t just our physical or geographical presence in natural settings, it includes sharing our perspectives about nature and the environment and participating in office-based meetings and conferences.

Reflections on Positionality: Autoethnography in the Face of Racism There are many layers to the experience of being a Black female practitioner in nature. The social reality of racism means that a focus on race has been demanded in order to make room for myself to be able to simply engage with nature and not the human interference which questions my belonging and place in this space. As an autoethnography I have had to make a choice about whether to deconstruct a small range of examples to illustrate resistant white attitudes, giving a sense of the depth of the emotional impact and effect on our ability to participate, or to give a briefer analysis of a larger spectrum of encounters to make clear the range of challenges in ‘being’ in green spaces. I have decided to offer the latter— largely because in this understudied area I feel the reportage is important, to give voice. However, this means that I lose something of the richness of the contextualisation in which these encounters happened (Wolcott 2008) and the affect and effect that they had. The affect would speak to moments of exasperation, shock and fear from being undermined, misunderstood and belittled. The effect would document the threat to the feasibility and sustainability of Wild in the City as a Black

Not My Green Space? White Attitudes Towards Black Presence …

institution in the environmental field, due to a lack of resources and regard, leading to periods of exhaustion or withdrawal. In choosing a place from which to collect ethnographic data for her work which would become Mules and Men, Zora Neale Hurston explained in 1935 that she chose to go back home, to a location she knew well, as it would facilitate safety as well as access for a Black female ethnographer in the rural south of the United States: ‘I hurried back to Eatonville because I knew that the town was full of material and that I could get it without hurt, harm or danger’. (Hurston 2008). Without hurt, harm or danger. Considerations of safety have long been at the front of mind for Black ethnographers, even when researching ‘at home’. Black environmental ethnographer, Frances Roberts Gregory, recounts hostilities which have been intimidating, contributing to feeling an imposter in the environmental space: a white environmental organiser snatched meeting notes out of my hands and declared that the compiled information was not meant for me. She additionally demanded that none of my personal meeting notes be used for my dissertation and commented frequently on security issues and the need to protect the group against spies. Her aggressive and controlling actions continued even after I was vetted by other group members and publicly explained my intentions and professional affiliations. […] She felt entitled to police and question my dedication, authenticity, and sincerity due to the intersections of my educational status, race, and gender. Due to these ongoing micro and macroaggressions, I also experience severe imposter syndrome, night terror, embarrassment, and anxiety. I, for example, rarely feel sufficiently well-read in the diverse canons I claim. This absurd insecurity impacts my confidence as a doctoral researcher. It also impacts my willingness to be vulnerable with environmental professionals and embrace my expertise. (Gregory 2020)

Like Hurston (2008), I chose a location I was familiar with for my research, although centred in London which is not my ‘home’ ground, the focus on (a) natural settings as a location and (b) nature as a relationship, and (c) the experience of racism within this setting, is my formative terrain. However, whereas researching

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within a community of people of colour did lend itself to safety, my wider participant observation within the environmental field, as a Black practitioner, did lead to hurt, harm and danger, as also experienced by Gregory (2020). During my work I have been subject to racism; threatened, excluded and presumed to be less than. Existentially, my position in the field has often been made untenable and I have stepped back from spaces and opportunities to feel safe from intimidation and aggression (with an element of being chased out, this has also been a proactive choice in the face of hostility); in effect racism creating a constructive dismissal from environmental spaces. The reality for Black women in fields and spaces where we are not considered as belonging is that there is risk in undertaking research and in participating. In going back to my ‘home terrain’ negotiating harm was a part of the work. Harm is one of the reasons why my organisation shifted to a Black focus. During my ethnographic study on ‘people of colour’s relationship with nature’ a parallel process emerged. Whilst working in the field and conducting participant observation, the same racial dynamics being revealed by the study were reproduced. In parallel to the historical legacy shown in the experiences of Black research participants—as a researcher I had moments of feeling unsafe and of retreating away from general participation in the environmental field, to find ‘safety in numbers’ with people of colour. Colonialism was at work whilst I studied it (cf. Fanon 2008). Much discussion on physical and psychological safety in the field of ethnographic practice, is concerned with the presence of violent state actors, gangs, conflict zones or other areas which are acknowledged as potential sources of violence. Less attention is given to the impact on ethnographers when the violence is directed at the ethnographer specifically, when operating in a context where there is not considered to be a problem with violence. This dynamic can occur within racist contexts which seek to deny or subjugate the presence or voice of an ‘other’. As Black people we often encounter the hostile ‘shadow’ of a ‘respectable’

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society which is held by many white people to be safe and friendly. Thus we can be impacted by existential, racial trauma in settings where there is denial of any hostility.

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Analysis

Black Disenfranchisement from Nature For many people of colour, the fear of enmity from white people in nature and the countryside have led to disenfranchisement, of being made to feel that we are intruding and not entitled to be there. At the extreme, the countryside has been a place of bullying and death for being perceived as not belonging, racism which is triggered by being seen as out of place and ‘other’ (BBC 2020a, BBC 2020b). There is a silence around racism in green spaces, even when incidents are reported in the news. Many people of colour feel an apprehension on stepping into nature especially in more remote and open spaces wondering how they are going to be received. During my research, an African Caribbean woman in her 40s expressed her fear of isolation in visiting green spaces: Depending on where it is I feel a bit concerned, I feel a bit vulnerable. I think that’s the best word to use. If I’m with somebody I’m fine, if I’m by myself it’s like ‘Hello, is this somewhere I should be?’ So it’s like I don’t kind of have the confidence to know, you know just to be – in that space, it’s like whoa, I’m not normally used to being here, and if it’s somewhere not near a bus where I can just go about my business it’s a bit of a worry. If I don’t see people like me, it concerns me, you know. That’s how I feel, it’s a bit vulnerable. Definitely. (Nature Connectors Participant 2018)

A woman of Jamaican heritage in her late 40s explained the discomfort of the contradiction of being made to feel both visible and invisible: I have been put off from exploring green spaces out of London, I’d love to do country walks and go into the woods and all that kind of stuff, I love that idea but yeah on occasion when I have actually adventured to different parts of the UK. I have felt very excluded, it’s not necessarily because people are calling me names or anything. It’s just I’ve felt very invisible; I haven’t been made to feel welcome.

And the fact of just not seeing any faces like mine, that in itself is quite excluding and I felt quite uncomfortable. I felt very uncomfortable actually, very uncomfortable. […] It’s that thing of being a visible outsider, so it’s more a case of just being ignored, but you’re being watched very closely. And just the way that people interact with me in those spaces. You know that kind of stuff happens in London but I think outside of London, you don’t have to go that far out of London to see that behaviour magnified. […] For me it’s not so much confidence, but how I’m going to be treated and how I’m going to be made to feel when I go into these spaces. (Nature Connectors participant 2018)

A woman of Vietnamese heritage in her early 30s expressed a fear that her younger relatives might experience racism in the countryside, like she had. She describes an inner turmoil, wrestling with wanting to protect her relatives from racism and wanting to encourage them into natural settings and feeling she might not be able to do both: I’ve been getting out into nature a bit more and I think I’ve been getting a bit more confidence, but I still think to be honest, I have this vision of going to the New Forest and camping. But a part of me, I’m really protective of my family, and because I’m older and I feel like I can take it ’cos I’ve been through it and stuff. If my niece was to be called names, like Chinky, in the country - in the middle of the forest, I don’t know if I could stand there ‘put them on the fire’ you know. And then I was thinking to myself is that maybe why our parents did it, to protect us, like we know you might get bullied so maybe I’ll take you away from that. But then in the long run it creates a bigger problem because we’re not integrated into that kind of thing. It kind of made me think. It’s like my dream to go camping in the New Forest with my family and stuff but then a part of me is like, would we get that racism? Because to be honest we did when we moved away into the countryside. We had people, even children sometimes not really knowing, would just say something and it’s horrible. You just ignore it as an adult but for children they can get hurt by the words so I think that still makes me a bit apprehensive […]

Where those I reflected with around the fire had tried to engage with nature-based organisations and their activities, not seeing people who ‘looked like us’ made them feel uncomfortable. People experienced being othered and not being received as if their presence was normal or unremarkable. They encountered practitioners

Not My Green Space? White Attitudes Towards Black Presence …

who had a hostile or patronising gatekeeper mentality. The attitudes of white professionals emerged as a barrier to people of colour in engaging in nature activities. When I established Wild in the City in 2013 the intention was to work with everyone, but it became clear that not everybody wanted to work with a Black female lead. So the work became focused on people of colour (and racism) (a) as a response to disparities in numbers of people of colour active in nature, and (b) the racialised responses we experienced as a Black led organisation in the environmental space. Our work creates space for people of colour to address these experiences so that people can overcome what have been barriers to participation and feel safe and confident to enjoy nature and get involved with the wider environmental sector. As a specialist organisation we have been commissioned by or have received requests for consultation from Natural England, National Trust, Friends of the Earth, CPRE and Wildlife Trusts to name a few. We are recognised in our field for helping to break down barriers, although I’m not sure how explicitly other environmental organisations acknowledge that our work is addressing the impact of racism. Currently, we are one of only a few organisations with this specialism. The vast majority of provision in the environmental field comes from organisations, whose staffing typifies them as white middle class. When Wild in the City started to focus on people of colour, we wanted to just ‘be’ in the space, sharing subject knowledge and enjoyment of nature. However, it became clear that socially we were not yet at a stage where Black people could simply be in nature without our presence being politicised, whether we liked it or not, whether it is acknowledged or not. My experience in the environmental space is that introducing Black perspectives is often seen as controversial, a confrontational challenge to the supremacy of the white narrative. In 2018 a senior government advisor requested a consultation with me, he wanted to better understand how to engage ‘urban’ people in the environmental space. When I mentioned the words ‘…Black perspectives’ on why we were currently less engaged, he scoffed, shook his head and snorted

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with derision, mimicking the words back to me ‘Black perspectives?’ He was incredulous that there were perspectives contrary to the dominant narrative of the sector, or that indeed his and their perspective was ‘white’. I commonly encounter a lack of self-awareness from practitioners about how their own behaviour and attitudes can create barriers for people of colour. In 2015, I attended a seminar by a white woman in her late 20s who worked as an engagement officer for a central London green space. She was being inducted as a fellow into an environmental educators’ forum, and presented a slide with a picture of a San bushman crouched in grassland with a bow and arrow on the left side, contrasted with a white office worker at a desk with a computer on the right side, under the heading ‘Human Evolution’. Shocked, I looked around me to share the disbelief but didn’t see any reaction on the audience’s faces. I was the only person of colour there. Talking with her after the presentation, I was dismissed for raising that her slide could be construed as racist commentary about a perceived lack of development by ‘primitive’ Black peoples, ‘don’t be silly that’s not what it means’. Besides, she said, the office worker wasn’t white —he was light skinned middle eastern. Shadism didn’t mean anything to her. She spoke down to me, as if she was helping me to understand. The fact I was trying to offer her guidance went over her head. I didn’t mind her disagreeing with my feedback, but it was apparent that she didn’t see that that was what I was offering (as an older person, as a Black person, as a psychotherapist, as an ethnographer; none of these identities translated into giving my opinions validity for consideration). In her hierarchy, it wasn’t a possibility that I could have any insights to offer her. As such I don’t think she would have perceived herself to have been dismissive of me. She saw herself as kind, and concerned to have more people of colour attend her events.

Reframing the White Narrative The framing within the environmental and outdoor fields that Black people are less present in

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green spaces because we don’t value nature or that it’s not within our culture belies a history of Black people being disenfranchised from nature and the countryside. This isn’t to say that we don’t like nature, rather we don’t like how we’re made to feel by some white people when we’re in nature. Irma McClaurin discusses Ruth E Trotter White’s conceptualisation of autoethnography, the cultural study of one’s own people, as having an innate political function amongst othered and minority groups in ‘righting the ways in which a culture can be misrepresented and distorted by another that is outside—dominating or colonising’ (McClaurin 2001). I’ve often found myself a spectator from the floor at conferences whilst white practitioners from wildlife organisations are given a panel place to discuss the lack of Black participation, taking up space and then expressing bafflement, ‘we don’t know why Black people don’t like nature’ whilst ignoring and competing with organisations like my own which have answers explaining disparities in engagement. In trying to control the narrative rather than understand the issue of Black absence from Black perspectives, the environmental field uses a flawed starting point, which doesn’t consider any need for self-reflection about their own role in the dynamic. The narrative is rooted in a colonial attitude (Steinhart 2006) that they, the white middle class, are the proper custodians of nature. And from this standpoint they perceive themselves as ‘allowing’ us to be in space or sharing ‘their’ nature with us, making clear their sense of ownership not just of the space but of the issues. The lens is rarely turned to look at how white people feel about sharing space with Black people in nature. Instead of ‘what is going on with Black people, nature is here why aren’t they using it?’ a more pertinent question could be to consider the way in which white people respond to Black people in the environmental space; why do some white people have a problem with Black people being in nature? The framing of my research challenged an orthodoxy, that the environmental field and the countryside is welcoming to all, that any issue about lower levels of engagement in natural settings is to do with

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Black people and their attitudes, rather than having anything to do white people and their attitudes. I’ve encountered a forceful adherence to the narrative that Black people have a problem with nature or are the problem in nature by funders and environmental NGO Chief Executives during conversations in which they express wanting to understand issues of low engagement, to increase diversity and support us as a Black led organisation, nodding and taking notes when hearing about Black experiences of hostility and exclusion—accepting them as truthful but unable to name racism as a conclusion, defaulting back to a language depicting incompetence or ignorance in Black people as the issue.

Systematic Racism in Form of Multiple Exclusions from the Field I have encountered a range of exclusionary attitudes within the environmental space. The core resistant attitudes towards Black people in nature take the form of multiple exclusions, which I will explore here. These include: • exclusion ‘by the shadow’, in which the selfbelief of the environmental sector considers that it is welcoming and therefore any issue with nature must come from Black people, • exclusion as ‘less than’, positioning white people as gatekeepers with a superior knowledge, requiring us to be followers only or questioning our place in natural settings, • exclusion from the ‘last white bastion’, typically a more direct and overt hostile rejection of our presence, connected to a perception of Black people infiltrating or tarnishing green spaces, • economic exclusion, which erases our presence by limiting the feasibility of our participation and resonance of our voice, and undermining our capacity to provide services and leadership. The pressures of the constant inference that you are less than, inadequate and incompetent take their toll and can be demoralising. These

Not My Green Space? White Attitudes Towards Black Presence …

projections are used to validate others undermining you. When multiple individuals and agencies do this, although not consciously coordinated, it creates a system which is hostile to Black presence; systemic racism. A double consciousness is created in dealing with projections that the white environmental shadow casts onto Black people, which have nothing to do with who we really are. Double consciousness was described by Dubois (1903) as the struggle to reconcile two contrasting realities within the identity of being both Black and American, and the challenge of living under the scrutiny of the gaze of a white world and only getting to see ourselves as Black people from within that gaze: It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife – this longing to attain selfconscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. […] He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face. (DuBois 1903)

I have experienced the double consciousness created in encounters with whiteness, in which a white person engages with you as a figment of their imagination, rather than based on seeing you as an individual, which can challenge your self-knowledge as a Black person. This manifests as a projection by white individuals from their own shadow or a white collective consciousness onto Black people about who we are, which has nothing to do with the character of the Black individual being subjected to it. The white person interacts with the Black person as if this projection represents reality. They don’t see us and our individual attributes, only the story that they have attributed to us, rendering our actual presence superfluous. In this racialised dynamic, the projection is about maintaining order, a hierarchical sense of status and worth based on race and notions of white supremacy which may be

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conscious or unconscious. As a Black person there is distress in being connected to your own consciousness and in the awareness of fabricated characteristics being attributed to you by the white person or white collective (Fanon 2008), which is used to give themselves permission to treat you in a condescending way and from which you are perceived as difficult if you resist.

Exclusion by the Shadow The environmental field has a self-perception of being welcoming and open and determines therefore that any reluctance from Black people to be in nature is down to an issue with Black people. However, as people of colour we’re often having to deal with the field’s shadow. The shadow is a concept borrowed by Jung (1970) from the African body of knowledge, describing a manifestation of a hidden personality, containing repressed qualities which are less desirable than the ones cultivated and presented consciously or outwardly. The environmental field’s shadow and that of some white people, projects sentiments of us being less than and not belonging in nature. There is a white gaze towards Black people in green spaces which views us as outsiders, out of place, ignorant, destructive or suspicious. This shadow is alternately infantilising, castigating or aggressive; often all. It tends towards paternalistic gatekeeping, seeing the need to supervise us in nature. The shadow is rarely acknowledged and when we do try and speak to it we can be left feeling like a trouble maker, unnecessarily problematising matters; there is no racism. As Mbaria and Ogada (2016) describe, there is dis-ingenuity between the outward expression and covert agenda of the western mentality of supremacy, in a need to manage both nature and Black people in nature. As an organisation, Wild in the City has received criticism from some resistant white voices, arguing that we are ‘divisive’ for focusing on working with people of colour. It is a view that chooses to engage with the story at the point of our response to racism, and not the experiences leading to this decision. It weaponises denial in an attempt to put us back in our place. Increasingly, a growing white

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centred counter critical race theory views organisations like mine as practising ‘reverse racism’. This email sent to Wild in the City by a white teacher illustrates this antagonism: Hi, I teach children in an urban underprivileged location. Although I would love to promote your website to my pupils, I think it would be unfair to promote a company that is mainly for Black young people without also providing information about parallel opportunities for mainly white young people. Can you point me in the right direction for these sites so that I can continue to promote opportunities for everyone? Thank you.4

The urban underprivileged location she is referring to is Torquay, a coastal resort town in Devon, south-west England, many miles from London where we offer most of our services. In her passive aggression, she is denying the existence of racism and therefore the validity of our work. There are very few Black focused nature groups in the UK, there are hundreds of organisations which cater for ‘mainly white young people’ as the teacher puts it. If she was able to find us, she would be able to find them. Her demands (which she repeated over three emails) that we supply her with resources which she is capable of finding for herself shows a desire to reassert power over us, and therefore her sense of hierarchy, by getting us to do something for her she doesn’t actually need. Her insinuation that by countering the impact of racism we are discriminatory, follows a racist trope which denies the reality that people of colour have different lived experiences and she is instead postulating that it isn’t the racism that’s the problem, it’s the people who talk about racism that are the problem. A moot apology, required by her Head Teacher, shows the shadow voice vs the professed voice: I wrote to you with no malice intended, a genuine enquiry. I didn’t mean to cause any offence to you or anyone in doing this and I apologise if my comments came across in a different way.5

4 5

Email received by Wild in the City, November 2020. Personal correspondence, 29 March 2021.

The presence of the environmental field’s shadow creates additional work for practitioners of colour, in effect necessitating two jobs. One being the (acknowledged) job that we’re here to do, sharing knowledge about nature, and the second (unacknowledged) role, imposed on us by the shadow, is navigating the impacts of racism and white supremacy that we can be confronted with in response to our presence or in trying to articulate our experiences. This includes the pressures of opening up spaces where few Black people have been before, sitting with and processing the response to us being in a space where people don’t expect us, efforts to promote representation and creating pathways for other people of colour to join you in a space. All of this work to counter the impact of racism is on top of your work teaching about the natural world. It creates additional demand on resources of time, energy, money and motivation.

Exclusion as ‘Less Than’ There is a particular kind of exclusion created by the perception of our being ‘less than’, regardless of our true abilities, which erases our skills and experiences, subjugates our knowledge and impedes our potential. The shadow engages in the racism of low or no expectation, making negative assumptions about our skills, knowledge and experience based on our skin colour. When you meet someone that you haven’t met before, in terms of their competence, you can (a) assume that they are knowledgeable about something, (b) assume that they are not knowledgeable about something, or (c) hold awareness that you don’t yet know if they are knowledgeable or not. As a Black person in the environmental field, the vast majority of people approach me with the presumption that I am not knowledgeable; I’m ‘less than;‘ less capable and less experienced than I am. If it’s accepted that I have knowledge, I’m assumed to be ‘new money’ only recently learned—that there’s no depth of experience. A collaboration request comes with apologies for a document’s academic tone, because it’s presumed I would lack education. An assumption is made that I work with children (I work mostly with adults), because it’s

Not My Green Space? White Attitudes Towards Black Presence …

considered that I might have something to offer children and possibly Black adults, but will have nothing to offer white adults. When cofacilitating with a white man, the assumption is that I am assisting him when in reality I am supervising him. When teaching, some white people are keen for the knowledge I have but resent that it’s coming from a Black woman; struggling with a perceived loss of power triggers a need for them to reassert themselves into a more familiar and comfortable hierarchy. It often takes them longer to settle into learning, often challenging me about my knowledge level before I’ve started a session, or seeking answers by making statements confrontationally framed as a test of my knowledge and putting the onus on me to prove myself. This strategy avoids the vulnerability of asking a question, which would acknowledge that they don’t know something and recognising me as someone who does. In 2017 I visited a marine conservation charity at an environmental fair where Wild in the City also had a stall, to suggest a collaboration. The charity worked on the River Thames and I suggested we might be able to do something together on the foreshore. We could contribute a workshop on animal track and sign: Charity officer: “oh no – we don’t know how to do that”. Me: “No problem – we do.” Charity officer: “Ah you’d have to ask someone who has those skills”. Me: “We have those skills; you already work on the foreshore. I’m asking if you would like to run a workshop programme together.”

He couldn’t hear that I was offering to lead a workshop, he could only hear me suggesting a workshop for which he didn’t have the skills. It didn’t occur to him that I could have skills in this area, even though I was directly claiming too, he had a cognitive dissonance around me being Black (and female) and having skills and knowledge about nature (beyond what he had). Whilst this conversation was going on, his colleague was trying to photograph me at the stall. I didn’t want my picture taken, and moved. Over the five-minute conversation, he followed me for a lap around the table. I sensed it was for their

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publicity to show they were engaging diverse people, yet here I was offering genuine collaboration which was being blanked. I didn’t want my image to be used to represent a relationship that wasn’t there. I challenged the photographer that he knew I didn’t want my picture taken but that he had persisted, there was very little regard for me, beyond what I (my image) could do for them. As an organisation they were not interested in a real relationship with us, one of equals and peers, but were happy to show us as a receiver of their knowledge and claim inclusion even though their behaviour was to exclude us by not acknowledging me as a fellow practitioner and organisational lead. This example is a powerful metaphor for the attitudes of a number of environmental organisations who create a perception of attracting diverse participation but who can only greet Black people as followers who serve to make the organisation look inclusive.

Exclusion from the Last White Bastion There is a pervasive element within some outdoor and nature-based communities of viewing nature as being the last white bastion where white people can be without the intrusion of people of colour. This isn’t just the view of ecofascists (Collier 2019a), but also people who are less inclined to the far right, who see their ‘green and pleasant land’ as a sanctuary from the chaos of the city and multicultural change. If Black people step into the idyll it is experienced by some as an encroachment, you are in their space. Exclusion from the last white bastion can manifest as a more open hostility, where racism speaks its name. People with racist views can exist comfortably in environmental groups without being noticed, because they’re so predominantly white. The similarity to otherwise mainstream or more liberal views about nature allows them to hide in plain sight. Their racism might not be activated until there is a Black presence in the space. Until that point the racist has the same concerns as other white environmentalists. When Black people take up space and are involved, their

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differences are triggered, something I have encountered first hand. There is existential shock on the personal and organisational level in coming into contact with people who do not want you to exist in the space and act to intimidate or impede your voice and survival in the space. Part of the shock is the juxtaposition between the lived experience of racial trauma and the denial of there being any racism. Instead the categories of explanation permitted for your testimony include the person of colour’s overreaction, misunderstanding, performativity and divisiveness. The problem is not the racism (because it doesn’t exist), the problem is the people who speak about racism. In 2015, I attended a bushcraft Continuing Professional Development (CPD) weekend run by an outdoor professionals’ membership body. People attending were instructors, we all taught bushcraft skills. The weekend was led by the senior leadership team of the bodies’ bushcraft sub group. In the week before I went, a Black counselling colleague had asked me: “don’t you get scared going off into the middle of nowhere with strange people?” (he meant strange white people) “No, it feels normal. I’ve been around these kinds of people all my life.”

I reflected on the fact that I didn’t feel apprehension where others felt it, and the kind of atmosphere I considered normal. I arrived at the rural woodland location in Derbyshire, several kilometres from the nearest village and drove down the track into the woods. As I pulled up I noticed I was scanning to see who was there; were there any women, any people of colour? Doing a safety check. There were about 10–15 men gathered, and one other woman (all white) who was quite sycophantic to the men, and so not feeling like a support. I introduced myself to the course leaders. Within a couple of minutes, I was being referred to by one of them who was not much older than me, as ‘young lady, young lady’. At the time I was in my late 30’s. It felt like it was to put me in my place. And so started

a drip-drip of belittling comments. We were preparing our own lunch which required fire. Different groups have different rules about fires at their camp. Some want everyone to use fire in the same spot, others are happy for a fire to be elsewhere in the woods. As a courtesy, I asked ‘where can I have a fire?’. The senior leader stood with a few other men, replied ‘Oh if you don’t know how to light a fire, you’re in the wrong place’. I said ‘I didn’t ask how to light a fire, I asked where I can have a fire’. He kept repeating ‘ooh, if you don’t know how to light a fire…’. I thought, I’m being clear in my English, this isn’t about not being understood. Eventually, a man standing with us said, ‘you can have it over there’. Clearly, what I was saying was understood, a drama was being created enforcing the idea of me being incompetent. This passive aggression continued throughout the day. We were camping and as night time fell, the group gathered around the fire. These events are often dry, with no alcohol, because we’re using tools like knives and axes. One man brought out some home brew. In this group of about 10 men, and one woman, most were drinking. Dressed in green as is typical for bushcraft, some wearing camo, with shaven heads and lots of tattoos on display, I wondered if they realised that the way they appeared with signifiers of the far right, would make many Black people wary, in the same way some white people would feel intimidated by a group of young Black men in hoodies. There was conversation when one man declared loudly, ‘oh I liked the good old days when you didn’t have to be politically correct, you could be sexist, you could be racist’ and then another man said, ‘oh yeah, fucking political correctness’ and bemoaned the ‘PC’ clean-up of Tom and Jerry, another said he preferred the older version because it was ‘racist and sexist’. The senior leader stood up and started to do impersonations of the mammy from Tom and Jerry, saying that it ‘wasn’t offensive, it was fun’. I was shocked, and angry. It was intimidating, as I’m sure it was

Not My Green Space? White Attitudes Towards Black Presence …

meant to be. I reflected that I felt assertive enough to say something and challenge them, but I was also aware that in the darkness of night— whatever response there was, I was going to have to sit, or run with. I thought, if they’re prepared to do this, what kind of response or good is going to come from challenging them now, when we’re all sleeping out in this space. I contemplated packing up my tent and driving out, but I was uncomfortable with the drama of a night time exit and how that might be dealt with, particularly given my car was hemmed in. I decided that I would sit with it and make a complaint in writing. The next morning, I got special attention which was very uncomfortable. I watched the senior leader walk past several people standing by their tents without saying hello and he came straight up to mine, asking how I slept. I experienced being managed with over attention for the rest of the day. I’m not certain whether it’s because they felt they had crossed a line around the campfire, or whether it was just part of them being controlling of my presence. I was watched in a way that felt intrusive, as I made crafts I was stood over, sometimes with a camera—wanting proof of the diversity on his weekend? Using my image to suggest inclusivity when the reality was very different. I did write and complain after the event and am glad I didn’t raise it at the time. They acknowledged “we still mostly have a scratching our head mind set”—not being sure what they had done wrong. The senior leader claimed he didn’t know that the caricature was considered racist, yet he performed it in the context of a conversation about not being politically correct and of being racist. He proposed that the mimicry of the mammy was just a fond memory: In regard to the campfire conversation I have to confess I am a little embarrassed, not because of my comment/one word mimic, as I was recalling a fond childhood memory, but that I did not grasp hold of the comment that was made by another in regard to racist and sexist etc. I accept that we should have been more awake and said something to quash such an inappropriate set of comments. I haven’t watched any of these cartoons in decades and you now have me thinking about the content. I had not really grasped them as being racist so I have to ask you, is

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there not a point where something can be simply slapstick and not trying to cause any offence. If I had any idea my mimic was going to cause an issue I simply would have kept quiet.6

I then complained to the Chief Executive of the membership body about being subjected to racism during one of his organisation’s events and didn’t get a reply. This wasn’t just an intimidating racist encounter, but the start of an exclusion; being made to feel so uncomfortable in the space that I left. This was no longer a forum I wanted to be part of and this cut me off from continuing my professional development, being part of a professional community, and accessing resources. The white men involved were the leadership of an outdoor organisation who accredit training courses which insurers are increasingly recognising, and there was the future risk of not having the means of documentation to get insured. As an organisational lead, I wouldn’t want to send my staff or volunteers to their events or training. This event isolated me as a practitioner and my organisation. The incident and what it revealed of their attitudes became a barrier to continuing to participate. This membership body also claims to be keen to diversify and get young ‘urban’ people involved in activities. I have often heard this expressed as we’ll ‘sort them out’, with an oppositional tonality. Urban is typically code for Black, there is a simmering resentment behind this desire by some white men to ‘straighten out’ Black youth. This sentiment is common. I was attending a CPD event on animal tracking in Kent in 2014, run by the same outdoor membership body, which led me to a dissociative experience. The instructor was white British and ex-military and in talking about human tracking shared a story about having chosen to join the South African military. It took me a while to do the maths and work out that this would have been during apartheid—which speaks strongly about his views on race. I missed this on the day. He spoke with disgust about the indigenous people who raided white farms that were situated on their 6

Personal Correspondence, August 2015.

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ancestral land and how he tracked them. He screwed his face recalling ‘their shit absolutely stank’, they were ‘dirty people’. He intimated killing them. Much of this story went over my head, literally. The only person of colour in the group, I was stood closest to him, less than two feet away as the group was gathered around him as he demonstrated a posture. The story had started with information about the physicality of how people move, our gait, and then diverged into bragging about killings. I didn’t grasp what was said until sometime later. The tone of how he told the story and what he was actually saying didn’t match. He spoke from the perspective of seeing apartheid as good and the attitudes of the white south African farmers towards indigenous Africans as good. I had been talking with his colleague and booked on to do a further tracking course which he would also be co-leading. Near the date, not having heard anything I enquired about whether it was still on, I was told that it was cancelled. I met a white female colleague a few days later at a conference. I asked what she was doing at the weekend, she said attending the tracking course. I realised I had been lied to and excluded, unwelcome as a Black person. After the weekend the colleague told me it was good that I didn’t go, the conversation around the campfire was largely racist. It wasn’t until then that the dissociation lifted and I connected with the depth of the racial violence being conveyed. In April 2018, I was speaking in London at a large national environmental charity’s members conference on a panel discussion about climate change and I was talking about why people of colour are less present in nature, of not always feeling welcome and the fear or experience of racism. This perspective can be a surprise for white audiences. They have the privilege of an unfettered enjoyment of nature and it often hasn’t occurred to them that some people have a very different lived experience. This audience was overwhelmingly white, middle class and over 50 years of age. During the Q–A section, a white man in his 50s challenged me; he had done a bushcraft session in the woods and there wasn’t any racism. So therefore I was wrong in my assertion. ‘I was interested to hear you talk about

B. Collier

racism, that’s really weird. I’ve been in the countryside lots and I’ve never seen it. I don’t believe there is racism’, ‘I want examples, I don’t believe that racism has anything to do with it’. He was telling me there was no racism despite me having just shared my direct experience, contextualised within the research that I’d conducted documenting other people of colour’s experiences too. He continued to stress his disbelief and wanted me to prove further for him. ‘I’ve done bushcraft and it’s never been a problem’, a white male, who in the company of other white men had never seen racism—and therefore I or other Black people couldn’t have done either. His attitude was hostile and confrontational. When the panel finished he came up to the stage and continued to challenge me by repeating his claims. The next event was starting and the panellists were ushered out of the room. He followed me, forcefully stating there was no racism. He didn’t want to entertain experiences different from his own. He was aggressively telling me how I needed to think about it. He stepped into my personal space and I was preparing myself mentally for where this might go. Three of the organisers had gathered next to me, his forcefulness was attracting attention. They then formed a circle around me and two of them walked him away. I wondered why it meant so much to him, that he needed me to agree with him? He needed me to think and speak from his frame. He needed me to denounce my experience and those of other Black people to make him feel comfortable. He needed to silence my Black perspective and remove it from the space. He wanted to exclude Black lived experiences.

Economic Exclusion One of the biggest existential threats to my organisation’s existence and survival is a lack of access to funding. Economic exclusion is a main barrier to our participation in the environmental field; in being able to voice Black perspectives and demonstrate Black leadership. Disparities in access to funding is an issue affecting most Black led non-profits in the UK (Charity So White

Not My Green Space? White Attitudes Towards Black Presence …

2020; Walawalkar 2020). Whilst no organisation is simply entitled to exist and survive, and most non-profits have found the period of austerity of the last decade challenging, it is the conduct of other organisations towards us and the justifications given for not funding that have felt systemically racist. There is a huge discrepancy between the high demand for our programmes, consultancy and collaboration from a wide range of organisations in the environmental sector, and the lack of funding that we have attracted, the lack of willingness of organisations to pay for our services, or to create budgets to support their proposed collaboration. It is perhaps best to understand our position to date as being a failed organisation. We operate through a handful of volunteers rather than the staff positions we intended to have by now. There is much in our planning and programming that we haven’t been able to achieve. Not seeing this failure to attract funds and develop a larger operating capacity, masks the economic exclusion and systemic issues that have kept us from being more active and having reach at a time when the sector is asking—where are the Black voices, where is the Black participation? A common feedback we have received after unsuccessful funding bids is that we haven’t demonstrated community involvement in establishing project needs or in devising the programme. This is despite us having conducted some of the most in-depth ethnographic research on people of colour’s relationship with nature in the UK, within the community we serve, including focus on the barriers faced by people of colour and the services and experiences that they would like to see. To date, I haven’t heard of a UK organisation who has done more to understand and involve Black communities in nature activity. We then find that white environmental organisations with all white teams are awarded the same funding to engage diverse audiences even though they have no links with Black and Asian communities. We know this because these organisations approach us asking if we can do the engagement work for them, for free. In giving feedback to a funding scheme for a government affiliated project that wanted to

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encourage applications from diverse groups, I advised that the 12-day window for applications was too short as most Black Minority Ethnic (BME) led groups tended to be smaller (and underfunded) with few staff who will also have prior commitments. Such a short time frame didn’t allow enough time to write a quality bid and would advantage larger organisations who could draw on multiple staff members. Thus the scheme was not likely to make changes to the diversity they said they wanted to attract. The reply was that they were trying to get the funds out to ‘support the struggling environmental sector’ during the COVID-19 period as quickly as possible, reflecting a view that as a Black led organisation we were outside of the environmental sector, rather than part of it. The officer was sympathetic in wanting to create conditions to encourage more bids from Black organisations but also condescending in being of the view that as a Black led organisation the issue was that we ‘struggle’ with knowing how to write a bid, rather than being hindered by systemic issues which deprive us of the time and capacity. This response reflects a common view that we are separate from the proper environmental field and have a low level of skill or understanding. BME led is seen as synonymous with inexperienced. Despite having worked in the Non-profit sector for over 23 years, the last 13 years as a manager or Director, I’m constantly spoken to as if I have little education, experience and a junior level of skill. An emphasis is put on Black organisations as ‘struggling’, and being in need of additional support, based on a forceful assumption that we must have technical difficulties completing forms and evidencing bids, rather than our struggle being with the attitudes of funders, and the work needed to be done to challenge racism within decision making. The view that we lack skill becomes part of the system of racism because at the same time that this view is being propagated, we’re experiencing people stealing our intellectual property (IP) and funding bid content—because of the quality of the ideas and the execution. Others have been awarded funds and opportunities on the basis of our work. There is a double

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conscious antagonism in simultaneously being perceived as inadequate and lacking, whilst in reality having our work appropriated and our position undermined because of the quality of our work. There is little empathy or understanding for the reality of our situation that our outputs and lack of success are in some measure a consequence of systemic racism, rather than simply a sign of our ineptitude. Examples include spending two years running a pilot programme and writing a joint bid proposal with a large national conservation volunteering organisation, meeting fortnightly to progress work, to find the organisation had submitted a competing bid using the same third party contacts and information I had developed, to the same funder —meaning the joint bid we were working on wouldn’t stand a chance because of the similarities of content and use of the same third party contacts. This organisation switched to compete rather than collaborate and by not telling us it meant they kept us in a holding position. Their bid was successful. The impact was devastating for us, with a loss of years of work with little to show for our significant unpaid efforts and energy. They tried to justify their actions by saying that we use volunteers and therefore didn’t need funds. As a young organisation we were volunteering our time to create the funds to be able to employ staff. We wanted to challenge their conduct with the Charity Commission but due to our limited capacity we either had the time to deliver services, or to take up a case—but not to do both. Our experience of not getting funds has meant that we were often faced with the prospect that if we wanted work to be done, we would have to self-fund in order to go forward. This obviously isn’t a sustainable or healthy position to be in. This indicator of our hardship as an organisation, that we are forced into self-reliance, has been used to decline funding support. We applied to a regional authority fund in 2019 for our inaugural festival to celebrate people of colour in nature, showcasing Black practitioners and traditional nature skills. The fund criteria and purpose was to support cultural and heritage events and festivals. We were declined. The first reason given was that

B. Collier

our event did not match the criteria of the fund (despite being a festival celebrating culture and heritage) and advised us to apply for their tree planting fund, yet our project had nothing to do with planting trees. When I challenged them on this, they acknowledged that this determination didn’t make sense and reasoned that it was because we were going to go ahead anyway— which is often the case for Black led organisations, because of a history of not getting funds and the reality that if we want the work to happen then we had to self-fund. It becomes a cycle and a systemic issue. Our poverty as an organisation is used as a reason to justify not funding us. Having been unsuccessful in attracting funds from trusts and other sources, we developed our consultancy offer on issues of diversity, engagement, programme design and analysis of issues of race in the environmental field. However, although there is a lot of demand for the knowledge, a recurring problem is organisations minimising our offering by asking for ‘chats’ over coffee in which they would like consultancy by another name, and expect us to work without renumeration. When approached for a chat, we signpost to our consultancy service, asking for a project brief, time frame and budget, typically we then don’t hear from them again. Although it is very standard to create budgets to support collaboration, many organisations don’t see the need for this in their approach to us, not seeing the contribution they would like from us as meriting a budget. In addition to a lack of access to funds, we are also exposed to a competitiveness from environmental organisations to tell the story of race in nature, wanting our insights whilst not valuing us as an organisation. A common problem is leapfrogging, in which larger organisations attempt to extract our knowledge and present it as their own, with their bigger budgets. This affects our ability to sustain ourselves and have our own seat at the table. My experience has been that the environmental field wants our insights, expertise and access, but does not want to credit or accord monetary value to this knowledge which is needed to sustain ourselves. We are seen as having knowledge of value, but not being of value as the

Not My Green Space? White Attitudes Towards Black Presence …

knowledge holders. It is a model of appropriation whereby we are expected to be of service and are seen as difficult if not providing this for free, minimising the quality and depth of our contribution. Our experience has been that if we want to participate within the environmental sector we are expected to work for free. At a time when the sector is asking ‘where is the Black representation?’, such a rally call feels disingenuous. Because we are here, but effectively shut out due to simultaneous exclusions. As a result, many initiatives to increase diversity in the field are white led, based on white interpretations of the issues and needs.

5

Conclusion

In this chapter I have attempted to set out some ethnographic illustrations of the layers of challenge participating in the field, how systemic racism manifests and what exclusion looks like. As people of colour, we can have an uphill climb in navigating a space in which (a) our presence is politicised through a historical narrative of our incompetence in nature and not valuing nature, (b) white people interacting from within a lens that sees us as ‘less than’ in this space, (c) experience of hostility towards our presence especially as leaders and, d) having less access to funding and resources to support our voice, presence and leadership. In the field we are confronted with having to spend time and energy dispelling shadow assertions which can arrive daily, dispatched as matters of fact, which is exhausting, demoralising and antagonising. A common response is either to not step into the ‘space’ in the first place, or remove oneself from the ‘space’, to avoid and seek self-preservation. We are often pulled into operating from the starting point of ‘proving’ ourselves or demonstrating that we are not inept. The seen and unseen consequences of this are that participating in the ‘space’ often does not feel safe, comfortable or sustainable for us on an individual and organisational level, resulting in (a) a loss of our presence and visibility in environmental spaces, (b) a loss of our expertise and standing as

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knowledge holders, with less access to a community of peers and, (c) a loss of our connection and detriment to our relationship with nature. Black perspectives on issues of engagement with nature become a subjugated knowledge. We have been made a subaltern group within the environmental field, excluded from power structures, displacing us to the margins—often by the people claiming to want to increase diversity.

References BBC (2020a) Shukri Abdi: rallies mark refugee girl’s death anniversary. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ukengland-manchester-53205689. Accessed 22 Nov 2020 BBC (2020b) Christopher Kapessa river death: no prosecution decision upheld. https://www.bbc.co.uk/ news/uk-wales-53475504. Accessed 22 Nov 2020 Charities So White (2020) Open letter: relief packages for the charitable sector. https://charitysowhite.org/press/ open-letter-relief-packages-for-the-charitable-sector. Accessed 22 Nov 2020 Collier B (2019a) Eco fascism makes itself known in New Zealand. http://www.bethcollier.co.uk/eco-fascismmakes-itself-known-in-new-zealand. Accessed 20 Nov 2020 Collier B (2019b) Black absence in green spaces. The Ecologist. https://theecologist.org/2019b/oct/10/ Black-absence-green-spaces. Accessed 20 May 2020 Dahlberg A, Borgström S, Rautenberg M, Sluimer N (in this volume) A nearby park or forest can become Mount Everest. Access to urban green areas by people in wheelchairs from an environmental justice perspective: a Stockholm case. In: Plüschke-Altof B, SooväliSepping H (eds) Whose Green City? Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe. Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham DuBois WEB (1903) The souls of black folk. Clydesdale Press, New York Fanon F (2008) Black skin. Grove Press, New York, White Masks Hurston ZN (2008) Men and mules. Harper Collins, New York Jung CG (1970) The structure and dynamics of the Psyche (collected works of C.G. Jung, volume 8). Princeton University Press Mbira J, Ogada M (2016) The big conservation lie. Lens & Pens, Auburn McClaurin (2001) I theorizing a black feminist self in anthropology: toward an autoethographic approach. In: McClaurin I (ed) Black feminist anthropology; theory, politics, praxis and poetics. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick

58 Natural England (2017) Visits to the natural environment. https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/ culture-and-community/culture-and-heritage/visits-tothe-natural-environment/latest#full-page-history. Accessed 22 Nov 2020 Natural England (2018) Workforce monitoring, 2016–17. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/709634/ natural-england-diversity-workforce-monitoring.pdf. Accessed 20 Nov 2020 Natural England (2019) Monitor of engagement with the natural environment—the national survey on people and the natural environment, Headline report 2019. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/ uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/828552/ Monitor_Engagement_Natural_Environment_2018_ 2019_v2.pdf. Accessed 29 Nov 2020 Pungas L, Plüschke-Altof B, Müüripeal A, SooväliSepping H (in this volume) Same, same but different? The ‘right’ kind of gardening and the negotiation of neoliberal urban governance in the post-socialist city. In: Plüschke-Altof B, Sooväli-Sepping H (eds) Whose Green City? Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe. Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham Plüschke-Altof B, Sooväli-Sepping H (in this volume) Contested urban green spaces and the question of environmental justice. Examples from Northern Europe. In: Plüschke-Altof B, Sooväli-Sepping H (eds) Whose Green City? Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe. Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham

B. Collier Roberts Gregory F (2020) On being the (only) Black feminist environmental ethnographer in Gulf Coast Louisiana, edge effects. https://edgeeffects.net/onbeing-the-only-Black-feminist-environmentalethnographer-in-gulf-coast-louisiana/. Accessed 2 Dec 2020 Salvidge R (2020) Burning injustice: EA chief’s ‘guilt’ over poor diversity results. ENDS report. https://www. endsreport.com/article/1686187/burning-injustice-eachiefs-guilt-poor-diversity-results. Accessed 20 Nov 2020 Steinhart E (2006) Black poachers, white hunters; a social history of hunting in Colonial Kenya. Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio Thompson T (2012) Imprisoned by my postcode. The Evening Standard. https://www.standard.co.uk/ lifestyle/imprisoned-in-my-postcode-6536199.html. Accessed Nov 2020 UK Government (2018) Ethnicity facts and figures, regional ethnic diversity. https://www.ethnicity-factsfigures.service.gov.uk/uk-population-by-ethnicity/ national-and-regional-populations/regional-ethnicdiversity/latest. Accessed 20 Nov 2020 Walawalkar A (2020) ‘Black charities are being funded to fail—I want to change that’, each other. https:// eachother.org.uk/Black-charities-are-being-funded-tofail-i-want-to-change-that/. Accessed 22 Nov 2020 Wolcott H (2008) Ethnography: a way of seeing. Altamira Press, Lanham

Environmental Justice in the Post-socialist City. The Case of Riga, Latvia Guido Sechi, Māris Bērziņš, and Zaiga Krišjāne

1

Introduction

The focus on urban green spaces (UGSs) is an important subdomain of environmental justice (EJ) studies. In former socialist countries, deep and large-scale transformations, intertwined with economic, institutional and social ones, have affected urban settings during and after the transition from state socialism to market capitalism. It can therefore be argued that the environmental justice issues associated with the availability, accessibility and quality of urban green space assume a very significant relevance in the postsocialist context. However, post-socialist cities have been underrepresented in the latter wave of EJ research (Kronenberg et al. 2020). The abundance of public and green spaces in cities of the Eastern Bloc is generally associated both with the tenets of twentieth-century modernist planning—which has strongly affected urban planners in the USSR and its satellite states from the mid-1950s onwards in particular—and with the non-capitalist logic of the production of space under state socialism (Hirt 2013; VargaHarris 2015; Leetmaa and Hess 2019). Abundant and dispersed green spaces, from parks to residential courtyards, were an important component

G. Sechi (&)
M. Bērziņš
Z. Krišjāne Department of Human Geography, University of Latvia, Rainis Boulevard 19, Riga 1586, Latvia e-mail: [email protected]

of the interconnected system of welfare infrastructures that peculiarly characterised the socialist city, a system named socialist scaffold by Zarecor (2018). Development in the transition and post-transition years has brought sharp transformations; in general, development strategies have not sufficiently considered spatial justice issues, including environmental ones, although new opportunities for grass-roots initiative and bottom-up involvement in decisionmaking theoretically opened up (Haase et al. 2019). On the one hand, significant erosion of public space in general, and of accessible green spaces in particular, has been observed in some post-socialist cities due to intensive new housing development, development of gated projects, overall privatisation, and degradation and lack of maintenance (Hirt 2006, 2013; Hirt and Stanilov 2007). On the other hand, many cities have witnessed, especially in the last few years, positive examples of maintenance and expansion of green spaces. Still, these trends are often accompanied by commodification and intensive exploitation (Zupan and Budenbender 2019), with possible adverse effects on accessibility and affordability for lower status groups, due to increased economic and psychological barriers to access (Kalyukin et al. 2015). Moreover, the understanding and assessment of the availability of and access to green spaces in post-socialist cities are complicated because many of these spaces are not recognised and legally protected (Kronenberg et al. 2020). This

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Plüschke-Altof and H. Sooväli-Sepping (eds.), Whose Green City?, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04636-0_4

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gives way to heterogeneous typologies of those (3) a spatial analysis of UGSs distribution regarding socio-economic and sociogenerally defined in literature as ‘informal green demographic data from population census spaces’ (Rupprecht and Byrne 2014; Pietrzykand registers. Kaszynska et al. 2017) characterised by poorer maintenance and a higher risk of destruction than Moreover, the results of the analysis are dis‘formal’ ones. These considerations suggest that investigating EJ issues in the context of the post- cussed within the broader context of urban socialist city requires a multidimensional and development trends and policies in Riga, which dynamic perspective, able to grasp qualitative is analysed with the support of a brief overview aspects next to quantitative ones and to underline of significant examples of green space developthe (broader) processes that lead to diverse out- ment and destruction in Riga, which are comes such as degradation, erosion and emblematic of the impact of decision-making processes and neoliberal governance of UGS in regeneration. This study is aimed at investigating distribu- particular and the city in general. After the introduction, we provide a brief tive EJ in the Latvian capital city of Riga. To this aim, we adopt a framework based on Biernacka overview of the debate on EJ in post-socialist and Kronenberg (2019) and Kronenberg et al. countries and describe the study’s theoretical (2020), who define distributive EJ in terms of framework (Sect. 2). We then outline the speciUGS availability, accessibility and attractiveness. ficities of the study context (Sect. 3). In Sect. 4, We also consider the relevance of procedural and we describe the mixed methodology approach, recognition dimensions of EJ (Kronenberg et al. and in Sect. 5, we summarise and discuss the 2020). Besides, our chapter attempts to frame results of the analysis. Finally, in Sect. 6, we urban EJ issues within the broader characteristics elaborate on the conclusions of our study and and dynamics of post-socialist urban transfor- consider possible directions for further research. mation, in particular concerning (a) the overall logic and practice of urban neoliberal governance in the post-socialist city, (b) its various forms and 2 Environmental Justice and Green Space Planning in Post-Socialist its relation to spatial socialist heritage; and (c) the Countries: An Overview broader dynamics of post-socialist urban change, and Theoretical Framework involving societal/demographic, spatial, economic and political–institutional dimensions. Our primary research questions are: How Literature on EJ in the post-socialist context is fairly are green spaces in Riga qualitatively and generally affected by limits such as normative quantitatively distributed across socio-economic emphasis, lack of international contextualisation status groups and residential neighbourhoods? and lack of multidimensional perspectives able to (b) Which kind of factors and processes affect frame these issues within power, politics and distributive justice/injustice? To answer these social inequality (Kronenberg et al., 2020). questions, we adopt a mixed methodology based However, important empirical studies about on both primary and secondary sources. Our urban environmental problems do exist, which underline the connection existing between green analysis is articulated into three stages: (1) a statistical inferential analysis of the rela- space availability in the post-socialist context and tionship between green space availability phenomena and trends such as social segregation and perceived quality and residential dura- (Csomos et al. 2020), residential gentrification tion for different socio-economic status and suburbanisation (Boentje and Blinnikov groups of city residents, based on primary 2007; Hirt 2012), public space erosion through aggressive private development (Hirt and Stanisurvey data; (2) a classification of UGSs in Riga according to lov 2007), eco-gentrification (Kalyukin et al. 2015; Zupan and Budenbender 2019) and the ‘formal/informal’ taxonomy;

Environmental Justice in the Post-socialist …

marginalisation of minorities (Harper et al. 2009). The study of these interconnections is in tune with a recent conceptual approach in postsocialist urban studies advocating for multidimensional and holistic perspectives to grasp neoliberal governance’s overall logic and spatial manifestations in transitional settings (Golubchikov 2016; Budenbender and Zupan 2017). There is significant evidence that post-socialist cities are mainly characterised either by a lack of attention towards environmental issues or by the subordination of green space planning and management to neoliberal development strategies (Zupan and Budenbender 2019; Kronenberg et al. 2020; see also: Pungas et al. and Pikner in this volume). The significant shrinkage and/or degradation of green space in many urban contexts (Hirt 2006, 2013), enabled by profit-driven development logic and facilitated by a lack of legal protection and recognition, exemplify the former aspect. The latter often translates into new physical, legal and psychological barriers to access through privatisation and fencing, the exclusion of disadvantaged groups, and aggressive commodification. This implies that environmental challenges associated with unequal distribution of UGSs encompass both quantitative and qualitative aspects, including the question of accessibility, quality and recognition. In the context of the post-socialist city, the availability/accessibility/attractiveness taxonomy for the analysis of distributive EJ (Biernacka and Kronenberg 2018; Kronenberg et al. 2020) then appears as an adequate framework: first, it encompasses aspects such as quantitative availability, barriers to access, juridical protection and quality of space. Second, it allows to better connect EJ with issues such as social and spatial inequality and also, to an extent, planning policies, strategies and modes. The latter aspects also underline the relevance of EJ-focused perspectives able to consider procedural/participatory and interactional dimensions of justice—that is, involvement of all stakeholders and consideration of their needs and perspectives in the decision-making process (Kronenberg et al. 2020). It is understood that the three dimensions of distributive EJ—availability, accessibility and

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attractiveness—are deeply intertwined rather than independent. Park (2017) identifies perceived distance, UGS quality and neighbourhood environment (safety in particular) as the main components of ‘psychological accessibility’ to green space, to be considered together with physical and ‘tangible’ aspects when assessing the distribution of UGSs. A central concept for a comprehensive assessment of distributive justice is informal green spaces, particularly relevant for the postsocialist urban context due to the large share of UGSs lacking functional recognition and legal protection (Feltynowski et al. 2018). This definition generally refers to heterogeneous spaces that ‘elude formal classifications—mostly due to their small spatial scale, often temporary and transitory character, as well as uncertainty concerning land tenure or changing governance settings’ (Pietrzyk-Kaszynska et al. 2017: 86). They can include ‘modernist’ courtyards, vacant lots, brownfields, unmanaged embankments, uncultivated land and forests in the city outskirts. Although many of these spaces are often perceived as attractive by residents (PietrzykKaszynska et al. 2017, p. 86) and have been found to reduce inequalities in UGS availability (Sikorska et al. 2020), they are often characterised by a lack of maintenance and above all legal recognition and protection. This implies a lack of infrastructure, lower safety levels and a higher risk of alienation, erosion and destruction. It can therefore be assumed that a larger share of informal spaces may be associated with not only environmental benefits (e.g. better air quality) and, in some cases, with higher levels of residential satisfaction and mitigation of distributive injustice (Sikorska et al. 2020) but also present challenges related to maintenance and ‘vulnerability’ of these spaces. Although these spaces are often publicly accessible, they can raise more challenging safety-related barriers. Besides, the frequent lack of maintenance and infrastructure, and poor accessibility, can negatively affect their attractiveness, although it may pleasantly insulate them from commodification trends affecting formal spaces. Hence, mapping informal green spaces can help to understand both, qualitative

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aspects of environmental injustice and risks of further exacerbation of such injustice. Besides, the attitude of authorities towards these spaces can provide significant insights into the modes and logic of urban planning and governance. Overall, empirical analyses of EJ in postsocialist cities underline the conceptual and analytic advantages of framing specific urban policies and dynamics within the broader perspectives of neoliberal governance and urban change during and after transition (Golubchikov 2016). This implies the necessity of analysing EJ in connection with more general societal, demographic, economic and institutional dynamics. In addition to this, it requires a reflection on neoliberal ideology and logic (Golubchikov 2016; Budenbender and Zupan 2017). Considering both the broader and post-socialist context-specific debate on urban neoliberalism, we interpret neoliberal governance as a decades-long shift of urban institutions towards market-based solutions. The latter addresses decision-making and resource allocation issues in the context of a competition-based logic (e.g. for attracting investors), which at least partially supplants the role of urban governance as welfare service provision (Harvey 1989). As such, the shift towards neoliberal urban governance, among other dynamics, facilitates the commodification of urban space and resulting socio-spatial inequalities (Hirt 2012; Golubchikov 2016; Zupan and Budenbender 2019; Fröhlich 2020). Notwithstanding their common global characteristics, these processes are locally shaped by various contextual factors, ranging from political contestation to historical spatial legacies (Peck et al. 2009, see also: Pungas et al. in this volume). In post-socialist urban studies, it has been argued that the interaction of neoliberal logic and policies with inherited spatial socialist legacies gives way to peculiar ‘hybrid spatialities’ (Golubchikov et al. 2014, see also Pikner in this volume). Moreover, it must be considered that there are various ‘historical’ stages of neoliberalism in each context, affecting concrete forms of neoliberal governance and policies (Peck et al. 2009; Budenbender and Zupan 2017).

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3

Study Context

Riga is the most populated capital city in the Baltic States and the largest city in Latvia, with its current population slightly exceeding 620,000. It has a population density of almost 2500 persons/km2, where the most densely populated are large Soviet-era housing estates. The city was not affected by the general postsocialist trend of urban green space reduction. The city’s total area covers 304 km2, of which 60.9% is covered by green and unspecified spaces excluding water bodies (according to the data on land use provided by the State Land Service). Over the past decade, the city’s area of entirely green spaces has more than doubled (from 2,332 to 5,965 ha) (State Land Service 2020). However, green spaces are unevenly distributed due to the heterogeneous structure and planning characteristics of the city. The green space coverage increases towards the outer city and especially towards the coastline of the Gulf of Riga in the northernmost part of the city. In morphological terms, Riga is characterised by a concentric structure typical of ‘historical’ centraleastern European cities. The role of physical geographical features and historical pathways of urban change in Riga is relevant to the provision of green spaces and residential patterns of different socio-occupational groups nowadays. Rapid urban development started with industrialisation in the second half of the nineteenth century and continued until World War I. The housing stock built at that time was predominant in the inner city and some villa neighbourhoods in the outer city. These parts of the city are rich in high-quality green spaces, such as well-equipped parks and squares. Urban growth in the late 1950s started in the form of large-scale housing estates, with development being concentrated on the outskirts of the historical centre. According to the modernist planning approach and the microdistrict principle, these housing estates were supplied with abundant green spaces to satisfy the needs of residents. Socialist-era housing estates and some villa neighbourhoods had

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higher social prestige (Krišjāne et al. 2019) than the pre-socialist housing stock in the inner city and the periphery; the outer city became neglected in terms of UGS development. Today, most of the green areas developed in USSR times and those located in the periphery are characterised as informal UGSs (except nature conservation areas along the coastline). Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, the social upgrading of the inner-city and the migration of upper status residents to newly built housing and the suburbs became evident (Krišjāne et al. 2016); the attractiveness of suburbs in terms of natural amenities is a frequently mentioned reason behind residential mobility (Bērziņš and Krišjāne 2008). Hence, three large urban zones can be identified, representing the stratification of planning history and different forms of urban planning, which also affected the distribution and nature of green space: the inner city, Soviet-era large housing estates and the outer city. (1) Inner city (historical core): comprises the pre-Soviet compact city, developed from the twelfth century until the late 1930s, on both shores of the Daugava River, containing a limited infill of more recent buildings. Lack of maintenance in Soviet times and the economically troubled 1990s led to deteriorating housing conditions; this, together with increasing noise and pollution, made the inner city less attractive and led to a significant depopulation. In the last two decades, investment in renovation has increased attractiveness; gradual gentrification and, recently, partial re-urbanisation have followed. Nowadays, this part of the city, characterised by high population density, has the smallest share of green spaces, in particular on the river east side, where the city initially developed in the Middle Ages. However, due to larger investments in the last years, these spaces —public parks in particular—are generally much better maintained than elsewhere in the city. (2) Soviet-era large housing estates: Mass housing development started in the late 1950s, following the 1954 Khrushchev decree that, in open discontinuity with the neoclassical excesses

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of the Stalinist period, indicated the role of prefabricated and standardised mass housing to address the structural housing shortage that affected the Soviet Union. This type of residential housing dominated Latvia and the whole USSR until the early 1990s; it can be roughly divided into three generations (Meuser and Zadorin 2016) with a progressive improvement in the quality of materials, the amount of living space, and to an extent architectural ambitions, by the mid-1970s onwards. Panel buildings were organised in residential complexes (microdistricts) consisting of panel buildings organised in blocks with courtyards provided with playgrounds, greenery and (although in many cases unrealised) educational, cultural and health services (Smith 2015). Green space covered on average 40–45% of the estates’ territory (Treija et al. 2012). This kind of development strongly shaped the city, creating a large belt of residential neighbourhoods surrounding the historic core, where infill development also took place. According to the last (2011) population census, roughly three quarters of the population of Riga live in mass housing estates. Generally, in terms of socio-demographic and socio-economic composition, Soviet residential neighbourhoods do not significantly differ from the rest of the city, except for a higher share of residents belonging to ethnolinguistic minorities (mostly Russian speakers from families which moved to Latvia from other USSR republics in Soviet times) (Krišjāne et al. 2019). However, these neighbourhoods are highly heterogeneous in terms of social composition and overall attractiveness, the latter being affected by location, transport accessibility, construction period and the quality/maintenance of green space (Krišjāne et al. 2019). UGSs in these micro-districts include block courtyards, parks, forest parks and many informal spaces. Due to the partial dilapidation of industrial infrastructure prominent in this part of the city, brownfields are also common in Soviet-era neighbourhoods. (3) The outer city. This zone is characterised by very low population density and a mix of semi-rural areas and villa/low-density housing

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districts. Some of the latter are historical prestige residential areas, such as Mezaparks, developed in the early twentieth century according to Garden City planning principles and named after the large forest park at the heart of the district. The planned villa and new housing districts are generally middle-upper class, whereas the semi-rural areas are poorer. The outer city has an overwhelming prevalence of detached housing and very high availability of (mostly informal) green spaces. The most evident differences in the spatial distribution of urban green spaces are found when comparing the inner city and the outer zones. The urban fabric of the city is affected by a strong depopulation trend. Over the past three decades since 1990, the city has lost over 280,000 of its inhabitants or 30% of the population (Central Statistical Bureau of Latvia 2020). This trend is the result of de-industrialisation and ethnic out-migration processes which have characterised the post-Soviet transition, and extensive residential suburbanisation as a result of intrametropolitan migration (Krišjāne and Bērziņš 2012; Krišjāne et al. 2019). The post-socialist economic restructuring showed its spatial effects at the beginning of the twenty-first century, with increasing socio-economic and ethnic segregation, albeit still at low levels compared with most Western cities (Krišjāne et al. 2016). Nevertheless, due to intra-urban residential mobility, gentrification and suburbanisation, better-off residents seek more favourable housing locations in the inner city and the outskirts. This leads to increased social polarisation at the neighbourhood and intra-neighbourhood levels. Empirical literature about green space in Riga has focused mainly on residential areas, investigating issues such as management of common space in large-scale estates (Treija et al. 2012), the impact of infill development on accessible green space (Treija et al. 2018), the connection between green space and residential satisfaction (Usca 2010). There is a significant reason behind this: although issues such as the commodification of public space and barriers to access do exist in

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the Latvian capital, they do not appear to have a recurring character; the key challenge seems to be associated with the neglect and/or lack of recognition of a large share of urban green space, which subsequently becomes degraded and ‘alienated’ from its original function, and in many cases targeted by developers for new construction (Treija et al. 2012). It is understood that the large open spaces in Soviet-era housing estates, whose management and maintenance are affected by a complicated, fragmented ownership structure (Treija and Bratuskins 2019), are primarily at risk in this regard. The mass privatisation of the housing stock in the 1990s through sale at low prices to sitting tenants, along with the restitution of land to its pre-WW2 owners, resulted in poor management and maintenance of open spaces due to the failure of common agreements (Krišjāne et al. 2019). In some cases, the land is owned by a particular person or entity, whereas others own dwellings on the same land. Besides, other important typologies of informal green spaces lack legal protection and maintenance in the city, from forests to river embankments. This lack of recognition, often leading to deterioration, functional alienation and in some cases, erosion of space through real estate or infrastructural development has periodically led to tensions between the city administration and urban and environmental activists. The urban change in residential areas in Riga reflects a social polarisation trend that has accelerated since the 2000s (Krišjāne et al. 2016; Musterd et al. 2017). This sort of residential differentiation is typical of the most prominent cities in the region. While a significant proportion (above 70%) of urban dwellers in Riga lives in large scale housing estates built in the socialist era, a much smaller group of residents lives in upmarket residential areas. UGSs in the large housing estates are gradually deteriorating due to property rights’ issues, lack of recognition and insufficient governance. At the same time, upmarket residential areas accommodate affluent people with high-quality, well-equipped and often private UGSs.

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4

Research Design

To address our aim and research questions, we followed the three steps described below.

Survey Data Analysis In the first step, inferential analysis based on survey data was carried out to investigate possible elements of environmental injustice regarding the availability of green space for Riga residents. We hypothesised that poorer residents are more likely to be ‘bound’ to their residence due to a lack of financial resources (Coulter and van Ham 2013; Krišjāne et al. 2016). Therefore, they might be discriminated against in terms of access to UGSs, the more so in case green space quantity and quality constitutes a significant factor behind residential satisfaction. The analysis was based on two core variables—availability of green space and residential duration—whose correlation was analysed for different cohorts, corresponding to different social status groups. The residential duration was measured by a dichotomous variable, discriminating between those respondents who lived in the same place for 20 years or more and those who have lived in their current place of residence for less than 20 years. Through this dichotomy, it is possible to roughly discriminate between households that stayed in the same places inherited through the post-1991 large-scale privatisation process and those who moved from the mid-1990s onwards, when real estate investment in renovation and new housing development started to become significant again. Green space availability was measured based on the share of UGSs per total area for each residential neighbourhood of Riga. Neighbourhoods were classified into three categories (low, average or high share of UGSs) corresponding to (1) share below 10%, (2) share between 10 and 30% and (3) share above 30%. Predictably, the highest share of UGSs is generally found in outer suburbs.

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The analysis was based on a survey carried out among the population of Riga aged 15–74 in 2015 and focused on residential and urban satisfaction; the resulting sample consisted of 2 043 individuals. The average age of respondents was 44.5 years; 39.6% of the respondents were men, and 60.4% were women; 6.8% declared having primary education, 62.6% secondary or incomplete tertiary and 31.4% tertiary; 49.4% of the respondents declared low household income, 19.6% middle and 31% high; 17.7% were innercity residents, 76.7% lived in Soviet-era large housing estates and 5.7% were in the outer city. According to these figures, the composition of the sample is representative of the general demographics in the city.

Identification of Urban Green Spaces A significant challenge for the investigation of distributive EJ is the diversity of values attributed to UGSs due to the highly heterogeneous character of those spaces. In the second step of our analysis, we used planning documents to identify and map UGSs in Riga (Riga City Council 2017). Studies on green space perception usually focus on green spaces understood as clearly designated areas (Chiesura 2004; Kazmierczak 2013). In Riga, UGSs are legally defined as natural and green areas in the regulated zoning plan (Riga City Council 2009). The planning and strategic documents in cities often focus on formal categories of UGSs. However, this approach often overlooks the heterogeneity of green spaces, which are narrowed down to parks, protected nature reserves, urban forests and, to a lesser extent, allotment gardens and cemeteries (Pietrzyk-Kaszynska et al. 2017). Residential and public green spaces —particularly informal, unmanaged, small or dispersed ones—are not always recognised and mapped in planning documents. This issue has been addressed in Riga by elaborating a separate thematic plan on the structure of green and open spaces, which would serve as a basis for the new zoning plan (Riga City Council 2017).

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According to the thematic plan, formal green spaces are recognised and mapped, managed and maintained areas, namely public parks and squares, urban forests, thematic parks, allotment gardens, cemeteries, developed waterfronts and nature conservation areas; these spaces are included in municipality’s formal planning documents. Riga is considered a relatively ‘green’ city; the two major and most recognised categories of formal UGS, the urban forests and nature conservation areas, are mostly found in the city outskirts, whereas the public parks and squares are mostly common in the inner city. Access to the most formal UGSs is free, but they are unequally equipped with social/recreational infrastructure. Aside from the parks, urban forests and nature conservation areas, there are other important categories of public UGSs. Cemeteries are regarded as UGSs in both Scandinavian and Baltic countries (e.g. Grabalov and North 2020). Allotment gardens in Riga are private UGSs (family gardens), relatively widespread in semirural areas of the city and have been part of the city history since the nineteenth century (Kūle 2014). In contemporary urban development plans, albeit functionally and legally recognised, they are regarded as temporary sites, making them potential targets for rezoning and alternative development (Abolina and Zarins 2002). Another category of semi-public UGSs is thematic parks, mostly fee-based, including an ethnographic (open-air) museum, zoo, autodrome, botanical garden and golf club. Conversely, informal UGSs—that the thematic plan classifies under the term green infrastructure—are spaces covered with vegetation, usually designated but not explicitly recognised by municipal institutions or owners as spaces for inhabitants’ recreational use. This category encompasses a very heterogeneous set of planned and spontaneous UGSs, ranging from street trees and green corridors to residential courtyards in large housing estates to noncultivated or forest land in the city outskirts. In most cases, these spaces generally lack legal recognition and protection (Kim et al. 2020) and maintenance.

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These different typologies of UGSs can be tentatively categorised according to the main qualitative dimensions associated with distributive EJ, namely, accessibility and attractiveness (Biernacka and Kronenberg 2018, 2019; Kronenberg et al. 2020). Barriers to access include entrance fees and juridical restrictions. Among formally recognised spaces, the former applies to thematic parks, the latter to the private family gardens and micro-reserves (which are, for the largest part, not accessible to visitors due to nature conservation concerns). All other formally recognised spaces are free and public. Informal spaces are also mostly open to free access, but they include typologies that can present higher psychological barriers (e.g. lack of safety) and, in some cases, physical hazards. Quality/attractiveness is associated mainly with formal recognition since it can be broadly assumed that formal spaces have, in general, a higher level of maintenance, better infrastructure and, in general, higher safety.

Spatial Analysis The analysis of georeferenced socio-demographic data from population census and registers allows investigating the concentration of high and low social status groups and population change patterns concerning the distribution of UGSs. To this aim, we adopted the Getis-Ord (Gi*) hotspot identification method, widely used to identify spatial clustering (Getis and Ord 2010). Conformingly with many studies on socio-economic segregation, we used occupation as a measure of social status; this variable reflects with reasonable accuracy the main social divisions of European post-socialist cities in particular (Marcinczak et al. 2015; Musterd et al. 2017). For our analysis, we used cross-sectional individual-level data from the last population Census (2011) and population register (2019), which contain georeferenced anonymised individual-level data of the whole population. As for socio-occupational categories, we merged the main nine original ISCO-08 categories

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(excluding the military) and the unemployed into three groups corresponding to high, middle and low social status. We incorporated the two highest occupational categories (managers and professionals) to form the higher status group. Likewise, we combined unskilled workers and unemployed persons into the lower status group. The remaining ISCO-08 categories, associated with medium social status, were not used in our analysis since the gap between the rich and poor is widening, emphasising the evolving patterns of socio-economic segregation across cities in Europe (Tammaru et al. 2020; Musterd 2020). According to the last 2011 Census, 28.6% of Riga residents belonged to a high social status group (managers and professionals), whereas 22.6% belonged to a low-status group (low-skilled manual workers and the unemployed). Considering population change figures, the overall population of Riga decreased in the years 2011–2019 by 3.9% (from 658,640 to 632,998). Population decrease was observed in Soviet micro-districts (from 75.9% to 74.8%), but the share of residents slightly increased both in the inner core (from 17.1 to 17.4%) and in the outer city (from 70–78%). We hypothesise residential mobility to be substantially higher among higher occupational status categories than among poorer residents (Marcińczak et al. 2013; Krišjāne et al. 2016). Georeferenced population Census and register data allowed us to sub-divide Riga neighbourhoods into small, homogenous units for spatial analysis. Overall, we produced a grid consisting of 996 hexagon cells of uniform scale (16.5 ha). The analysis was performed by using ESRI ArcGIS 10.2 software. Calculating the patterns of spatial autocorrelation, we identified how high cell-level concentrations of variable categories (high share of high/low occupational status residents, high population increase/decrease) cluster. When closely located spatial units are characterised by a high concentration of a variable category and by a high correlation between each other, a ‘hotspot’ is generated.

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5

Discussion of Empirical Results

Survey Data Analysis Non-parametric correlation tests, as expected, evidenced a strong sensitivity of residential duration to social and economic status. Both, household income and education, ordinally measured on three levels, were found to correlate inversely with immobility at a 0.01 significance level, with correlation coefficients, measured using Kendall’s tau and Spearman’s rho statistics, being respectively, −0.191 and −0.201 (income) and −0.195 and −0.199 (education). These results show that residents with lower income and education are significantly more likely to be ‘bound’ to their place of residence (Coulter and van Ham 2013). This ‘immobility’ trend may be deepened by the fact that in Latvia, as in many other post-socialist countries, house ownership rates are very high due to mass privatisation at low prices from the early 1990s onwards (Treija and Bratuskins 2019) so that many poorer residents own the apartments where they live but have no financial resources to move (Krišjāne et al. 2016). Thus, in the case of Latvia, homeownership cannot be considered a status symbol, as it is not necessarily indicative of the accumulation of financial capital (Marana 2006). The correlation between green space availability and residential duration was tested by Kendall’s tau and Spearman’s rho statistics for different cohorts according to household income, level of education, and residential neighbourhood typology (according to the inner core/Soviet mass housing estates/outer city taxonomy). Results showed some significant differences between cohorts. Although for the overall sample, the correlation was not significant, it was for some subsamples. Among low-income respondents, the two variables presented a significant negative correlation, which can be interpreted as a sign of environmental injustice: poorer residents, being place-bound because of a lack of financial means, are more likely to live and stay in areas with lower availability of green space

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(Laskiewicz et al. 2018). The correlation was not significant for respondents with average or high household income, for which residential duration may be associated to a large extent with place attachment. This result is consistent with previous similar studies (Kimpton et al. 2014; Laskiewicz et al. 2018) and may imply a low relevance of green spaces in affecting attachment. However, it may also underline the necessity of more sophisticated measures of green space, reflecting different typologies and scales (Feltynowski et al. 2018), in order to grasp qualitative dimensions. For example, some studies have found evidence that some categories of green space affect hedonic pricing and apartment prices, whereas others do not (Czembrovski and Kronenberg 2016). Besides, evidence of the positive effect of proximity of high-quality green areas on real estate prices has been found in some post-socialist cities (Trojanek et al. 2018). As for the two other variables, the correlation was found to be significant for two cohorts in particular: respondents with higher education and inner-city residents. These results also suggest the necessity of accounting for contextual nuances and require further investigation; for the latter cohort, the correlation may be explained by the relative scarcity of UGSs in the city core (Table 1). The results for inner-city residents are interesting in the light of the last part of the analysis.

Table 1 Non-parametric correlation between UGS neighbourhood availability and residential duration according to economic status, educational level and type of residential neighbourhood

COHORT

We also tested differences in satisfaction with quantity and quality of green space (measured on a 4-point Likert scale) for household income, education level and type of neighbourhood cohorts. No sensitivity to income or education levels was found. On the contrary, satisfaction levels are significantly different according to neighbourhood type and seemingly associated with the overall share of UGSs, with outer-city residents being the most satisfied and inner-city residents being the least satisfied. These results may express an ongoing aspiration towards low density and higher availability of UGSs (cf. Koprowska et al. 2020), which has been reflected in the decades-long suburbanisation trend of Riga residents only partially reversed by the reurbanisation of the inner city in the last few years (Table 2). The results of the survey data analysis show a complex picture. Elements of environmental injustice, at least in terms of broad availability of UGSs, seem to exist in the form of de facto discrimination of low-income residents, who have fewer opportunities to move and can therefore be ‘bound’ to residential areas with low green space availability. Evidence about the impact of UGS availability on residential choices of wealthier residents is inconclusive and may imply both a lack of relevance of green space abundance in creating place attachment and the

Kendall’s tau

Spearman’s rho

Sample size

−0.092**

−0.097**

803

0.021

0.022

317

−0.004

−0.004

501

Economic status Low income Middle income High income Educational level Primary education

−0.035

−0.037

121

Secondary education

−0.037

−0.038

1264

Tertiary education

0.114**

0.120**

639

Neighbourhood type Inner city

0.148**

0.148**

357

Soviet mass housing estates

−0.029

−0.030

1554

Outer city

−0.064

−0.067

113

**

correlation significant at 0.01 level

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Table 2 Kruskal–Wallis tests measuring the sensitivity of satisfaction with quantity and quality of green space in the residential area according to economic status, educational level and type of residential neighbourhood Economic status

Mean rank

Education level

Mean rank

Low income

819.08

Primary

Middle income

807.91

Secondary

1024.88

Soviet mass housing

1035.22

High income

811.33

Tertiary

1017.69

Outer city

1123.46

938.28

Neighbourhood type Inner city

Mean rank 905.94

Significance 0.202

0.229

0.000**

**= significant at 0.01 level

necessity of framing the investigation of this aspect more qualitatively and contextually. The following spatial analysis attempts to incorporate these elements in the assessment of distributive (in)justice.

Identification of Urban Green Spaces The distribution of UGSs according to the formal/informal dichotomy is outlined in Fig. 1 below. Formal and well maintained public UGSs predominate in the inner city and some prestige villa districts or Soviet residential neighbourhoods. On the contrary, the highest share of UGSs is found in the outer city, mainly in informal spaces or nature conservation areas. Availability of green spaces is also high in many Soviet micro-districts, particularly in the western and northern parts of the city; the abundance of ‘green infrastructure’ in these neighbourhoods can be partly explained by the large amount of green space devised by Soviet planners in residential areas. Informal green spaces are, in general, widespread in modernist residential districts in post-socialist cities (see, e.g. Sikorska et al. 2020). However, these spaces are very heterogeneous in terms of maintenance; for example, they include a significant share of vacant lots and brownfield areas due to the impact of post-1991 processes ranging from de-industrialisation to the issue of responsibility for common spaces (Fig. 3).

Socio-Spatial Analysis Figure 4a and b show hotspots for high and low occupational status residents according to the last (2011) population census data. To an extent, the distribution of upper-class residents (managers and professionals) appears to be higher in areas characterised by proximity to high-quality UGSs, such as the inner city and historical prestige villa districts, more abundant in well-maintained parks and forest parks, and in areas with a high share of ‘green infrastructure’, meaning both informal spaces in Soviet residential districts and rural/forest areas in the outer city. On the contrary, low occupational status residents (unskilled workers and unemployed) seem to be more concentrated in areas with a smaller share of ‘green infrastructure’, such as poorer inner-city areas and Soviet neighbourhoods with higher population density and proximity of often abandoned industrial infrastructure. Thus, sociospatial patterns as of 2011 seem to underline the existence of both a qualitative and quantitative dimension of distributive environmental injustice in Riga. According to population registers’ data, Fig. 4c and d show population change dynamics (significant increase and decrease) in the 2010s decade. Considering the results of the survey data analysis and the high share of homeownership in Latvia, we mainly associate population change with the mobility of higher and middle-status residents. Results show a significant increase in residents in the inner city and some villa

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Fig. 1 Distribution of formal and informal urban green spaces in Riga (reproduced from Riga City Council 2017)

neighbourhoods in the outer city and a considerable decrease in areas characterised by a low or medium share of UGSs. In some Soviet mass housing neighbourhoods represented by the abundance of green space, both patterns of decrease and increase are detected, suggesting both outflows and ‘infill’ development-driven inflows. The spatial investigation suggests that higher status and more mobile population tend to move

to areas where available and accessible green space is not necessarily more abundant but is better maintained and likely more attractive, such as the city centre, historical villa prestige districts and possibly infills in ‘greener’ Soviet microdistricts. At the same time, poorer residents—at low risk of eviction but bound to their place of residence mainly due to financial constraints— risk being increasingly segregated in less environmentally attractive areas, and at increasing

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Green Space and Urban Governance in Riga: Context

Fig. 2 Example of a formal UGS in Riga: Bastejkalns (Bastion Hill) park in the inner city (photo by G. Sechi)

Fig. 3 Example of an alienated informal green space in Riga: a residential courtyard space turned into a vacant lot in the Brasa neighbourhood (photo by G. Sechi)

risk of degradation of green space. This trend at the micro and neighbourhood level has been already witnessed in other post-socialist cities of Central-Eastern Europe (Trojanek et al. 2018; Rufat and Marcinszak 2020). This result also points to a possible tendency towards a qualitative increase in distributive inequality. However, quantitative availability— especially the abundance of non-alienated informal UGSs in low-density areas—seems to play a role in terms of attractiveness for the mobile population.

Our analysis has outlined some specific aspects of UGS distribution in Riga. Analysing the correlation of residential duration and UGS availability, and the socio-spatial distribution of residents and its dynamics, has evidenced two main aspects: a significant likeliness for poorer residents to remain ‘bound’, due to limited financial means, to places with limited availability of green space; and a tendency of wealthier residents to concentrate and to move to areas largely characterised by presumably better quality—at least in terms of maintenance and, possibly, attractiveness—of UGSs. Despite its large share of accessible green spaces, Riga is characterised by non-negligible distributive environmental injustice along socio-economic lines in qualitative and quantitative terms. This picture, however, cannot be considered complete without considering the dynamic aspects associated with UGS distribution itself, which can have significant effects on distributive (in)justice in the following years. Some insights in this regard are associated with the analysed population mobility patterns. We can hypothesise a risk of green space degradation in areas characterised by the outflow of wealthy residents, and possible dynamics of UGS privatisation in areas with population increase, in particular infill projects in greener Soviet neighbourhoods (Treija et al. 2018). However, UGS distribution dynamics are also connected with aspects of formal recognition and legal protection of spaces (Sikorska et al. 2020; Kronenberg et al. 2020), issues of civic participation and recognition (Walker 2012; Low 2013), and, more in general, with the dominant logic of green space governance and development. Indeed, the history of urban green space governance in Riga in the last decade(s) is characterised by a lack of recognition/protection on behalf of the authorities (and private stakeholders), exacerbated by a strong tendency

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(a)

(c)

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(b)

(d)

Fig. 4 Getis-Ord Gi* spatial statistics: hotspots of higher (a) and lower (b) socio-occupational status groups; hotspots of population increase (c) and decrease

(d) over the period 2011–2019 (authors’ elaboration of Latvian 2011 population census and 2011–2019 population registers data)

towards top-down decision-making, with significant consequences in terms of erosion, destruction and in some cases commodification of green spaces. The last few years have seen the emergence of two major challenges associated with UGSs: (1) the maintenance of common space in Soviet-era residential districts, which host three

quarters of the city population and (2) the impact of top-down management of interest conflicts associated with the recognition and management of public spaces. The former challenge points to problems of protection of informal spaces and the broader issue of lack of cooperation and coordination between and among residents of

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Soviet micro-districts in terms of infrastructure maintenance. The latter, which is the source of periodic conflicts and tensions between local authorities and environmental activists, reflects issues associated with power imbalances between urban stakeholders and their implications in decision-making processes and urban development logic and discourse. An example of the challenge to green spaces in large housing estates can be found in Purvciems. This is the most populated and one of the densest neighbourhoods of Riga, largely developed from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, with an absolute majority of residents living in Soviet panel housing. A survey carried out by Riga Technical University scholars in the late 2000s found out that residents generally liked the spatial qualities of the district but were unsatisfied with their maintenance. The survey also evidenced the perception of social atomisation and a significant reduction in the social use of courtyards and in their perceived safety. This leads to phenomena such as fencing or degradation of these green spaces, originally designed for common use, to the status of vacant lots that are consequently targeted for construction or turned into parking spaces (Treija et al. 2012; for similar trends in other Baltic cities see, e.g. Tuvikene 2019). Only recently, the issue of maintenance in Soviet residential neighbourhoods has started to be acknowledged by urban activists and the media as a systemic one. This is a problem common to many post-socialist and post-Soviet cities, which encompasses the renovation of housing and the management of common spaces. Both are hampered by a lack of cooperation among residents, poor informative campaigns and possibly vested interests, which is potentially opening the door to speculative development (Mersom 2018; Hatherley 2019). Regarding conflicts associated with public green space, a case in point is the recent destruction of a space of historical and cultural significance, Marsa parks (Mars Park). The park is located in the district of Teika, east of the city centre, and the former site of a historical velodrome built in the early twentieth century and dismantled in the mid-1980s. It was destroyed in

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late August 2020, after a decades-long dispute between the local cycling union, local activists and co-developers on one side, and the local administration and national government on the other, to make way for a new State Security Service building. The plans to use the space as a construction site date back to the mid-2000s, when the State Real Estate agency entered the possession of the land and a new Regional Court building was planned. But after the 2008–2009 economic crisis, the plan was scrapped. From then on, the park was managed basically as a formally restricted brownfield. In late 2018, the local residents’ association presented a vision to turn the space into a public park. In the following year, however, plans by the owners to build a new office space were confirmed. More than 15.000 signatures were collected to support the preservation of the park as a public green space, but at the beginning of the year 2020, it was revealed that the park site had been granted for the new headquarters of the State Security Service (VDD), presented as a national security top priority. Despite the support of many mayoral candidates and some government ministers for an alternative solution and increased activism initiatives on behalf of local residents, the VDD headquarters plan was confirmed by Parliament vote in spring, and the park was virtually destroyed on August 31 (Capital R 2020). The dynamics of this case reveal relevant issues in terms of decision-making transparency and the lack of involvement of residents and exemplify the progressive alienation process through which public green space can transit from a formal functional recognition to an ‘informal’ status and then to destruction. These issues and processes emphasise the dynamic nature of concepts like function, availability, accessibility and status of UGSs, which are influenced by political, institutional, sociocultural and economic factors affecting urban planning, and imply the importance of taking into account participatory and recognition-related dimensions of EJ next to the distributive one (Kronenberg et al. 2020). Moreover, these examples evidence the need to frame EJ issues within the overall logic of post-socialist

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neoliberal urban governance. Although certainly economic opportunities affect distributive justice in Riga, the city is also characterised by the high availability of formal and informal public and semi-public green spaces and rare explicit discriminatory (physical or juridical) barriers to access. However, the dominant neoliberal development logic, which disregards the value of neglected and/or non-protected spaces, summed with significant procedural and recognition issues —exemplified by lack of transparency, strictly top-down management of conflicts, noninclusive decision-making processes—may lead to green space erosion and increased inequality in the following years. Scenarios that can be inferred range from the further degradation and alienation of informal or unmaintained spaces in mass housing estates and other areas, with consequent erosion and/or privatisation through infill development, to an increased commodification of public UGSs. Informal green spaces, lacking recognition and adequate maintenance, are privileged targets for construction development. Here, the neoliberal logic works at several different levels. The degradation of informal UGSs —produced by the functional alienation of these spaces and by collective management difficulties in the transition period and beyond—leads to their common interpretation as ‘unexploited potential’ for investment. From the point of view of developers, they represent low-risk and relatively low-cost options compared with the largescale regeneration of historical buildings and the renovation and maintenance of existing mass housing estates. Besides, whenever conflicts arise due to the citizens’ perception of informal spaces as valuable ones, the political top-down resolution of such disputes shows the limits of formal participatory mechanisms, evidencing poor procedural and recognition standards. Conversely, a recent example of public/green space management, which has been generally deemed praiseworthy, is the 1-month pedestrianisation of Tērbatas iela (Tartu Street), a cobbled avenue in the centre of Riga. The street was closed to road traffic from mid-July to midAugust 2020 and turned into a pedestrian space with vending stalls, open-air cafes and temporary

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greenery (trees, pots, bushes). Overall, the experiment has been successful with city residents and has been praised by urban and environmental activists for the walkable, green and convivial environment it created, able to attract people of all ages and all statuses and provide the city centre with an uncommon feeling. Still, criticisms have also been formulated that associate the experiment with gentrification risks (Lakševics et al. 2020). Critics mentioned, in particular, the lack of involvement of local residents and discard of their residential liveability in favour of public space commodification. These remarks echo the contemporary debates about historical centres in many European cities being increasingly made tourist-friendly, but unfit for residents’ everyday life needs. The organisation of a large concert soon after the start of the experiment, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, was also an object of criticism. In the eyes of some, this episode exemplified a greater concern with commercial exploitation than with collective needs (LSM.lv 2020). In the context of the post-socialist city, this example reflects the ambivalence of positive trends in terms of either regeneration of inherited public-green spaces and social infrastructure or creation of new spaces, where the prevalence of the market logic can easily lead to outcomes such as privatisation or intensive commodification (see Kalyukin et al. 2015; Budenbender and Zupan 2017; Zupan and Budenbender 2019). This case too, exemplifies how sustainable and environment-friendly initiatives can be accompanied by commodification and de facto discrimination of some stakeholders’ interests—here in fact the local residents. It thereby underlines the interrelation between neoliberal governance and poor participatory and recognition mechanisms. It is then possible to look at the erosion of informal spaces and commodification of formal ones as different but clearly complementary outcomes of the neoliberal logic of governance, all based on an ‘exploitative’ view of public and green space. Besides, this logic interacts—in terms of continuities and discontinuities—with the spatial legacies of the socialist past, which leads to the emergence of context-specific issues

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and dynamics (Golubchikov et al. 2014). Concerning UGSs in Riga, these dynamics range from the effects of housing and land reform on maintenance (Treija and Bratuskins 2019) to functional alienation processes. The issues associated with participatory and recognition mechanisms and practises and the predominance of top-down decision-making, which are common to many CEE/FSU countries (Kronenberg et al. 2020), can similarly be connected at the same time with state-socialist legacies, and with global trends in neoliberal urban governance.

6

Conclusions

The mixed methodology analysis adopted in this study aimed to assess distributive EJ in Riga and its connection with environmental dynamics and urban governance and policies. There is a significant body of neighbourhood studies investigating the influence of physical and environmental factors on social ones, including research on the relationship between various neighbourhood characteristics (including environmental amenities) and the local patterns of residential segregation (for recent examples, see e.g. Van Gent and Musterd 2016; Park and Kwan 2017). However, this field is still relatively unexplored in post-socialist urban studies. Despite the substantial urban change, a changing occupational structure and increasing demographic challenges during the three decades after the collapse of state socialism, the association between environmental characteristics and residential segregation is deemed either unclear or non-existent in post-socialist urban research (Rufat and Marcinczak 2020). In this regard, the social and spatial analysis of distributive EJ carried out in this study is meant to provide additional insights into social and environmental disparities in post-socialist cities. Although our findings showed that distributive patterns of UGSs in the city have no straightforward association with the neighbourhood’s social status, evidence supporting the existence of patterns of environmental injustice has been found. Poorer residents are likely to be

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‘bound’ to residential areas with a smaller share of UGSs. Moreover, population increase patterns, which can generally be explained by middle-upper-class mobility, are associated with areas with access to high-quality UGSs and richer ‘green infrastructure’. The latter result underlines the possibility of an increase in inequality patterns through processes of UGS degradation in growingly poor neighbourhoods and privatisation due to infill developments. Besides, the large share of informal UGSs in the city does underline not only the necessity of a qualitative, rather than purely quantitative, assessment of distributive justice but also raises concerns about possible dynamics of functional alienation and physical destruction, which are made more likely by weak recognition, lack of protection and limited involvement of residents in decision-making processes. Hence, a ‘static’ assessment of distributive justice needs to be complemented by investigating dynamic aspects, from legal protection of UGSs to functional alienation and commodification to citizenship participation and stakeholders’ recognition. For this reason, in this study, we attempted to integrate our quantitative analysis by discussing cases that exemplify the logic and practises of urban governance in Riga and their impact on green space maintenance and development. The examples evidenced the dynamics leading to erosion and accessibility issues—primarily the destruction of alienated and/or unrecognised green spaces treated as ‘unused potential’ for construction or parking development and the commodification of environment-friendly planning initiatives. These dynamics are different in many regards, but all of them and their interrelation with issues of top-down decision-making and poor participatory and recognition mechanisms reflect an evidently neoliberal understanding of the value of space as exchange rather than use value, which makes them to a large extent complementary. Moreover, erosion and commodification trends are to a certain extent exacerbated by the prevalence of top-down decision-making and de facto poor participatory and recognition mechanisms. It is then evident that in the context of

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Riga, EJ needs to be framed and understood within the context of post-socialist neoliberal governance and its interaction with socialist legacies (Golubchikov et al. 2014; Budenbender and Zupan 2017) and analysed not only in terms of ‘static’ distributive patterns but also addressing procedural and recognition dimensions and related long-term implications (Davies 2006). Overall, the findings of our study allow us to hypothesise some socio-spatial trends and scenarios that are common to many post-socialist cities across Central and Eastern Europe. The urban change in residential areas in Riga clearly reflects a social polarisation trend that has accelerated since the 2000s (Krišjāne et al. 2016; Musterd et al. 2017). A significant proportion (above 70%) of urban dwellers in Riga lives in large-scale housing estates built in the socialist era, where in most cases, UGSs are gradually deteriorating due to issues with property rights, lack of recognition and maintenance. At the same time, upmarket residential areas accommodate a sizable minority of affluent people with highquality, well-equipped and often private UGSs. While the quality of UGSs was not investigated in this study in objective terms besides the broad formal/informal taxonomy, we may however expect that low-social status residents, for whom the apartments privatised in the early 1990s are the only relevant assets and safety nets, will be increasingly bound to less desirable areas with poor environmental conditions (Rufat and Marcinczak 2020). Moreover, socially polarised residential areas in environmentally attractive locations with plenty of informal UGSs may affect residential sorting by increasingly attracting wealthier residents and pushing out poorer ones, first at the micro and then at the neighbourhood level. Thus, distributive environmental (in)justice and sociospatial segregation dynamics appear significantly interconnected and associated with a broad set of enabling factors, including societal change, real estate market strategies and neoliberal governance, development strategies and policies. Our study is a description and preliminary analysis of the trends and dynamics that affect EJ

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in Riga. Whereas our analysis reveals certain relationships between environmental factors and the local patterns of socio-occupational status, a longitudinal and preferably qualitative study would be needed to draw firmer conclusions. Moreover, a more comprehensive dynamic analysis should structurally frame EJ issues within the overall urban development model (Budenbender and Zupan 2017), address relevant power relations in terms of stakeholders’ hierarchies (Ernstson 2013) and integrate analyses of distributive and procedural justice with the investigation of the dialectic and interactions between society and the environment (Pikner in this volume). These topics necessarily need to be addressed by further research. Acknowledgements This study was supported by the Fundamental and Applied Research Project No. lzp2020/2-0280 and the National Research Program Project No. VPP-IZM-2018/1-0015. We are grateful to the editors and the anonymous reviewers for their insights and suggestions.

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G. Sechi et al. Peck J, Theodore N, Brenner N (2009) Neoliberal urbanism: models, moments, mutations. SAIS Rev 29:1 (Winter–Spring) Pietrzyk-Kaszynska A, Czepkiewicz M, Kronenberg J (2017) Eliciting non-monetary values of formal and informal urban green spaces using public participation GIS. Landsc Urban Plan 160:85–95 Pikner T (in this volume). Contingent urban nature and interactional justice: the evolving coastal spaces of the city of Tallinn. In: Plüschke-Altof B, Sooväli-Sepping H (eds) Whose Green City? Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe. Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham Pungas L, Plüschke-Altof B, Müüripeal A, SooväliSepping H (in this volume). Same, Same but Different? The ‘right’ kind of gardening and the negotiation of neoliberal urban governance in the post-socialist city. In: Plüschke-Altof B, Sooväli-Sepping H (eds) Whose Green City? Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe. Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham. Riga City Council (2009) Functional zoning of the city. Riga Spatial Plan 2006–2018. Riga city development department. https://www.rdpad.lv/rtp/speka-esosais/ Riga City Council (2017) Thematic plan of the urban green structure and open spaces. Riga city development department. https://www.rdpad.lv/rtp/tematiskieplanojumi-2/apstiprinatie/ Rufat S, Marcinczak S (2020) The equalising mirage? Socio-economic segregation and EJ in post-socialist Bucharest. J Hous Built Environ 35:917–938 Rupprecht CDD, Byrne JA (2014) Informal urban greenspace: a typology and trilingual systematic review of its role for urban residents and trends in the literature. Urban for Urban Green 13:597–611 Sikorska D, Laskiewicz E, Krauze K, Sikorski P (2020) The role of informal green spaces in reducing inequalities in urban green space availability to children and seniors. Environ Sci Policy 108:144–154 State Land Service of Latvia (2020) Land allocation by typology of land use https://www.vzd.gov.lv/lv/ zemes-sadalijums-zemes-lietosanas-veidos (accessed 20.10.2021) Smith MB (2015) Faded red paradise: welfare and the Soviet city after 1953. Contemp Eur Hist 24(4):597– 615 Tammaru T, Marcińczak S, Aunap R, van Ham M, Janssen H (2020) Relationship between income inequality and residential segregation of socioeconomic groups. Reg Stud 54(4):450–461 Treija S, Bratuskins U, Bondars E (2012) Green open space in large scale housing estates: a place for challenge. J Archit Urban 36(4):264–271 Treija S, Bratuskins U, Koroļova A (2018) Urban densification of large housing estates in the context of privatisation of public open space: the case of imanta, Riga. Archit Urban Plan 14:105–110 Treija S, Bratuskins U (2019) Socialist ideals and physical reality: large housing estates in Riga, Latvia. In: Hess D, Tammaru T (eds) Housing estates in the baltic

Environmental Justice in the Post-socialist … countries. The urban book series, Springer, Cham, pp 161–180 Trojanek R, Gluszak M, Tanas J (2018) The effect of urban green spaces on house prices in Warsaw. Int J Strateg Prop Manag 22(5):358–371 Tuvikene T (2019) Between community and private ownership in centrally planned residential space: governing parking in socialist housing estates. In Hess D, Tammaru T (eds) housing estates in the baltic countries. The urban book series, Springer, Cham, pp 321–338 Usca M (2010) Urban activity spaces: the case of a postSoviet neighbourhood in Riga. WIT Trans Ecol Environ 129:583–593 Van Gent W, Musterd S (2016) Class, migrants, and the European city: spatial impacts of structural changes in early twenty-first century Amsterdam. J Ethn Migr Stud 42(6):893–912

79 Varga-Harris C (2015) Stories of house and home. Soviet apartment life during the Khrushchev years. Cornell University Press, Ithaca and London Walker G (2012) EJ: Concepts, evidence and politics. Routledge, London and New York Zarecor KE (2018) What was so socialist about the Socialist city? Second world urbanity in Europe. J Urban Hist 44(1):95–117 Zupan D, Budenbender M (2019) Moscow urban development. Neoliberal urbanism and green infrastructures. In: Tuvikene T, Sbignev W, Neugebauer C (eds) Post-socialist urban infrastructures. Research in planning and urban Design, Routledge, Milton Park, New York

Contested Urban Green Spaces

Private Events in a Public Park: Contested Music Festivals and Environmental Justice in Finsbury Park, London Andrew Smith, Guy Osborn, and Goran Vodicka

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Introduction

On 5 May 2020 Live Nation announced that the UK’s biggest urban music festival, Wireless, had been cancelled because of measures imposed to control the spread of COVID-19. In response, a cabinet member from Haringey Council tweeted: Finsbury Park is an iconic gig venue. I am sorry that #Wireless won’t be there this year, but understand we must #staysafe, keep our distance and #ProtectTheNHS. Live music is part of the rich mix that is the #FinsburyPark we know and love @haringeycouncil (Hearn 2020, our emphasis)

This tweet was swiftly followed by one from the Friends of Finsbury Park, a local pressure group and charity which campaigns for ‘a greener, healthier park’, and which has consistently objected to Wireless since it moved to Finsbury Park in 2014: Cllr Hearn - Finsbury Park is first and foremost a *Park*! Thank you for confirming the cancellation; we welcome this decision. The local com-

A. Smith (&)
G. Osborn University of Westminster, London, UK e-mail: [email protected] G. Osborn e-mail: [email protected] G. Vodicka Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK e-mail: [email protected]

munity will be glad to know they will have full access to this fine public space over the summer. (Friends of Finsbury Park 2020, our emphasis)

This exchange between a councillor and a pressure group captures the essence of a long running disagreement over Finsbury Park’s use as a venue for music festivals. This debate has become increasingly prominent in recent years, attracting national newspaper coverage (Hancox 2019b; Hunt 2018). Some may consider this to be a local and unremarkable dispute, but it raises significant questions about public green spaces, not least: who and what are our parks for? Contested park festivals highlight pivotal issues surrounding how urban green spaces are used, funded and managed, and show how private interests affect public spaces. In 2019, London became the world’s first National Park City, a title awarded to acknowledge the important role that parks and green spaces play in the UK capital. But these spaces are inequitably distributed and highly contested, especially so in an era of neoliberal austerity (Smith 2020), and the dispute over staging music festivals in Finsbury Park is indicative of wider resistance to exclusive, private uses of London’s green spaces (Smith 2019). The issue of equitable access— who gets to use the park and when—is a key part of debates surrounding urban green space and environmental justice. As Loukaitou-Sideris and Mukhija (2019) note, the literature on park inequities tends to focus on distributive justice,

© The Author(s) 2022 B. Plüschke-Altof and H. Sooväli-Sepping (eds.), Whose Green City?, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04636-0_5

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but the case analysed here also highlights the importance of procedural and interactional justice (Low 2013). By analysing the accessibility and inclusivity of city parks, our work addresses Goal #11 of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: to make cities inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable. This chapter explores contested music festivals staged in Finsbury Park and focuses on one festival in particular, Wireless. We examine the legal challenge over the right to stage this festival to understand wider debates about the accessibility of green space and to highlight arguments over how London’s parks are used, funded and regulated. To introduce this dispute, we first examine the history of staging music festivals in London parks and locate this discussion in the wider context of contested park use. We then examine the legal action mounted by the Friends of Finsbury Park and the key arguments of proponents and opponents of using Finsbury Park as a venue for music festivals. The long-term significance and the wider implications of the case study are then discussed. Ultimately, we argue that there is nothing essentially new or wrong with using public parks as venues for music festivals. These festivals can help to make parks more public, especially if they are free, and if they represent and attract minority groups that are excluded from parks. However, when decision-making is driven by financial considerations, the scale, exclusivity and regularity of contemporary festivals begin to affect the publicness of municipal parks. Sustainable urban development means striving for environmental integrity, but also social equity, and we argue that the contemporary prevalence of music festivals in London’s parks exacerbates the city’s inequitable provision of urban green space.

Reflections on Methodology This chapter is based on a series of qualitative research exercises conducted in the period 2017– 2020. The authors have immersed themselves in the case study by attending various meetings and hearings, including meetings of the Friends of

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Finsbury Park, and the Court of Appeal hearing in November 2017 at which the Friends challenged the decision of the High Court that Haringey Council and Live Nation were entitled to stage the Wireless festival (Dobson 2018). The contested legality of park festivals is the subject of the work we present here but also a key way that we have researched the issue of festival incursions. The chapter is also based on observation exercises undertaken in Finsbury Park before, during, and after at the 2019 Wireless festival and similar exercises before, during, and after other music events staged in 2019. We also interviewed the Chair of the Friends of Finsbury Park in 2018 and developed a better understanding of some of the issues by joining a series of guided walks that were organised in 2019 by 2NQ, a not for profit arts, culture, and heritage organisation. One of these happened on Sunday 7 July—during the 2019 edition of Wireless. Our work is also informed by the large number of documents published online by Haringey Council, the Friends of Finsbury Park and other key stakeholders, and by media coverage of the dispute at the heart of the chapter.

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Contested City Parks in the Neoliberal Era

A significant volume of literature, much of it produced by US authors such as Low et al. (2009), Mitchell (2017), and Zukin (1995), has given us a better understanding of city parks as inherently contested spaces. This body of work suggests that politics and struggle are not merely common features of parks, they are constitutive elements that transform green spaces into public spaces. Because of their symbolic significance at the heart of many communities, struggles over how parks are used are not merely about what happens within the park, but represent wider conflicts. As Trouille (2014: 69) argues, park conflicts, ‘often become symbolically charged battles over the meaning, control and future of city neighbourhoods’. City parks host an array of functions and are meant to appeal to multiple audiences, and so there are obvious struggles over who gets to use

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them, and for what purposes. There are strong links here to wider debates about the ‘right to the city’ (Harvey 2013), which are prominent in academic work, but which now feature in public discussions too. Park disputes can often be boiled down to ongoing debates over: what the park constitutes; appropriate uses of parks; and who parks are for (Churchill et al. 2018). Over time, expectations of the services that public parks should provide have increased, with traditional functions such as passive leisure, social interaction, and sports activities supplemented with educational activities, live entertainment, and various forms of consumption. On top of this, parks are now also identified as key vehicles for providing a range of ‘ecosystem services’ which ensure cities remain liveable spaces. There is also an important representative function of public parks—they are often regarded as places to protest, celebrate, and mark significant moments, and are deployed by civic boosters as powerful marketing tools. Inevitably, these different functions clash: even in large urban parks it is difficult to accommodate such varied notions of what a park is, and what it is for. As Mitchell (2017) argues, whilst we tend to get a little carried away with dramatic prophecies about the end of public space, we need to better understand the ends to which public spaces are put. In an era of neoliberal austerity, a period when public management and public funding of city parks has been undermined, park conflicts are often underpinned by disputes over functions imposed to generate commercial revenue (Smith 2020). As Loughran (2014) notes, parks in neoliberal contexts such as the US now face pressure to become more entrepreneurial. In the UK, approximately 30% of park budgets are generated by commercial activities (Heritage Lottery Fund 2016), and Dempsey (2018: 57) predicts that ‘income generating activities will become a much more regular feature in parks and open spaces’. Some ways of generating revenue are now accepted and even welcomed, for example, cafes and concessions, and charges for sport facilities and car parking (Nam and Dempsey 2020). Others are more controversial. Over the past 20 years, the rise of the experience

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economy (Pine and Gilmore 1999) has encouraged park authorities to hire out parks as venues for events. For example, Schweinsberg et al. (2017: 244) note that in Sydney’s Botanical Gardens, ‘there has been a growing commercialisation of the gardens through exclusive use for activities such as weddings, corporate events, outdoor cinema and major tourism events’. In the US, during 2018/9, New York’s City’s Bryant Park earned more than half of its $22 million budget from its Winter Festival (Bryant Park Management Corporation 2019). In London’s municipal parks, the most lucrative events staged are urban music festivals which have grown in number and scale in recent years (Smith 2019). These are amongst the most contested uses of London’s parks as the discussion presented later in this chapter highlights. Alongside obvious issues with noise and other nuisance effects, large-scale festivals hosting up to 50,000 people require extensive facilities and security apparatus to be installed—these close off large sections of public parks for several weeks. There are obvious socio-spatial justice implications of staging these events, not least the ways they limit public access to public parks, temporarily privatising them. However, these effects are complicated by the fact that festivals often appeal to younger, more diverse audiences. Thus, for some, urban music festivals represent effective ways to disrupt the old-fashioned image of municipal parks by visibilising underrepresented cultures and people.

On Music Festivals and Juridification The live music sector has become increasingly important given challenges faced by the recorded music industry due to digitisation and falling sales of physical products. Music promoters have become more prominent, particularly because of the exponential growth of music festivals. Writing in 2007 Frith noted For British promoters the most significant means of expanding the size of the audience has undoubtedly been the festival. Festivals are the key asset in the portfolios of the international

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A. Smith et al. corporations now dominating British concert promotion and the economic reasons are obvious... The British rock industry is now organised around the summer festival season. (Frith 2007: online)

A decade or so later, at least until the COVID19 crisis, festivals continued to be crucial to the economic health of the music industry. In 2015 UK Music found that the total direct and indirect spend at UK festivals was in the region of £1.7 billion, sustaining over 13,500 full-time jobs (UK Music 2015; Webster and McKay 2016). Their absence in the summer of 2020 was painfully felt by festival employees, promoters and punters alike, with a shift instead to digital consumption (CIPEC 2020). Analyses of festivals have become increasingly prevalent in live music scholarship and Frith (2020) categorises this sub-field as being focused on one of four areas: economics (festival as commodity), sociology (festival as rite), politics (festival as setting for disputes/causes) or psychology (festival as experience). We are particularly concerned with the third of these, the political dimension, which includes issues relating to law, regulation, policy and ideology. Talbot (2011) explores the escalation of powers to police activities and behaviours and one example she gives is Stokefest, a music festival in Clissold Park, London—barely a mile away from Finsbury Park—which was cancelled in 2009 after a variety of new requirements were imposed by Hackney Council. Talbot used, in part, the theory of juridification to frame her analysis. Legal innovation, normalisation and commercialisation have therefore been the conjoined strategies to contain free, open and alternative events. The concept of juridification expresses both this tendency towards the over regulation and contractualisation of everyday life and the way in which it impacts negatively on the cultural ‘lifeworld’, closing down the possibilities of the free or experimental use of public space. (Talbot 2011: 87)

Juridification is a nuanced concept. Associated with the work of Teubner (1987), it was further developed by Habermas to analyse the social and cultural consequences of the overproduction of law. Broadly speaking it concerns the process by which areas of civil society come

within the purview of the regulatory gaze. The way that the law impacts and intersects here is, however, complex. Blicher and Molander (2008) map five dimensions of juridification (constitutive, colonisation, conflict solving, judicialization, legal framing), but two specific dimensions are most useful in helping us understand the framing and regulation of space in the context of park festivals; law’s colonisation and legal framing. The former concerns how law expands and becomes more dense—law conquers fertile ground—areas that were previously unregulated become regulated. In previous work on London’s Hyde Park, Osborn and Smith (2015) argued that a shadow legacy of staging Olympic events in 2012 was a raft of new regulatory measures, part of a process of regulatory creep. The second key element, legal framing, concerns the idea that things increasingly are seen through a legal lens; people, bodies, events see things or themselves as legal persons or through a legal perspective. For events in parks, we see these two phenomena through increasing amounts of park regulations and the ways in which user conflicts within parks are increasingly addressed as legal issues. The contrast between free festivals and commodified music events noted by Talbot (2011) is also highlighted by Griffin et al. (2018). Music festivals have long provided vehicles for licensed transgression, allowing release from everyday pressures and constraints, but Griffin et al. (2018: 480) suggest that major music festivals are now ‘highly commercialised bounded spaces in which the experience of freedom is commoditised, subject to external and internal regulation’. Even though these events draw on the counter-cultural ideals of the free festival movement (Morey et al. 2014), the experience of festival goers is highly constrained and choreographed. Regulatory practices take various forms: fences and watch towers, security personnel and searches, tickets and other conditions of entry, and plus various restrictions that protect the interest of sponsors (Griffin et al. 2018). These interventions become particularly problematic when municipal parks are used as venues for events, as they contradict the principle that these green spaces should be freely accessible to everyone.

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Park festivals can have positive effects on host locations. They increase revenue for park authorities and local businesses, provide job opportunities, enhance civic pride and reinforce cultural identity, and help to make host locations and minority cultures more visible. As Wynn (2015) has shown through his analysis of music festivals in the US, a festival can be leveraged by various stakeholders within a locale to attract audiences, create place-based growth, foster community and promote economic development (Brucher 2020). But there is a flipside, and the negative aspects of festivals are covered well by Pavluković et al. (2017: 43): changes in community values and patterns, environmental damage and litter, higher prices of basic services, resident exodus, interruption of normal business, noise and crowds, unsafe sexual behaviors, use of alcohol and drugs, conflicts with festival goers, xenophobia, commodification and exploitation of culture and traditional ways of life.

Issues of gentrification are particularly relevant here, as there is a noted trend for urban entertainment functions to be resisted by new residents (Eldridge 2019). Therefore, whilst music events can contribute to the gentrification of urban green spaces, festivals can also be negatively affected if new residents oppose them because of noise and other nuisance effects. Trying to weigh up the pros and cons of using parks for festivals is complicated by the fact that many impacts occur beyond the confines of park boundaries. For example, Brucher (2020: 30) asks ‘does increased traffic at local businesses, for example, balance out limited public access to parks during these private events, and the damage to public property incurred by their large crowds?’ These trade-offs, between rewards and risk, and public costs and private benefits, run through many of the debates surrounding music festivals in parks. One of the justifications for staging festivals in parks, rather than stadiums or other purposebuilt venues, is that festival goers are able to engage with natural settings, providing satisfying festival experiences and opportunities to promote ecological messages and pro-environmental

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behaviours. Bendrups and Weston (2015: 65) argue that ‘given the fact these festivals are so often associated with counter and youth culture, they are perfectly suited for resonating with green and eco-aware sensibilities’. However, the authors also suggest that ‘highly urbanised music’, which characterises the music performed at the festivals discussed in this chapter, ‘may not align thematically with environment or ecology’ which undermines this justification (Bendrups and Weston 2015). When venues are installed in large parks this allows festival goers to feel detached from surrounding urban areas, creating a sense of remoteness that festival audiences crave. This means urban festivals can achieve some of the separation experience that is sought by festival attendees without city dwellers having to travel far from home (Packer and Ballantyne 2011). According to Morey et al. (2014), this is part of a prevailing trend towards affordable escapism. The established practice of staging music events in parks means that many local people now anticipate urban green spaces will be used as venues. For example, Brucher (2020: 30) notes that the Grant Park Music Festival, which has moved location twice within Chicago’s lakefront parklands, ‘helped generate an expectation among residents that parks provide not just recreational space, but musical programming too’. In neoliberal contexts, this expectation has translated into the physical design of parks, where purpose-built performance spaces provide dedicated venues for music events. Chicago’s Millennium Park features a stage designed by Frank Gehry (Brucher 2020), a spectacular version of the band shell structures that occupy many US parks. These are less common in the UK and other northern European countries, unless you count the traditional bandstands and small stages that continue to host musical performances. There are some isolated examples of larger venues in the UK. Crystal Palace Park in London hosts music events in an outdoor auditorium that was installed in 1996/7 on the same site that hosted a series of famous music events staged in the 1970s.

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Park Live: Music Festivals in London’s Parks Staging music events in London’s parks is not a new phenomenon. In 1942, London County Council staged nearly 500 concerts, 250 concert parties and over a hundred open-air dances’ in the city’s parks (Elborough 2016: 262). According to Hannikainen (2016), the number of musical performances peaked in the summer of 1966 with 1,680 Greater London Council events staged in parks. Around the same time a series of free rock concerts were staged in Hyde Park (see Fig. 1). Hyde Park was considered suitable for mass events because of its central location and open character (Hannikainen 2016) and rock concerts were permitted here from 1967 to 1973. During the 1970s promoters began putting on large-scale music events in London parks. For example, twice yearly one day festivals were staged in Crystal Palace Park (see Fig. 1) throughout the 1970s. Some of these performances were highly political and controversial. The Stranglers played a concert in Battersea Park (see Fig. 1) in 1978 even though they were banned from playing in the UK capital. These events reinforced the idea that parks were appropriate venues for assemblies, protests and celebrations. In the 1970s and 1980s, the most significant music festivals staged in London’s parks were free events organised as protests. The most famous was Rock Against Racism, an antifascist carnival staged in Victoria Park (see Fig. 1) on 30 April 1978. There were also several ‘Festivals for Life’ organised by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, including one in Brockwell Park in 1983 (see Fig. 1). A series of Jobs for a Change festivals were staged by the Greater London Council in several London parks in 1984–85 as part of ongoing opposition to the Thatcher government. The Battersea Park edition in July 1985 attracted 250,000 people. The Greater London Council-funded festivals were part of a strategy to popularise ‘leftist sentiment’ (Cloonan 2007) and were generously funded. The Greater London Council spent £1,062,000 on outdoor entertainment in 1982–83 (Hannikainen 2016), claiming £230,000 back in

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income. These figures indicate that events were essentially provided for political, social and cultural reasons, rather than for financial ones. Free and highly political festivals contrast markedly with events staged from the 1990s onwards which were more commercially focused and exclusive. Indeed, whilst the most prominent park festivals staged during the 1970s and 1980s were vehicles of resistance, later festivals were subjected to resistance because they were seen as part of the privatisation and commercialisation of public space (Smith 2018). The demise of the Greater London Council in 1986, and the decision to hand London Boroughs responsibility for managing and maintaining the Council’s portfolio of large parks, exacerbated funding shortfalls. In this context, there were added incentives to adopt more entrepreneurial approaches to park management. Smith (2019) and Smith and Vodicka (2020) highlight that many of these ex Greater London Council parks now host multiday music festivals, including prominent parks like Brockwell Park and Victoria Park. Suburban parks, country parks on the metropolitan fringes and several commons in South London now also stage large-scale music festivals (Fig. 1).

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Finsbury Park. The People’s Park?

Originally intended to be one of London’s Royal Parks, Finsbury Park eventually opened as a municipal park in 1869. Financial constraints meant the park was created at a location where land was affordable—this was some distance from Finsbury in an area 4 miles north of London’s centre. Over time, the district around the 46 hectare (115 acre) green space also became known as Finsbury Park. This is a very diverse area both in terms of its ethnic and socioeconomic diversity: over one-third of local residents are from black or ethnic minority groups (Haringey Council 2020). Finsbury Park now has to serve a much more varied set of needs associated with an increasingly heterogeneous population. The administration of the park is complicated by territorial complexity: although the park is funded and managed by one Borough

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Fig. 1 A map of featuring London parks that have hosted music festivals (Mason Edwards)

Council (Haringey), it is located on the border of three Boroughs (Haringey, Hackney and Islington). A petition from inhabitants of City of London and the Borough of Finsbury in 1841 had made clear the need for the park and the benefits it would generate: Parks and Public walks may be established or secured for the promotion of health and

improvement of the moral condition of the middling and poorer classes of such City and Borough, and as the only means of affording the healthful exercise and recreation to the classes and industrious population located in these confined districts… (Hayes 2019, 24)

Whilst the ambition that Finsbury Park might improve the moral condition of citizens seems outdated, the other intended functions of the park remain relevant to the present day, particularly

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A Musical, Municipal Park: Music Events in Finsbury Park

Fig. 2 The part of Finsbury Park used for large music festivals (Credit Andrew Smith)

given the lack of urban green space in this part of London (Haringey 2020). As Stansfield (2018) notes, Finsbury Park is a heterogeneous ‘space of multiplicity’, which hosts a wide range of encounters, ethnicities and activities. It is a large Victorian Park, which features a boating lake, extensive sports facilities and an art gallery, but it also has a reputation for drug dealing, cruising and vandalism (Stansfield 2018). The park hosts a wide range of users, including homeless and insecurely housed people living in tents, something we noted during our own observations. Stansfield’s interviewees noted that users liked the park because it is a tolerant space, open to everyone, where people don’t tell you off (unless you are barbecuing!). These qualities mean Finsbury Park can still legitimately claim to be a people’s park: it is a refuge for many, ‘a green place to spend time without pressure to spend money’ (Stansfield 2018: 452). The welcome contrast to the commercial and privatised landscapes of twenty-first-century London perhaps explains why ticketed music festivals staged here are so vehemently opposed by some (Fig. 2). Concerns about the festivals reflect wider concerns about urban change. As Stansfield (2018) notes, the issue of public space privatisation is currently ‘playing out in Finsbury Park, both in relation to regeneration developments [in the wider area] but also large -scale music festivals in the park itself’.

The green spaces of Finsbury Park have an impressive pedigree as a place that has hosted musical performances. The first open-air symphony concert of the London Philharmonic Orchestra took place in the park in 1948, and an alternative to the Notting Hill Carnival was staged in Finsbury Park from 1978 to 1981 which included reggae and steel bands. The Greater London Council [GLC] organised various events including an anti-heroin event in 1985 (Hayes 2019). However, towards the end of the 1980s, there was a noticeable shift from programming driven by cultural and political motives, to a situation where financial considerations were more prominent. This coincided with the transfer of responsibility for the park in 1986 from the GLC to Haringey Council. The local authority was keen to increase income to help offset the costs of maintaining the park. Haringey, as the Chair of the Friends of Finsbury Park told us: ‘had a fraction of the resources that the GLC had to manage it and have never really been able to properly fund it since the 80s’. The outcome was a more commercial approach and a change in the types of events staged. Hayes (2019: 78) confirms this in his recently published history of Finsbury Park: [i]n order to raise money for the parks department, Haringey increased the size and duration of music events in Finsbury Park inviting various promoters to use the park for large scale commercial festivals.

The new commercial orientation was achieved via the involvement of Irish entrepreneur Vince Power and his company the Mean Fiddler and Workers Beer Company. Mean Fiddler organised New Year’s Eve Parties, various one off concerts and The Fleadh, which began in 1990 as a celebration of Gaelic culture. The Fleadh continued to be staged in Finsbury Park until 2011, when Bob Dylan was amongst the headline acts. By this time Vince Power had sold his company and the rights for the Fleadh, so the event was

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renamed The Feis. One review described this event as ‘a gathering of the surly, the incontinent and the downright aggressive’ (Sutcliffe 2011), with the same reviewer concluding that: it’s beginning to dawn on younger music-lovers, too, that endless queues for terrible food and overpriced beer, surroundings like a Chicago stockyard and a performance schedule that treats the audience as the least important component in the whole affair, aren’t all that good a deal — whoever’s on stage.

As Morey et al. (2014) rightly note, commerce has been bounded up with festivals since their beginnings, but, like other festivals in the period 1990–2011, The Fleadh had morphed from a commercial, but meaningful and rooted cultural celebration, into an expensive, commercialised, and standardised event. Other music events during the period 1990– 2014 included a 1992 Madness Concert which marked the start of a series of four biennial ‘Madstock’ events. The inaugural edition famously triggered an earthquake, and the subsequent evacuation of three tower blocks, which was caused by 75,000 fans jumping up and down. This incident highlights the effects music events were beginning to have on surrounding neighbourhoods, with inevitable complaints. Other concerts at Finsbury Park included John Lydon returning to the area for a Sex Pistols’ ‘Filthy Lucre’ reunion in 1996, a Pulp concert in 1998, and Oasis and New Order concerts in 2002. There were also several multi-day music festivals, including Great Expectations (1993), Jam in the Park (1997) and the Essential Festival (1997)—an early version of the Electronic Dance Music festivals that have been staged in the park in recent years. Since the Millennium, some free music events were hosted in Finsbury Park that challenged the political status quo. Between 2006 and 2010 rise, a free anti-racist festival was staged. Initially set up by the Trades Union Congress in 1996 as Respect, and revived under Ken Livingstone whilst Mayor of London, it became rise in 2006 following the formation of the Respect political party. This event helped to reinforce the reputation of Finsbury Park as a politically charged

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space, an identity that had been forged in the twentieth century when the park had hosted assemblies organised by the Suffragettes and Oswald Mosley. In 2009, a year after he became Mayor of London, Boris Johnson announced plans to scrap the rise festival, citing the failure to find a sponsor as the key reason. Johnson had already announced the removal of the anti-racism message from promotional material the previous year on the grounds that it was not appropriate to have political organisations involved in festival programmes. The cancellation of a festival that encouraged young people to vote against racist parties was heavily criticised (Mullholland 2009). An article in the New Statesman (2008) which anticipated the demise of rise suggested ‘it’s anybody’s guess what Boris [Johnson] will choose to do instead in years to come. A Torystyle village fete, perhaps?’ The actual response was more predictable. In a manner highly symbolic of the politics of the era, a series of highly commercialised concerts and festivals were organised by global entertainment companies. Major acts such as The Stone Roses (2013) and the Arctic Monkeys (2014) staged high-profile gigs, and Finsbury Park became the setting for the sorts of music festivals which had become ‘contemporary tourist destinations’ and ‘important sites of consumption within Britain’s experiential economy’ (Griffin et al. 2018: 481). In 2014, Haringey Council published a new Event Policy for Finsbury Park which limited Major Events (those involving an audience of 10,000 people) to 5 per year, each lasting between 1 and 3 days. Rather than seeing this as an upper limit, The Council has tried to stage as many large events as possible within these constraints. This has tended to mean an annual calendar involving large-scale electronic dance music festivals in the Spring and Autumn, plus a more intense series of festivals in late June and early July. The Friends of Finsbury Park claim that in 2018 the park was disrupted by the assembly, disassembly or staging of events for over 100 days. In 2019, weekend long music festivals were staged during periods when the park was most in demand: in May (Steel Yard), June (Community Festival),

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July (Wireless), August (Sink the Pink) and September (Hospitality/Abode). This calendar emphasises the way that festivals now impinge on the everyday accessibility of urban green space. Several events staged in Finsbury Park have been opposed by local residents, but the annual staging of Wireless has proved to be particularly contentious. The Friends of Finsbury Park have led the opposition to Wireless. This group of volunteers was set up in 1984 to aid the conservation, protection and improvement of the park. Like many of the other 600+ friends of parks groups in London, the Friends of Finsbury Park was established to respond to the threats posed by reductions in local government funding and new opportunities to bid for funding from grant schemes. Through their campaigning, fundraising and involvement in stakeholder meetings, The Friends of Finsbury Park promote the interests of park users. Although membership is free, and participation from all sections of neighbouring communities is encouraged, the Friends are vulnerable to criticism about how representative they are of park users. At the meetings we attended, young people and nonwhite members were present, but members are generally still whiter and older than the average park user. This means their long-standing opposition to music festivals is sometimes dismissed as conservative NIMBYism, rather than environmental activism.

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organises some of the UK’s largest festivals, including the Reading Festival. Wireless had previously taken place in other London parks including Hyde Park (2005–2012) and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park (2013). The event is now billed as the UK’s largest urban music festival, but early editions featured mainstream rock and pop acts and it is only more recently that Wireless has become a celebration of black British music, particularly grime (Hancox 2019a). This gritty musical genre emerged around 2002 in the Bow area of East London and has been described as ‘…a self-consciously and unashamedly edgy, unadorned Black music genre that fused the rhyming tradition of Jamaican dancehall culture, from which US rap sprang, with hip-hop inspired rhythms or beats that were initially made using basic music software or games consoles’ (Fatsis 2019: 448–9). The increased profile of Wireless since it moved to Finsbury Park in 2014 has coincided with grime’s increased prominence and cultural significance (Hancox 2019a). This is an expensive event to attend: in 2019, the lowest priced day ticket was £65 + booking fee, and even though the festival accommodates around 50,000 people on each of its three days, tickets are very difficult to access. Therefore, whilst the event is a celebration of both British black cultures and London youth cultures, it is a relatively inaccessible event (Fig. 3).

The Wireless Dispute

The Wireless festival was first staged in Finsbury Park in 2014. This multi-day event is promoted by Live Nation which is one of the world’s largest entertainment companies and one that has played a key role in the corporatisation of the festival industry (Morey et al. 2014). Live Nation now controls around a quarter of UK festivals that have a capacity in excess of 5,000 people (AIF 2019). Wireless is organised by Live Nation’s Festival Republic arm, a company that

Fig. 3 The entrance to the 2019 Wireless festival in Finsbury Park (Credit Andrew Smith)

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The Legal Challenge Opposition to Wireless coalesced after the first two editions, culminating in a legal challenge. In 2015 Festival Republic applied to Haringey Council for a licence to stage Wireless in Finsbury Park for a third time. This application—for the 2016 edition—involved enclosing 27% of the park with high security fencing and disrupting public access during an extended period of assembly and derig (from 25 June to 15 July). According to the Council’s Outdoor Events Policy (Haringey 2014), applications for major events have to be received at least 9 months prior to the proposed start date of any event, to allow for consultation with key stakeholders. In addition to this requirement, the event promoter must apply for a premises licence under the provisions of the Licensing Act 2003. The Friends of Finsbury Park, as a consultee under the Outdoor Events Policy, was notified of the application on 3 December 2015. The Friends of Finsbury Park submitted an objection, partly contesting the merits of the application but also contending that Haringey Council did not have the power to authorise the event as it compromised their responsibility to provide a public park. Notwithstanding this, on March 18 the Council agreed to hire part of the park to Festival Republic. In response, the Friends applied for a Judicial Review of that decision, funded by donors who were sympathetic to their cause. Melvin Benn, the CEO of Festival Republic, responded to the threat of a legal challenge from the Friends by dismissing opponents as NIMBYs. It is nimbyism. They have jumped on a bandwagon to try and prevent Haringey Council doing what the Government has insisted every single local authority do at this time, which is to gain as much income from their assets in order that the burden on the taxpayer doesn’t have to be increased. Benn, cited in Hanley (2016)

This rhetorical tactic is commonly used by proponents of park events, as it helps to paint their opponents as over-privileged, selfish moaners who are motivated to resist because of personal inconvenience rather than by principled

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opposition to park incursions (Smith 2018). Benn’s quote highlights the significant contribution Wireless was now making to the local authority’s parks budget. A Freedom of Information request indicated that the 2016 edition, which is explored in more detail below, generated £446,264 in fees for Haringey Council, approximately half of the annual budget required to maintain the park (Smith 2019). Whilst staging Wireless made sense from a financial perspective, especially given severe cuts to local authority budgets, these fees were earned by hiring out a public space to a private company which disrupted access to a large part of an important public space for an extended period. This ‘incursion’ into public space was at the heart of the legal challenge mounted by the Friends of Finsbury Park. According to their Chair: fundamentally, it’s about: should a park be rented out? And I’m not sure if that’s a good thing. There’s also the question of, is it morally justified to make a profit from renting out a public space? Because that’s what’s been done in the case of Finsbury Park. (Interview with Chair of Friends of Finsbury Park 2018)

By this time, hire fees from music events were earning more than £1million a year for Haringey Council, and the Friends contend that this is more money than is actually required to maintain Finsbury Park. An expedited High Court hearing was held on 9 June 2016, but the Friends’ case was dismissed by the judge allowing the 2016 Wireless festival to go ahead. Later in 2016, leave was granted for the Friends of Finsbury Park to appeal the decision. Permission to appeal was granted on the solitary point that the judge had erred in holding that Section 145 of the Local Government Act 1972 authorised the council to hire out the park. The Friends of Finsbury Park were joined in the action heard at the Court of Appeal by the Open Spaces Society who were allowed to be added as ‘interveners’. The role of intervener essentially allows interested parties to provide useful information to the court (Public Law Project 2008). The Open Spaces Society is England’s oldest conservation group and has

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highlighted the worrying commercialisation of public spaces through its Save our Spaces campaign. Their involvement highlighted that the case had wider national significance. At the Court of Appeal hearing held on 17 November 2017, the arguments of the Friends of Finsbury Park and the Open Spaces Society were slightly different. The Friends argued that Local Government Act 1972 s145 did not give the local authority the power to enclose large parts of the park for such a long time, as the Act did not explicitly state that the public may be excluded. The Open Spaces Society proceeded on a different basis. They accepted that the Local Government Act 1972 s145 gave the Council the power to close the park, but argued that this specific section did not in fact apply. Its argument was that the legislation that should have been applied was the snappily titled Local Government Provisional Order Confirmation (Greater London Parks and Open Spaces) Act 1967. This Act permits only 10% or 1 acre of any park to be enclosed, whichever is the greater. It also stipulates that commercial events cannot be staged on more than 8 Sundays or any more than 35 days in total. There are also restrictions on commercial activity in this legislation, with shops and stands limited to 10% of the enclosed area. According to the Chair of the Friends of Finsbury Park: the legislation had in mind exactly the kind of situation that Finsbury Park is in now, where the park is being overused, too much of it was being shut off, people didn’t feel like it was a park anymore (Interview with Chair of Friends of Finsbury Park 2018).

The Court held the 1967 Act was an alternative approach that was available to London local authorities, but it did not restrict the potential application of the 1972 Local Government Act, upon which Haringey Council had based their decision. On that basis Haringey were at liberty to enclose part of the park and to rent the site and exclude the non-paying public for a temporary period. Therefore, whilst many felt that Wireless is responsible for unjustly disrupting access to public space, the UK courts had ruled that this type of incursion was legal.

The Friends of Finsbury Park and the Open Spaces Society were unsurprisingly disappointed at the outcome of the legal hearings and highlighted implications for park management by UK local authorities. Hugh Craddock from the Open Spaces Society expressed his ongoing concern that ‘Some councils have acted as if their parks were their own private land, and rented them out to maximise revenue’ (Open Spaces Society 2017). Subsequent references to the case have emphasised this point too. For example, in her review of a significant book on new forms of land privatisation in the UK, Layard (2020) suggests that events like Wireless should be included as examples, as they involve local authorities leasing out public space to private companies. In the aftermath of the Judicial Review rulings, the Friends of Finsbury Park suggested that they would continue to fight the legality of Wireless by highlighting the issue of stewardship: One of things we’re exploring is looking at trust law because technically, Finsbury Park is Metropolitan Open Land which is held on trust for the benefit of the public. In effect, the council are trustees and we’re looking at whether or not the trust between the public and the council has been breached through their use of Finsbury Park so we’re talking to trust solicitors at the moment. (Interview with Chair of Friends of Finsbury Park 2018)

Although the Friends were ultimately defeated in their mission to prevent Haringey Council from staging the Wireless festival, there were some aspects of the Court of Appeal ruling that they were pleased with. A key outcome of the case was the stipulation that the Council held the park in trust ‘for the enjoyment of the public’, and therefore surpluses earned by hiring out parks for festivals should be spent on the host park and not used to cross subsidise wider local authority budgets. This was welcomed by the Friends as it dulls the incentive to exploit Finsbury Park as a ‘cash cow’. The latest information suggests Haringey Council earned around £1.2million per year from festivals staged in Finsbury Park in 2018/9 and, according to the Council, all of this money has been spent on the

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park (Finsbury Park Stakeholders Group 2019a). The effects of this extra spending are already visible. Additional funds have been allocated to maintenance and staffing, visibly improving the quality of the park environment and the user experience. However, there remain questions about the transparency of income and spending —and doubts about how feasible and advisable it is to separate Finsbury Park’s accounts from the Borough’s wider parks budget. Pressure from the Friends has also resulted in other changes that may help to alleviate conflicts over future festivals in Finsbury Park. Although never realised because of the coronavirus crisis, the festivals due to be staged in 2020 were scheduled in a concentrated 4.5-week period over the summer. This would have reduced the amount of park days disrupted by assembling and disassembling festival structures from 44 to 25 (Finsbury Park Stakeholders Group 2019b). The new calendar would have also restricted turf damage to a confined period, allowing more time for recovery.

A Green Park The core aspect of the dispute addressed here is the equitable provision of public space and whether or not it is appropriate to restrict access for extended periods. However, there is also an environmental dimension, as Finsbury Park is not merely a public, open space, but a green one too. In their campaigning, The Friends of Finsbury Park highlighted the ways festivals damage the park’s flora and fauna in various ways: through the physical pressure exerted by event vehicles, installations and attendees, but also via the noise and light emitted from music festivals. The Friends also argued that treating the park’s environment contemptuously by staging Wireless and other large music festivals encouraged other park users to do likewise—exacerbating the problem of littering. Environmental impacts and the effects on park accessibility are linked in that damage caused to turf can restrict use of grassed areas for several months following a major festival (particularly when the ground is very wet or

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unusually dry). The Friends have also expressed concern about the long-term ecological effects of staging festivals, and in recent years have campaigned for a fallow year which would give the park environment sufficient time to recover. This call was resisted by Haringey Council, but the coronavirus crisis did produce an unintentional festival free year in 2020 and those opposed to music festivals were keen to point out that this year off resulted in a significant improvement in the park’s environmental condition. However, this was also a result of the additional money that had been spent on the park in 2019 because of the new stipulation that monies earned from festivals had to be spent in Finsbury Park itself.

The Licence and the Licentious Following the Judicial Review, the Friends of Finsbury Park have continued to oppose Wireless and their latest tactic has been to question the legitimacy of the licence awarded to the organisers. This challenge was based more on the nuisance effects of staging the festival rather than whether the council had the right to hire large sections of the park to a private company. The effects of Wireless on local neighbourhoods were prominent in a letter published in The Guardian newspaper following the paper’s review of the 2017 edition: So sorry to hear that Hannah J Davies found the Wireless festival “devoid of any atmosphere away from the acts” (The critics, 11 July). Perhaps she should have come to the residential streets south of Finsbury Park. We had plenty of atmosphere provided by the roaming groups of drunks, drug dealers, pavement scooter drivers, beer-can kickers, garden pissers and police helicopters. Three nights, all night. That’s all the atmosphere anyone could want. (Jackson 2017)

When we interviewed the Chair of the Friends of Finsbury Park in 2018 he told us: Our contention is that the terms of the licence are being breached. So last year, we hired a soundmonitoring team to monitor noise levels in the park and …. we looked at the anti-social behaviour …. and our conclusion is that the licence isn’t actually being adhered to.

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The Friends’ cause was boosted by support from Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labour party and patron of the Friends of Finsbury Park, who wrote to Haringey Council in August 2018 to express his concern about the negative effects of Wireless on local neighbourhoods. In October 2018, a Review of the Premises Licence took place, specifically looking at the impact of the 2017 event but the review instigated by the Friends aimed to alter the licensing conditions going forward. As the Licensing Sub-Committee puts it, it was primarily focused on looking at the licensing objectives of prevention of public nuisance and prevention of crime and disorder (Wireless Decision Notice, 2018: 2). The decision emanating from this process stated: The Council is rightly proud to host the event for the benefit of its constituents and Londoners as whole. The fact that supporters of an annual music Festival such as Wireless have not engaged in the licensing regulation process by making representations in support of Live Nation is of little consequence. Wireless Decision Notice (2018: 8)

The Licensing Sub-Committee noted that the Wireless event was valuable to the community and that the Licensing Act guidance (LA 2003, s182 paras 2.12 and 10.10) states that inappropriate or disproportionate measures that could deter such events should be avoided, and that any conditions imposed should also be cognisant of a possible deterrent effect. A series of conditions were imposed upon Live Nation/Wireless, including limits on sound levels and the provision of more security staff. More contentiously the Licensing Sub-Committee imposed a 21:00 h curfew on the Sunday, and the following condition was also added: Condition 51 will be amended as follows ....: ‘The Licensee shall reasonably request that performers do not sing or play any vulgar, obscene or banned songs or carry out indecent acts or make any vulgar gestures, actions or remarks during the performance, or at any point whilst using an amplification device, including the use of expletives. He shall also ensure that the attire of the performers do not offend the general public, e.g. attire which exposes the groin, private parts, buttock or female breast(s). (Wireless Decision Notice 2018: 12)

Condition 51 requirements were subject to widespread criticism (Mokoena 2018; HunterTilney 2019) because they would be difficult to enforce and because of their potentially censorial effects. Unless the swearing would impact on crime and disorder or public safety, licensing experts argued it could not and should not be folded into the licensing objectives (Snapes 2018). Whilst Live Nation announced its intention to appeal these restrictions, in January 2019 they struck a deal with Haringey Council and the appeal was withdrawn (Gelder 2019), sparking dismay amongst the Friends of Finsbury Park. If we view these decisions through the lens of juridification, we essentially see an acceleration of regulatory forms and focus. Talbot (2011) writes of juridification as tending towards the overregulation of everyday life and its negative impact on ‘cultural lifeworld’. The overregulation of events such as Wireless via increasingly stringent and iteratively harsher conditions are part of this tendency, and part of a truncation and trammelling of innovative uses of public space. In this sense, staging a contemporary music festival is not an intervention that disrupts that of a stiff, Victorian park, but one that actually reinforces and exacerbates the park’s status as a bounded, regulated and controlled space.

Wireless as a Celebration of Local Youth and Black Cultures In defending the right to stage Wireless in Finsbury Park, Haringey Council, the Council’s legal team and Festival Republic have looked beyond the hire fees earned (Smith 2019), and wider economic impacts (Fourth Street 2018), by pointing to the festival’s social and cultural significance. Echoing the traditional designation of Finsbury Park as the people’s park, commentators have noted how, by staging Wireless, the park is aligned to contemporary popular culture, and therefore ‘the people’: It is interesting to see Philip Kolvin QC’s representation to the licensing hearing. Wireless is the only festival in the world that fully represents the community within which it is based and that, as at

Private Events in a Public Park: Contested Music Festivals … least in part, is a celebration of grime music and that ‘...therefore, the festival celebrates the music of the people. (Chapple 2018)

One might expect some hyperbole from an advocate, but Kolvin’s argument was reaffirmed and embellished in the Decision Notice that followed the licence review in 2018. This time the notion of ethnicity was also cited, highlighting the links between inner-city London, grime, and black British cultures and extolling Wireless as an event which not only represents ‘the people’, but the diverse place in which it is hosted. Wireless is a live music event which is culturally significant to London and Haringey, which is an ethnically diverse Borough. The event at least in part has its roots in grime music which emerged in the inner-city estates of London. To that extent, it is a Festival which represents the city in which it is based. (Wireless Decision Notice 2018: 8)

This argument highlights the possibility that Wireless makes Finsbury Park a more just space by visibly connecting it to ethnic minority culture (s). As Loukaitou-Sideris and Mukhija (2019) highlight, addressing barriers to park use requires inclusive communication, outreach and engagement strategies which contribute to ‘interactional justice’ (Low 2013). There is symbolic alignment between Wireless and local youth/black cultures, but it seems far-fetched to claim that the festival brings the ‘music of the people’ to the people’s park. Haringey Council’s insistence that the festival is as a celebration of the inner-city seems like a convenient justification for a lucrative event, and their claim is undermined by how expensive Wireless tickets are, and by the profiles of the audience—most of whom come from outside London. Research by Fourth Street (2018) suggests 60% of attendees at grime and dance events in Finsbury Park were from outside London and 5% travelled from overseas. Only 6% lived in Haringey and only 8% of attendees at the major grime and dance events staged in Finsbury Park in 2018 identified themselves as Black British (78% were white). Wireless promotes and celebrates grime, but also commercially exploits this inner-city culture, rendering it inaccessible to many of its core constituencies. And whilst Wireless may help to make black

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culture and black artists more visible, like other festivals it has faced criticism for the maledominated line-up (Conrad 2018) and the homophobic atmosphere (Okundaye 2019). These characteristics suggest Haringey’s mission to provide ‘recreational entertainment and organised activities, accessible for all communities’ (Parks for London 2019) is not served by staging Wireless in Finsbury Park.

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Conclusions

This chapter explored the significance of the dispute over staging music festivals in Finsbury Park to better understand environmental (in)justice in urban green spaces. Our work on music festivals hosted in London’s parks, in general, and Finsbury Park, in particular, shows that staging music events in municipal parks is nothing new. Indeed, the research has shown that some of these events, particularly those staged in the 1970s and 1980s, helped to reaffirm London parks’ status as inherently democratic places where people could assemble, demonstrate and celebrate. However, wider trends in the music sector, particularly the juridification of festivals and their associated commercialisation and corporatisation, means that contemporary festivals need to be regarded more sceptically. These events restrict public access not only during the time of the event, but also during their assembly and disassembly. This means they are heavily contested and are cited in contemporary debates about public space privatisation (Layard 2019; Hancox 2019b; Hunt 2018). The case of Finsbury Park illustrates that, since the end of the 1980s, more commercially oriented events have been staged in London’s public parks, and whilst these can still be regarded as appropriate uses, the rationale for hosting them is driven by financial motives, rather than political or cultural ones. This affects their impacts and has led to the sorts of disputes covered by this chapter. The need to generate income to help offset the costs of maintaining public spaces has encouraged local authorities to hire parks out more

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regularly, and for larger, more heavily secured events. As a result, festivals have become even more invasive incursions, a trend exacerbated by cuts to local government budgets in the period of government-led austerity 2010–2019 (Smith 2020). Finsbury Park provides a very good example of this trend and its effects. Since 2014, this park has been so intensively programmed that it now represents a new type of park, a hybrid public space which is both a municipal park and a music venue. Although there are opportunities to engage different audiences and represent different cultures, the defining characteristic of these hybrid spaces is their reduced accessibility. Fencing off parks and exploiting them to generate income is the epitome of what Smith (2020) describes as ‘neoliberalisation by festivalisation’. Festival fences exclude people physically, financially and symbolically, extending the commercial orientation of London into park settings and transforming the capital’s landscapes into landscapes of capital. Music festivals affect the way that parks are used, but also the ways they are managed. Finsbury Park is now entirely funded by festivals, and whilst this may seem like an expedient way of dealing with local authority budget cuts, there are implications for the park’s inclusivity. The financial sustainability of this approach also seems questionable. The coronavirus crisis in 2020–21 highlighted that relying on income from events to fund a park is a precarious management model. The key question that needs to be addressed at the end of this chapter is: what do contested music festivals mean for environmental justice? Our work addresses three different aspects of justice. First, procedural justice: fairness in the ways processes are applied and decisions are made (Edge et al. 2020). There are issues with the processes through which Wireless and other festivals have been sanctioned, including the role of the Council as both licensor and beneficiary of lucrative festivals, but also the way that existing legislation designed to protect London’s parks from commercial exploitation has been overridden by more general legislation that allows councils to do what they want with parks they are responsible for. Second, the research presented

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here deals with distributive justice, which strives for more equitable distribution of community benefits and burdens (McKee 1981). There has always been inequitable access to parks, but we argue that staging expensive music festivals in public parks exacerbates these inequities by affecting the amount of green space that is free to access at significant times of the year. Given the fact that Finsbury Park is appreciated as ‘a green place to spend time without pressure to spend money’ (Stansfield 2018: 425), regularly installing barriers and charging for entry represents a significant threat to this park’s original and ongoing mission as a people’s park. Third, the discussion here highlights the importance of interactional justice. According to LoukaitouSideris and Mukhija (2019), this involves reaching out to neglected publics through more inclusive representation and via community engagement strategies. This is how music festivals in Finsbury Park are justified by Haringey Council: as ways of encouraging ethnically diverse audiences and younger people to engage with Finsbury Park. However, staging expensive music festivals that block off public access to green space seems like a very inefficient way of achieving such goals, even if these festivals do showcase youth and black cultures. The progressive, free festivals that previously occupied Finsbury Park can be equated with interactional justice, but it is much harder to justify commercially driven festival programming in this way. Our analysis of specific judicial rulings on the rights of the local authority to enclose public space inherently addresses both procedural and distributive justice. The outcomes of this case have significant implications for the ways UK parks are used and how money earned from them is spent. In neoliberal cities (for other examples of neoliberalisation processes in cities, see: Loewen et al. and Pungas et al. in this volume), the prevalence of large-scale music festivals has significant implications for the provision of just space. Even though exclusive uses of public spaces have always existed, and even though London parks have long hosted music events, fencing off municipal parks and charging people to access them is a regressive step that negatively

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affects citizens who are unable or unwilling to pay. Whilst Wireless provides the most contentious example of a festival incursion, this event in and of itself is not necessarily a problem. The fundamental issue in Finsbury Park is that Wireless is also accompanied by four or five other music festivals every year, each of which takes time to assemble and disassemble and which often render park space unusable in the post-event period. It is the combined effect of all these events, and the symbolic effects of presenting the park as a commercial landscape, that undermine Finsbury Park’s status as a public park. It is important to note that this issue is not confined to Finsbury Park or a small number of isolated cases. There are now at least a dozen parks and green spaces in London that hold multi-day music festivals (Smith and Vodicka 2020) Despite the coronavirus crisis, parks such as Brockwell Park and Crystal Palace Park staged more and bigger festivals in 2021 than were staged in the pre-COVID-19 era. So, whilst Finsbury Park is an important test case operating at the neoliberal avant-garde, the way music festivals affect access to urban green space is a London-wide issue (Smith 2019). Our anxiety about inequitable access to public space in an era of neoliberal austerity does not render music festivals as problematic per se. Free festivals are very good ways of attracting more diverse audiences to green spaces, and ways of building affinity between minority groups and municipal parks. A great example was rise, an anti-racism festival that helped to build community cohesion and better race relations. In 2019, Finsbury Park hosted La Clave Fest, a free music festival celebrating Latin American culture, which proved that Haringey Council is still willing to programme events driven by cultural, rather than financial motives. Occasional festivals also add to the programme of activities happening in public parks: they help produce varied ‘spaces of multiplicity’ (Stansfield 2018) and can contribute to inclusion agendas, particularly when they help to promote the local music scene and black / youth culture(s). However, when public parks are heavily programmed with

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commercial festivals they become more exclusive places. It is easy to dismiss those who oppose these festivals as conservative NIMBYs but, like other urban activists, they too are campaigning for their right to the city. Acknowledgements This chapter was written as part of a HERA-funded project that aims to explore the ways festivals and events affect the inclusivity of London’s parks. See http://festspace.net/ for more details.

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Private Events in a Public Park: Contested Music Festivals … Mokoena T (2018) Wireless festival’s new “no swearing” restrictions are so shallow. Noisy/Vice, 26 October 2018. https://www.vice.com/en/article/xw9b8k/ wireless-festival-2019-swearing-clothing-restrictionsharingey-council. Accessed 21 Oct 2020 Morey Y, Bengry-Howell A, Griffin C, Szmigin I, Riley S (2014) Festivals 2.0: consuming, producing and participating in the extended festival experience. In: Bennett A, Woodward I, Taylor J (eds) (2014) The festivalisation of culture. Ashgate, Farnham, pp 251– 258 Mullholland H (2009) Boris Johnson scraps multicultural music festival Rise. The Guardian, 8 April Nam J, Dempsey N (2020) Acceptability of income generation practices in 21st century urban park management: the case of city district parks. J Environ Manag [online first] New Statesman (2008) Don’t miss... rise festival. New Statesman, 14th July Okundaye J (2019) Why black men ‘act ‘straight’ to survive festival season. Vice, 8th July. https://www. vice.com/en/article/evywpe/black-gay-men-manstraight-passing-techniques-festival-season. Accessed 22 Oct 2020 Open Spaces Society (2017) Court of appeal rules against quiet enjoyment of London’s parks. https://www.oss. org.uk/court-of-appeal-rules-against-quiet-enjoymentof-londons-parks/. Accessed 22 April 2020 Osborn G, Smith A (2015) Olympic brandscapes: London 2012 and the seeping commercialisation of public space. In: Poynter G, Viehoff V, Li Y (eds) The London Olympics and urban development: the megaevent city. Routledge, London, pp 139–153 Packer J, Ballantyne J (2011) The impact of music festival attendance on young people’s psychological and social well-being. Psychol Music 39(2):164–181 Parks for London (2019) Good Parks for London 2019. Parks for London, London. https://parksforlondon.org. uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Good-Parks-forLondon-2019_FINAL-updated-18th-Oct-19.pdf Pavluković V, Armenski T, Alcántara-Pilar JM (2017) Social impacts of music festivals: does culture impact locals’ attitude toward events in Serbia and Hungary? Tour Manag 63:42–53 Pine J, Gilmore JH (1999) The experience economy: work is theatre & every business a stage. Harvard Business Press, Cambridge MA Public Law Project (2008) Third party interventions. A practical guide. https://publiclawproject.org.uk/wpcontent/uploads/data/resources/120/PLP_2008_ Guide_3rd_Party_Interventions.pdf. Accessed 22 April 2020 Pungas L, Plüschke-Altof B, Müüripeal A, SooväliSepping H (in this volume) Same, same but different? The ‘right’ kind of gardening and the negotiation of neoliberal urban governance in the post-socialist city. In: Plüschke-Altof B, Sooväli-Sepping H (eds) Whose Green City? Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe. Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham

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Contested Urban Green Space Development: Rolling Back the Frontiers of Sustainability in Trondheim, Norway Bradley Loewen, Stig Larssæther, Savis Gohari-Krangsås, Heidi Vinge, and Alenka Temeljotov-Salaj TK Folkeaksjonen Bevar Høyskoleparken UGS UN Facility management UNECE Multi-actor perspective Norwegian University of Science and WCED Technology Sustainable Development Goals

Abbreviations

FBH FM MaP NTNU SDG

B. Loewen (&) Department of Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway e-mail: [email protected] S. Larssæther Department of Energy and Process Engineering & NTNU Sustainability, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway e-mail: [email protected] S. Gohari-Krangsås Department of Architecture and Planning, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway e-mail: [email protected] Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, Oslo Metropolitan University, Oslo, Norway H. Vinge Institute for Rural and Regional Research, Trondheim, Norway e-mail: [email protected] Faculty of Education and Arts, Nord University, Levanger, Norway A. Temeljotov-Salaj Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, NTNU, Trondheim, Norway e-mail: [email protected]

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Trondheim Kommune Urban green space United Nations United Nations Economic Commission for Europe World Commission on Environment and Development

Introduction

The growth of urban areas in Nordic countries is largely an issue of spatial re-balancing. Processes of regional growth and decline across the Nordics favour the major centres in terms of population development and economic growth, compared to shrinking rural regions. This poses a potential problem for managing urban growth sustainably, especially when seen as a major development opportunity for municipalities. This chapter delves into current issues of urban green space (UGS) in the debate of urban sustainability, land use and power relations amongst different segments of society. By comparing the normative application of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to planning and actual cases of development involving UGS in Trondheim, Norway, we uncover power imbalances and competing visions of sustainability which have

© The Author(s) 2022 B. Plüschke-Altof and H. Sooväli-Sepping (eds.), Whose Green City?, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04636-0_6

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the potential to serve specific social groups over the public interest. Green space is a broad concept with social and ecological components, often referring to nature or urban vegetation at various scales (Taylor and Hochuli 2017). In recent decades, UGS has been addressed from the perspective of urban social–ecological systems with increasing emphasis on politics and power dynamics (Campbell and Gabriel 2016), under intensifying contestations of sustainability. Nevertheless, power dynamics have been historically ‘sidestepped’ in European UGS research, creating a need to address environmental justice perspectives and their influence on policy and planning (Rutt and Gulsrud 2016). The ongoing localisation of SDGs into policies with definitive goals and targets opens normative ideals about UGS to scrutiny, revealing complex and sometimes messy social processes governing sustainable urban development. ‘Sustainability’ is termed an empty signifier (Davidson 2010) that loses meaning through multiple interpretations and adaptations towards various social, economic and ecological purposes. It has long been criticised for not being ‘enough’ to solve societal conflicts (Marcuse 1998). Thus, analysing UGS through the lens of sustainability requires the consideration of multiple perspectives and discourses to illuminate the complexity of UGS as a subject and its governance in terms of actors’ roles, interests and power. Reconciling UGS with high-level sustainability goals often calls for trade-offs within compact city and peri-urban planning (Westerink et al. 2013), pointing to competing visions of and pathways to sustainability. These trade-offs can potentially affect citizens disproportionately, giving rise to spatial injustices—both social and environmental. For this reason, a critical approach must be adopted early on for the analysis of actual planning, development and political decisionmaking under the guise of sustainability. This is further challenged by contradictory logics of neoliberal urbanism and its effect on restructuring strategies for territorial development and urban transformations (Peck et al. 2009). We refer to several complementary theoretical viewpoints in

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our analysis, including critical discourse analysis, the multi-actor perspective and power in transition studies (Avelino 2017; Avelino and Rotmans 2009; Avelino and Wittmayer 2016; Hajer 2005) for issue framing, storyline development and the elaboration of power relations and prevailing values towards UGS. The chapter proceeds by introducing sustainability policy frameworks from the Nordic perspective on planning, policy and governance, as well as their localisation amidst policies and initiatives framing sustainable urban development and UGS in the case area of Trondheim, Norway. Following, we develop two cases that inform the debate on UGS and competing visions of sustainability—one in the peripheral context of the grønn strek or greenbelt focused on the historical Presthus agricultural site, and another in the urban context of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) Gløshaugen campus focused on the Høyskoleparken site. Through analysis of these cases, we illustrate social processes affecting the outcomes of contentious development proposals in terms of public and institutional responses.

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The SDGs as a Normative Framework for Urban Planning and Governance

The ‘compact city’ and ‘sustainability’ concepts have been influential in shaping European urban planning and development (Westerink et al. 2013). Compact city planning applies the principle of urban containment to counteract the negative effects of sprawl. Nevertheless, compact and green city ideals can also oppose one another: ‘if greenspace is deprived, a compact city becomes the antithesis of a green city’ (Jim 2004, p. 312). Therefore, a variety of greening approaches and scales of interventions must be appreciated (Clark et al. 2016), and compactness must be weighed amongst other sustainability goals. In Nordic planning and development, social and environmental justice are highly influential in the prioritisation of sustainability goals. To better understand this, we look at the

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key sustainability documents that shape Nordic planning, the United Nations’ (UN) 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Agenda 2030) and SDGs (UN 2015). The SDGs are widely accepted in the Nordics as a framework for translating global goals into local actions. The Nordic Council of Ministers supports a joint implementation programme of Agenda 2030 which builds upon a longstanding macro-regional approach to sustainable development (Halonen et al. 2017). A review of national readiness for the SDGs showed that the Nordic countries had the highest scores at the outset of Agenda 2030 (Sachs et al. 2016), thanks in part to already high environmental standards. A striking feature of the Nordic approach is that the focus shifts from environmental quality to social cohesion, harnessing Agenda 2030 to reinforce existing priorities related to the Nordic welfare state (Halonen et al. 2017; Nordic Council of Ministers 2019). In line with the Nordic democratic, consensus-based decision-making model and widespread public support for Agenda 2030, policy debates surrounding urban development and green space are often framed through the SDGs to legitimise local plans and proposals. Nevertheless, the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development must be scrutinised in terms of definitions and uses. Following criticism of the original definition, ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’ (WCED 1987, p. 43), scholars pointed to a ‘grand compromise’ (Kates et al. 2005, p. 19) and used sustainability as a ‘multi-dimensional bridging concept’ (Meadowcroft 2000, p. 381) for creating synergies. As urban planning took up the mantle of sustainability, it has moved from a bridging concept to what Davidson (2010) calls an ‘empty signifier’, whereby ‘efforts at definition and agreement are haunted by the non-presence of sustainability’ (p. 390). Sustainability thus becomes a normative driving principle in planning and policy discourse but has a meaning that is constantly being renegotiated. Competing or renegotiated definitions of sustainability can pose a problem for implementation, as conflicts exist

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between diverse political and socio-economic goals (Campbell 1996; Drexhage and Murphy 2010) and between scales of different interests (Abukhater 2009). Thus, we return to the importance of discourses in creating meaning for specific contexts. Walker and Bulkeley (2006) observed that since early stages of implementation, equity and justice have been downplayed in notions of sustainable development. Adopting the perspective of environmental justice enables a framing for research and policy that brings equity, and thereby inclusivity, to the forefront. In urban planning and development, the frame is narrowed to specific political and geographical contexts which set the boundaries for the interpretation of sustainability and related concepts. Putting sustainable development into effect refers to the ‘vexed’ issue of governing, as ‘[s]ustainable development does not just ‘happen’ in an automatic or preordained way. It needs to be carefully discussed, openly debated, and possibly even centrally planned’ (Jordan 2008, p. 19) through collaborative, participatory processes in which multiple stakeholders interact. New systems of governance are needed to guide and steer these collaborative processes towards a satisfactory level of consensus. The common approach in governance theories emphasises the plurality of actors, seeing as there is no single actor with enough steering capacity to determine the strategic actions of the others (Healey 1992; Kickert et al. 1997; Morçöl 2006; Vabo and Røiseland 2008). Likewise, there is no single goal that can be used to measure effective planning and decision-making (Klijn 1996). Actors’ inconsistent interests or conflicts, and subsequent influence on each other’s actions and policy outcomes, make the processes of bargaining, coalition formation and conflict mediation imperative. Following Blanco (2015), as many actors may be forced or convinced to change their attitude and set other goals that may differ from their real interests, new networks will be formed, and actors may play new roles until a particular condition is satisfied. This process can undermine sustainable development rather than facilitate it, reinforcing the need to scrutinise actors’ roles and influence.

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UGS and Development in the Nordics and Trondheim

Nordic countries’ state of sustainability is based on different trends to those in the rapidly urbanising world. Thanks to energy resources, abundant natural environment and high quality of life, the Nordics are often seen as global leaders in urban sustainability. The five Nordic countries have some of the most ambitious climate and energy policies in the world, aiming to be ‘fossilfree’ by 2050 (Sovacool 2017). This is not without contradiction or controversy, however, as can be seen in the cases of the petroleumbased economy in Norway (Norgaard 2011) and offshoring emissions (i.e., carbon leakage) from industrial activities in Sweden and Finland (Næss-Schmidt et al. 2019). To support Agenda 2030, the political action plan and vision for 2021–2024 aims for a green, competitive and socially sustainable Nordic region (Nordic Council of Ministers 2020), based on 12 policy areas mapped to the SDGs including biodiversity, the bio-based economy, sustainable food systems, health and welfare and equality in the green transition, amongst others. Within the social dimension, the action plan supports a ‘socially sustainable green transition that does not increase inequalities in Nordic society’ (p. 22), while also strengthening shared values of democracy, trust and cohesion underpinning the Nordic region. Applying the objectives of the action plan to the issue of UGS, the relationship between health and wellbeing, the environment and equality are particularly important for environmental justice and social cohesion in the Nordics. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence of Nordic cities becoming more segregated, e.g., in terms of socioeconomic status and ethnicity (Tunström and Wang 2019). Hence, UGS becomes a political issue. Additionally, since agriculture is supported by the Nordic states as a path to green growth, cultural landscapes and biodiversity (Prestvik et al. 2013), agricultural land conversion to urban uses raises alarms. Urban agriculture can be a solution for local food production and education

in urban areas. Yet in Norway, these come secondary to landscape conservation and maintenance of cultural heritage directly linked to active agriculture and rurality (Daugstad et al. 2006), meaning that Norwegians identify strongly with agricultural heritage even if it is removed from modern lifestyles. Maintenance of agricultural functions therefore also requires political intervention. This draws attention to the peri-urban interface as an area in need of planning, where urban and rural features co-exist (Allen 2003) and where social and ecological movements such as food planning are localised (Morgan 2010). To encompass various functions of UGS, the concept of green infrastructure is often used in planning (Sandström 2002). Green infrastructure refers not only to protected areas, specifically, but also to the environmental qualities or natural capital inherent to any area, enabling, for example, productive uses such as ‘food, feed, fuel and fibre’ (Slätmo et al. 2019, p. 1) alongside socioeconomic benefits for communities (Tzoulas et al. 2007). Accordingly, green infrastructure has become part of European spatial planning (Slätmo et al. 2019), reinforcing the need for UGS to support synergistic ecological services and leading towards a ‘regenerative’ city built on eco-efficiencies (Thomson and Newman 2021). In light of the focus on ecological functions, social issues of equity and justice have generally been absent from this literature (Rutt and Gulsrud 2016), with contributions asking ‘whose green city’ recently addressing this gap (see PlüschkeAltof and Sooväli-Sepping 2020; Pungas et al. 2022 in this volume). Nationally, Norway stands out from its Nordic neighbours for signalling UGS as a specific landuse objective (arealformål) with a legal concept (grønnstruktur) (Lidmo et al. 2020), thereby incorporating the broader elements of green infrastructure. Legal consideration of green networks has been part of Norwegian planning since 2008, recognizing the positive social and environmental effects of both formal and informal green areas, for example, from natural areas and green corridors to designated recreational areas and parks, private gardens and agricultural areas

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(Miljødirektoratet 2008, 2014). Spatial planning at the sub-national level involves regional and municipal strategies and plans as well as detailed (neighbourhood) plans (Lidmo et al. 2020), accounting for overlapping objectives on the same land. In light of the room for ambiguities surrounding what counts as green infrastructure and the protected status (or not) of UGS, environmental and social values can be questioned when faced by development pressures. Social inequalities and environmental justice are also highly subject to the forces of neoliberal urban development that tend to exploit and reproduce spatial inequalities (Peck et al. 2009), pointing to inherent contradictions within planning, development and governance (Swyngedouw 2005; Taşan-Kok 2012) including hidden economic interests (Blanco 2015). Nevertheless, spatial planning plays a key role in upholding compact city aspirations in Nordic countries and the regulation of green areas (Lidmo et al. 2020), and there is a clear interpretation of UGS issues in the Nordic action plan guiding the application of SDGs at the local and regional levels. Moving towards the lower levels, urban densification is ongoing across the Nordics. Population growth of more than 5% has occurred in Norway’s urban centres over the past decade, including the far north (Stjernberg and Penje 2019). At the same time, agricultural lands representing approximately 3% of Norway’s land area are found near growing urban areas (Gundersen et al. 2017). Key issues affecting UGS— growth pressures, sustainable planning and green space protection—are addressed through a combination of national and local laws and instruments including the aforementioned grønnstruktur (Miljødirektoratet 2008, 2014). The municipal level instruments combine social and spatial elements, indicating that the trade-offs on competing sustainability priorities are often made at the local level, such as through area and zoning plans. Trondheim Municipality (Trondheim Kommune (TK)) is experiencing the urban growth and densification trends described above within a relatively abundant agricultural region. In addition to implementing Norwegian planning

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standards, Trondheim positions itself as a leader of urban sustainability through local and international partnerships. The municipality is home to the country’s largest university, NTNU, making it Norway’s innovation hub. In 2019, Trondheim was granted the status of the Geneva UN Charter Centre of Excellence on SDG City Transition (UNECE 2019), supporting the UN’s work in smart sustainable development. While work in this area is just beginning, Trondheim demonstrates its ambition to lead in SDG implementation, which logically extends to the core issues of urban planning and land use (TK 2020a). The Centre of Excellence status builds upon a prior formalised collaboration between Trondheim and NTNU, using the city as a living lab and learning community (TK 2020b). The main campus at Gløshaugen occupies a location in the city where the university is a key stakeholder in local initiatives involving both innovative projects and efforts to increase the uptake of sustainability practices. Social innovation is given a prominent position alongside the technological in sustainable urban development pilot projects (Baer et al. 2021). Alternatively, the municipality is involved extensively in partnerships with a wide range of stakeholder groups as well as international consortia. Together, the university and municipality initiatives aim to uphold the sustainable urban development agenda. While not formally associated with the SDG work, Trondheim is also working intensively to facilitate and support urban agriculture outside the realm of the conventional agricultural sector (TK 2020c). Both housing associations and public entities such as schools and kindergartens have received start-up grants to initiate smallscale urban agriculture projects. In order to give these often inexperienced urban farmers access to necessary knowledge, the municipality finances a resource centre for urban agriculture at Voll Gård (Voll Farm Foundation) (see Fig. 2). The municipality has also established public orchards in several areas of the city and is increasingly integrating urban agriculture in the development of public green spaces (Pers. Com 28.10.2020). When justifying this development, the

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municipality refers not only to potential benefits for the environment but also to how this may affect social cohesion in local communities: Trondheim Municipality wants to facilitate the cultivation of food in the city. Food cultivation in the city is not only positive for the climate and environment, but can also increase individuals' quality of life and be a source of unity in the local community. (TK 2020d).

4

Methodology

Two cases are selected to illustrate the constellations of stakeholders, discourses and values surrounding UGS in Trondheim, Norway. At the heart of the sustainability issue underscoring UGS is the issue of land use change, which has been studied from multiple perspectives including sustainability transitions, regimes and governance, amongst others. We draw in particular from the literature on the multi-actor perspective (MaP) in sustainability transitions (Avelino 2017; Avelino and Wittmayer 2016) and discourse coalitions (Hajer 2005) to draw conclusions about power relations and their potential to shift discourses in sustainable development. From transition studies, we deal with power struggles between dominant (incumbent) and upcoming niche regimes (Avelino and Rotmans 2009) that reflect constellations of actors constructing certain discourses within a landscape (i.e., societal system). In this study, that landscape is Trondheim, where there is a regime representing business as usual—that is, the usual stakeholders exercising their power through the expected structures and practices. In a stable societal system, this implies that stakeholders maintain their political allegiances to produce a discourse that supports their desired outcome. On the other hand, stakeholders that understand the system can shift allegiances strategically through political deliberation without disrupting the system itself, such as when democratic coalitions are formed based on political issues rather than ideology. The approach applied here is underpinned by Hajer’s (2005) argumentative turn in discourse analysis, acknowledging that participatory

planning practices have a performative element in the staging of deliberations which introduces bias. This criticism of participative planning and deliberation in policymaking, such as existing in Norway, is supposed to unfold in fair and democratic processes. Hajer describes discourse formation as a process with frontstage and backstage activities aimed at influencing the course of events. Shifts in discourse and discourse coalitions produce uncertainty that opens up opportunities for change, supporting Avelino and Rotmans’ (2009) idea of rising niche regimes in transition studies. We present two cases from Trondheim’s urban core and periphery as examples of how stakeholder constellations and discourses shaped the outcome of development proposals threatening UGS. In the following section, both cases are developed in a narrative style that highlights Hajer’s ‘dramaturgy of policy deliberation’ (2005). The constellations of stakeholders are analysed using the MaP (Avelino and Wittmayer 2016), which allows for the possibility of shifting power relations, although the use of the two cases at relatively similar points in time calls for a short-term perspective that precludes the possibility of suggesting systemic power shifts. The MaP distinguishes between three types of actors (sectoral, individual and organisational) in four sectoral levels (state, community, third sector/non-profit and market) (Fig. 1). Avelino and Wittmayer argue that sectors can be discursively framed as actors (i.e., having agency) but are also institutional contexts in which more specific collective interests and individual actors operate. Individual actors have roles and thereby contribute to the discourses in a different way from sectors and organisations. These can be, for example, politicians operating within governments in the state sector, or residents operating in households in the community. The cases are mainly informed by two doctoral research projects on university campus development planning (Gohari 2019) and farmland preservation (Vinge 2020) in Trondheim. Both projects were based on intensive qualitative research employing interviews, field notes, minutes of public meetings and analysis of public

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policies and plans from the municipality were used to ground the official development plans. All sources are cited in the cases below.

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Cases

Presthus

Fig. 1 Multi-actor perspective (MaP) model of sectors (Source Avelino and Wittmayer 2016, © Taylor & Francis, Ltd., www.tandfonline.com. Used with permission)

documents. Together, the projects collected 50 interviews ranging from 60 to 90 min in length, of which 25 interviews concerning university campus development were conducted from October 2015 to April 2016, and 25 concerning farmland preservation were conducted from February 2014 to November 2015. Qualitative data analysis tools (e.g., NVivo) were used for coding and analysis in both studies. Three supplementary interviews were conducted in October 2020. All interviews were conducted under complete confidentiality according to the Norwegian Centre for Research Data guidelines. While the question of UGS was not the particular focus of either of the original studies, the works provided fruitful grounds for exploring the discourses and values surrounding the topic. Information from interviews was triangulated using additional media analysis and policy reviews. Triangulation allows a richer and stronger array of evidence than can be accomplished by any single method alone (Yin 2009) while using multiple sources and types of data is important for ensuring construct validity. The main forum for documentation of the public debates was Adresseavisen, the largest local newspaper, which maintains a collection of news and editorials from which the key arguments and turns in the debate were traced. Furthermore,

The first case is based on the notable green space action of Trondheim Municipality to establish the grønn strek or greenbelt and its relation with urban agricultural areas. This urban growth boundary, originally decided in 2015 and updated in 2020, has become an important tool for managing the city’s spatial development. Like the grønnstruktur concept in national legislation, it serves multiple aims for promoting the compact city and protecting the surrounding agricultural lands for local food production (TK 2016). Here the societal value of urban or periurban agriculture is brought to the fore as a strategic area for Trondheim’s long-term sustainability. While the majority of green structure areas surrounding Trondheim are already protected forested mountain areas, the added value of the greenbelt especially concerns enclaves of high agricultural value within the urban area. Attention can be drawn to the Presthus and Øvre Rotvoll areas, which are recognized for historical-cultural value, and others further east along the E6 highway, Ranheim/Være, that have been marked as ‘high priority’ for protection (Map 1). These areas are under high development pressure due to their proximity to the urban centre and transportation corridors, while the soil quality can be easily degraded due to urban and industrial encroachment. The case of protected Presthus Gård, in relation to unprotected neighbouring Overvik, exposes how mobilisation around a concrete urban agriculture project influenced the political process determining Overvik’s development and created new coalitions around how to govern land at the urban periphery. A central topic in this narrative is the balancing act of local politicians who try to combine competing

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Map 1 Trondheim urban area with Presthus case, protected Voll area, and formerly protected Overvik and Øvre Rotvoll areas. (Authors’ own with open files from Kartverket)

sustainability interests that have resonance in national and international discourses around climate policies and food security, with biodiversity entering the picture in recent years. As seen, the greenbelt did not resolve all of the paradoxes faced by local politicians when it comes to land use and development: A city, a municipality, cannot on its own control the centralization trend, so it means that we are in that pinch. We must facilitate the growth that comes away, and at the same time take into account cultivated land, soil protection, nature areas and so on ... In some contexts, I argue that we should have legally binding regional area plans. Because you often see in a city like Trondheim, that if you do not allow for a certain development in Trondheim, because you think it will be wrong to facilitate it, then it comes to the neighbouring municipality instead. (politician, public sector, 02.10.2020).

Property developers as well as actors outside Trondheim also invoke the argument that projects will be lost to neighbouring municipalities if opportunities are not seized (Østraat 2016; Paus

2020). Since there is a clear economic motivation for most local politicians to ensure that their municipality receives property tax and potentially increases the income tax base from new housing, this is a strong leverage point for market actors that cannot be countered without the regional dimension. Despite the seeming consensus surrounding the greenbelt, the political landscape in Trondheim has been quite divided (Kringstad 2019). A broad red-green coalition held the dominant positions in the city led by a Labour Party mayor during five subsequent periods, with the conservative and right-wing parties in opposition. When it comes to city development, however, the Labour Party has been known to form a majority with the opposition, following a more liberal line than their coalition partners. This resulted in less land being protected in the greenbelt (Adresseavisen 2016a). Needless to say, this strategic manoeuvring created much frustration and tension within the coalition (Adresseavisen 2016b; Lundemo 2020).

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The current narrative plays out during the unfolding of a political scandal where a leading local politician from the Labour Party was exposed for influencing the decision-making process around the greenbelt while being excluded due to having private interests in several contested areas. These processes surfaced through a series of critical articles from the local newspaper, Adresseavisen (2016c; 2017a; 2017b). According to other local politicians, it is likely that these cases would have remained hidden without this critical journalism. While the formal investigation concluded that no illegal behaviour had taken place, the popularity of the Labour Party in Trondheim dropped significantly compared to their earlier levels, and several politicians holding central positions in the city council were excluded or left the political arena altogether (Adresseavisen 2018a). The Adresseavisen series covers other developer-led projects where informal contacts between local politicians and private actors have been put under scrutiny. The Overvik area, being one of the largest properties that was omitted from the greenbelt, has been in focus, not only because it is a large project involving many acres of agricultural land, but also because of the way the plan was approved by the city council. Due to the controversial nature of this project, the Ministry of Finance was involved in approving the development, but with clear signals to develop a priority list where all properties approved for housing purposes should be ranked according to a set of given criteria. Such a list was, however, not developed in 2014 when the permission was given for the property developers, Overvik Utvikling, to proceed with their plans to develop the area, but was launched by the administration in 2018 (Adresseavisen 2018b). As a part of their development, Overvik Utvikling wanted to build a central road and a planned school outside the already regulated area on the neighbouring farmland, including the Presthus property owned by The Norwegian Agricultural Purchasing and Marketing Cooperation (Felleskjøpet) (Adresseavisen 2016d). The justification given for this move was to secure a climate-friendly transport system in the

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area. In the words of a consultant involved in the planning process: We were to make a plan for the municipality, and we should do it according to the plan program. You should reach the zero-growth goal, and then it was, almost the whole plan is just about mobility. We looked at solutions all the time, and no matter how you turn it around, it (the road) had to cross Felleskjøpet. (consultant, private sector, 16.10.2020).

As a former experimental farm for grain, Presthus now houses a kindergarten and a local volunteer centre. Although not initially engaged in the Overvik property development project, the board of Felleskjøpet made a decision to take active ownership over the farm that previously had been leased to the largest owner at Overvik who wanted to transform his farm into housing. Here in the words of one informant centrally involved in the process from Felleskjøpet: That was when the board took a stand, said no, we will take care of this as a fantastic opportunity to develop the image of Norwegian agriculture—to be in dialogue with the urban population and use Presthus as a showcase for agriculture. And then develop this with urban agriculture, which was identified as a strong trend. (employee, third sector, 12.10.2020).

Then followed a sustained effort to mobilise other stakeholders such as local agricultural organisations, political parties and parent committees in the district. With central involvement from Voll Gård and external architects, a new concept study was developed to highlight the potential of Presthus as an urban agricultural centre—also supplying a wide array of services for the local community including a bakery and craft brewery. Consultants were hired to make alternative plans for the road structure, challenging the position from Overvik Utvikling that the road over Presthus was the only viable option (Adresseavisen 2016e). The people in the area were also invited to a neighbourhood day on the farm, with skiing, a farmer’s market, torchlight procession and local pub night. Media were used actively to communicate the benefit of the new initiative and the negative consequences that a road over their land would have for them (Kvam 2018).

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The new plans for the Presthus farm were very well received by the local community at neighbouring Ranheim, creating strong advocacy for the project. This also increased the pressure on the politicians in the city council: They cheered a lot on this here and pushed on the labour union, or the local Labour Party team in Ranheim, to the extent that the local Labour Party wrote a letter to their city council group insisting that Presthus must be allowed to develop itself as a resource to the population, and not just fall victim to such commercial development in the neighbourhood. And I think that was a bit important to turn (the city council). (employee, third sector, 12.10.2020).

It is difficult to conclude which factors were the most important in this process, and other informants also point to the critical remarks from the county governor as an important reason for the outcome. Nevertheless, the Trondheim Building Council ultimately decided to locate both the school and road inside the already regulated area of Overvik (Adresseavisen 2018c). In the aftermath of the Presthus case, this scandalfraught development is currently being reconsidered by the Labour Party that originally approved it, citing current knowledge about the climate crisis and the possibility for more centralised development in the city (Rasmussen et al. 2020). It is now a likely outcome that large parts of the Overvik property will remain agricultural land, and that most of the original plans for real estate development will not be realised in the foreseeable future. Furthermore, if the new position taken by the Labour Party in the Overvik case also signals a new course in the long term, the red-green parties will be united in securing a stricter line for protecting agricultural land in Trondheim. The main actor groups identified in the Presthus case are illustrated in Fig. 2a according to the MaP model. These include actors from all sectors: from state, politicians and public administration; from market, local media and a real estate developer; from the third sector, the formally organised Voll Farm Foundation (Voll Gård) and Norwegian Agricultural Cooperative (Felleskjøpet); and from community, the

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informal local Labour Party group and community members.

Høyskoleparken NTNU has its main campus at Gløshaugen, approximately one and a half kilometres from the central square. From a prominent hilltop overlooking the centre, it occupies a prime location and is a main focal point of the city. The green hillsides flanking the campus are a highly visible part of Trondheim’s green structure in this area. Map 2 shows the NTNU Gløshaugen campus which is ringed by the delineated green space comprising Høyskoleparken, Elgeseter Park and Høgskoledalen. These spaces are collectively referred to as Høyskoleparken in the public discourse. The Gløshaugen campus is undergoing a planning process to co-locate several campuses of NTNU from different areas of the city at this main campus, transforming the area to accommodate 10,000 more students and 2,000 more employees by 2030 (TK 2019). The current plan recognizes the landscape and biodiversity values of green connections, ecological corridors and blue-green structures, as well as designated ‘park’ areas for nature, community and sports activities. In principle, the green areas that form a natural ring around the campus should all be preserved. Specifically, Elgeseter Park will be upgraded, including up to 20% developed for residential use; Høgskoledalen will be further developed as a sports park; and Høyskoleparken will be planned for increased use with strengthened ecological functions. While acknowledging the green values in these areas, the plan provides for other potential uses such as residential or university buildings, which should be compensated with increased ecological quality of the remaining park. This case follows how these park areas came to be protected and recognized as a vital part of the university campus environment. The longer view over campus planning reveals a lengthy process fraught with controversy and reversal of decisions to develop the park.

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Fig. 2 Multi-actor perspective (MaP) models of Presthus and Høyskoleparken cases

Map 2 NTNU Gløshaugen campus with surrounding green spaces, Høyskoleparken, Elgeseter Park and Høgskoledalen. (Authors’ own with open files from Kartverket)

The scientific and physical merger of different faculties and departments of NTNU was initiated by the Ministry of Education in 1996, and several developments from 2000 to 2002 started the process of centralising NTNU activities at Gløshaugen. The construction of a new Natural

Sciences Building from 1997 to 2000 created 62,000 m2 of space to co-locate the scientific departments from satellite campuses at Lade and Rosenborg. This showed that there could also be enough space at Gløshaugen to move the Social and Humanities faculties from the Dragvoll

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campus, located approximately four and a half kilometres away from Gløshaugen. The Natural Sciences Building notably replaced the green transition zone on the south side of the campus without raising a significant public debate on UGS. From 2002 to 2006, NTNU and Trondheim Municipality worked together on the co-location of Dragvoll and Gløshaugen, but employees resisted the plans due to competing logics and motivations behind co-location. Namely, markedly different academic cultures between the social sciences-oriented Dragvoll campus and the natural sciences-oriented Gløshaugen campus left doubt amongst employees that physical proximity would result in more successful collaborations (Gohari 2019). Moreover, the focus of the co-location debate on facilitating collaboration overshadowed contentious issues such as the municipality’s involvement in university affairs and the seemingly needless loss of wellfunctioning facilities at Dragvoll. The NTNU Board dismissed the plan in May 2006. From 2006 to 2012, NTNU followed a two-campus model based on Gløshaugen and Dragvoll. In 2012, the local–regional government from the Social Democratic Party re-opened the subject of campus co-location, gaining political and financial support from the Ministries of Education and Finance (both from the Social Democratic Party) as well as institutional support from NTNU’s leadership. The Ministry of Education assigned a consulting engineering group, Rambøll, to do the feasibility and quality assurance study. Based on the results of the report, NTNU organised an idea and planning competition for the co-location project in 2016. On 17 October 2017, the winning proposal by KOHT Architects indicated intensive building on the grounds of Høyskoleparken including Elgeseter Park and the western slope, which was in accordance with the competition brief. The plan thus drew heavy public and political opposition until the planning process associated with the competition was shelved in April 2019. At its peak, opponents of the park development used the municipality’s and university’s own arguments for development in favour of

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preservation, insisting that preservation of the park was crucial for positioning NTNU and Trondheim Municipality as an innovation and sustainability hub while noting the availability of alternative sites for development accommodating tens of thousands of square metres of built space only a few minutes’ walk away (Fremo 2019). This civil architect and planner summed up the core of the debate: Urban development is about value choice, something must be prioritized over something else. That is the big challenge for Trondheim's politicians now. (ibid).

From this high point, the municipal council decided to regulate the campus areas through an ‘Indicative plan for public spaces and connections in the Elgeseter area’, designating the intended uses of the green areas surrounding Gløshaugen. The wider area in question includes residential, commercial and institutional buildings to the west of the campus as well as one of the main thoroughfares to the city centre. Since the detailed planning began within the Elgeseter area, attention has shifted to the specific locations of new buildings and their impacts on the green space as a whole, but the issue has not been put to rest. Citing new commitments to the SDGs, the public action group Folkeaksjonen Bevar Høyskoleparken (FBH, Preserve Høyskoleparken) issued a statement in September 2020 to the Trondheim Building Council, politicians, municipal director, NTNU and the Norwegian Directorate of Public Construction and Property (Statsbygg) to reignite the public debate surrounding the continued contradictions between sustainability goals and planning: In Framtidsbilder Trondheim Centre 2050, the inhabitants ask for more parks and a better living environment in the centre for families with children and everyone. New knowledge says ‘quiet areas’ such as Høyskoleparken mean a lot to public health, and that biodiversity is seriously threatened. Park = sustainability and diversity! (FBH 2020).

The continued pressure by the public action group suggests that government intervention and legitimation of the planning process will not be enough to satisfy the local community,

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consisting of the employees and concerned citizens of FBH, who are focused on the outcome. At present, the municipality’s planning process has created the framework for NTNU and Statsbygg to put concrete plans on the drawing board once again, which, by indication of the revival of FBH, will surely be put to close public scrutiny. The key actors involved in this case are situated in the MaP diagram in Fig. 2b. These include politicians and public administration from the state, regional and local levels, the NTNU Board and employees, local media, engineering and architecture consultants and FBH, which, with more than 3,700 followers on social media in 2018, qualified as one of the largest public action groups in Trondheim’s history (FBH 2018).

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Discussion

As Westerink et al. (2013) discuss, sustainability trade-offs are often found between environmental criteria and social constraints. As planning in Norway allows for overlaying land use objectives and the consideration of social and spatial issues at the municipal level (Lidmo et al. 2020), we uncover competing priorities of urban development and green space provision in central and peripheral locations of Trondheim. These priorities can be identified as, in the Høyskoleparken case, university consolidation for innovation and sustainability advancements and enhanced university–municipality collaboration, both supporting international competitiveness, which conflict with the preservation of social and ecological functions of the UGS. In the Presthus case, competing priorities pertain to economic gains from private real estate development based on a change in land use, justified by a ‘regionally sustainable’ pattern of development, against the social and ecological preservation of a culturally and environmentally significant agricultural landscape. As expected, these are framed on one side by compact city aspirations and, on the other side, environmental justice arguments of access to green areas, which

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relate to contradictory logics of neoliberal urbanism in restructuring institutional and spatial landscapes (Peck et al. 2009; Taşan-Kok 2012). The regional and local scale perspectives put forth by different discourse camps both make claims on sustainability. The task faced by policymakers and practitioners serving the public interest is to determine which, if not both, is a legitimate claim on sustainability and fulfils the democratically determined objectives surrounding UGS. Thus, it is necessary to be critical of urban governance processes, power dynamics and the neoliberal logic of development that planning is subjected to under the guise of social inclusion. This can be a challenge due to the hidden dynamics of stakeholder interactions and the ever-growing role of the private sector, even in the Norwegian context that has long favoured a deliberative, consensus-based approach. Uncovering the roles of different actor groups and their engagement in the UGS proposals is crucial to expose weaknesses in the sustainability discourses being constructed by various actors involved in the processes. To further the discussion on the cases and trends, we consider the findings in terms of the roles of actor groups specified according to the MaP approach and, finally, reflect on the implications for the sustainable governance of UGS through enhanced collaboration. State Sector: The state sector actors identified in the two cases include ministries (education and finance), regional and local governments, politicians, the municipal administration including planners, and NTNU as a public university represented by its board. The public sector roles in urban development are highly shaped by the Planning and Building Act. Hence, the responsibility for planning rests on the local and regional authorities. In Norway, the role of planners (and also the municipality) is to safeguard planning laws and processes, while an increasing number of development proposals affecting UGS will be initiated by the private sector. By virtue of this relationship, there can be a natural tension between public and private actors and, moreover, conflicting motivations for green space development, as public actors are

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tasked with balancing social and environmental with economic interests. There can be perceived conflicts of interest when politicians have ties to urban development (e.g., Overvik, which increased scrutiny over neighbouring Presthus), or when state institutional actors have to manage and develop public assets (e.g., the university’s interest in developing adjacent green areas). When political tensions boil over, we see deference from the local to regional or national levels of government to regulate the planning process, such was also the case in a recent controversial smart city development in Bergen (Gohari and Larssæther 2019). As Mäntysalo and Saglie (2010) discuss, if the local government resorts to drafting agreements and planning future schemes with the developers before beginning official public consultation processes, a severe contradiction of the planning law’s principles of inclusion and participation may be the consequence. In the Høyskoleparken case, the municipality stepped in to regulate the planning process of the campus area; in the greenbelt, the intervention of the regional and national level indicates the unsatisfactory outcomes of the local process. The involvement of higher levels of government to achieve the public’s interest is shown to restore legitimacy to processes that have lost the public’s trust. Market Sector: Market actors identified in the two cases include private local media (e.g., Adresseavisen), on the one hand, and engineering and architecture consulting firms (e.g., Rambøll, KOHT) and real estate developers (e.g., Overvik Utvikling), on the other. These two have different roles in the public discourse. The first is as a filter (who enters the process) representing the goals and interests of others, providing a forum for all actors while disregarding his/her own goals. While technically a commercial actor, Adresseavisen has played an instrumental part in changing the narrative through its critical journalism in the Presthus case, exposing hidden power games involving huge economic resources and leading politicians operating on both sides of the table. The second role is as a promoter, who prioritises the initiated case in his/her actions and prompts and develops it further to achieve the

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desired outcome, in these cases for promoting urban development. As shown by the cases, the former has been a vital forum for enabling dissenting and marginalised groups to contribute to and eventually sway the public discourse. The latter group uses the concept of sustainability to promote their projects as a condition for social acceptance and public appeal creating new values, even though the environment and viability of the agricultural enterprises could stand to become degraded. Community Sector: The community sector is represented by citizen groups in various forms, both formally and informally organised. Here we also address the third sector, since those organisations at play in the cases are communityoriented. From the Presthus case, Voll Farm Foundation (Voll Gård) and the Norwegian Agricultural Cooperative (Felleskjøpet) are third sector, formally established, private, non-profit groups. The former has been an instrumental proponent of the urban agriculture movement. Local community actors from Ranheim represent the informal side. From the Høyskoleparken case, FBH rose as an informal movement to mobilise public opposition to development in the park. Both types of organisations have proven to be effective in shifting discourses towards conservation and protection, involving heavy use of the local media, primarily Adresseavisen. NTNU employees who organised informally to oppose campus co-location, as well as park development, could also be considered in the community sector. The cases covered in this chapter are just two of many local urban development proposals and completed projects that carved green space away from the greenbelt and Høyskoleparken. Regarding the greenbelt, other protected areas including Øvre Rotvoll and Overvik were initially approved for residential development on the grounds that farmland conversion for housing on the urban periphery would support a more sustainable regional growth pattern and therefore be the more climate-friendly option (Vinge 2018). By harnessing the power of the compact city argument and neglecting to involve agricultural and environmental organisations in the process,

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the pro-development community was able to influence the public discourse and give the proposal an air of planning legitimacy. On the other hand, our material also shows that the dominant narrative has been challenged and perhaps also transformed by a ‘perfect storm’ of generally increased awareness around the protection of UGS, local agency and critical journalism. The public discourses surrounding UGS protection have therefore evolved significantly since earlier examples, such as the development of NTNU’s Natural Sciences Building in 2000 which removed the southern zone of Høyskoleparken without controversy. Since the events behind the presented cases, we observe a rising sensitivity and shift in the public discourses towards green space protection, in line with the widespread acceptance of the SDGs in many areas of Norwegian society. Some of this increased sensitivity also relates to the governance transition and the need for the involvement of more actors. Through multistakeholder collaboration, participatory planning and active involvement of citizens, it is possible to create a better sense of ownership and commitment, which is important in the context of UGS development. Public participation processes invite citizens to be critical and express disapproval of municipal processes (Klausen et al. 2013), although the outcomes of such processes are not guaranteed. By including more actors sooner, a great deal of opposition, unrest, mistrust and costly deviation from plans could be avoided. Building within existing green areas in Trondheim is becoming less acceptable as the local population becomes more aware of the multiple benefits of UGS, especially regarding economically motivated developments where there are alternative sites and strategies for accommodating growth.

Collaboration for Sustainable UGS Governance Environment and planning laws create obligations in the municipality to protect green space and ensure public participation. While we do not

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analyse whether the requirements have been met in the cases, the two examples point to a need for public participation to ensure the involvement of the relevant parties at the appropriate time. With improved guidelines for public participation, the parties would have a better opportunity to share information and fairly shape the discourses that surround controversial plans and decisions. Moreover, inclusive and collaborative processes focused on various stakeholder groups’ interests can improve transparency and bring to light the contradictions of neoliberal urbanism that must be faced by planning and governance systems, as suggested in other Northern European contexts (see, e.g., Berglund 2022; Pikner 2022; Pungas et al. 2022; Sechi et al. 2022 in this volume). Given the lack of public participation observed in the cases that mobilised opposition groups to cause a shift in the prevailing discourses, we consider the possibilities for enhanced engagement in different development contexts. One trend of enhanced public participation is to involve multiple actors from the early stages of planning through so-called ‘co-creation’, a collaborative approach with roots in product and service development together with users and consumers, that is generally associated with social innovation (Voorberg et al. 2015). Cocreation has emerging applications in urban planning and governance, involving multi-sector consortia for tackling complex urban problems while fostering a group dynamic that is open to knowledge sharing, learning and experimentation (Puerari et al. 2018). Also of relevance, the deep engagement of citizens that embeds local knowledge and community perspectives into urban planning processes has been shown to improve decision-making (Glackin and Dionisio 2016). Experience from Norwegian municipalities shows the benefit of early and long-term engagement (Klausen et al. 2013). Extending the logic of co-creation to urban governance, an emerging approach is that of urban facility management (urban FM) for the long-term sustainable management and user orientation of the built environment (Temeljotov Salaj and Lindkvist 2020; Lindkvist et al. 2021). Facility management has heretofore been focused

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on buildings to the exclusion of their surroundings, yet discourses around urban greening have created a precedent for partnerships between government, developers and citizens (Jim 2004). The focus of urban FM extends to public–private–people partnerships as part of the cocreation and co-maintenance of public space. Partnerships are established to overcome specific sectoral interests, ensuring the sustained economic viability and investments needed to maintain UGS without compromising environmental quality, recalling the problem of common area degradation (Ostrom 1996). For example, property owners and managers can be incentivized to invest in UGS as a public good and draw benefits from the ecosystem services produced, embedding partnerships into the governance structure. As an intermediary in the development process, urban FM can engage citizens in formal and informal networks and groups for climate mitigation and adaptation, respond to the importance of social strategies to achieve behavioural changes, and follow and lead participatory processes through all levels of participation: inform, consult, involve, collaborate and empower (Temeljotov Salaj et al. 2020). The nature of urban FM allows the full achievement of stakeholder participation. The task to deliver services to citizens, businesses and public institutions requires urban FM to have an effective collaboration with these partners, where managers’ dayto-day interactions with end-users provide an opportunity to have closer contacts and improve mutual understanding of challenges and solutions, thereby building a trustful relationship. Through this approach, new stakeholder configurations emerge for sustainable urban development, especially in brownfield sites where existing users and new investors bring in a more diverse range of stakeholders. An extended form of facility management is indeed at work at the NTNU Gløshaugen campus by virtue of the scale of the grounds, buildings and diversity of uses and users that come under a traditional facility management system. Intentions aside, by adopting an urban FM approach that takes into account the wider community, the university

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board and administration would be made more accountable to citizens regarding the uses, development and management of its grounds, including Høyskoleparken. In the peripheral setting, a multi-actor shared governance model has not yet emerged. However, on the topic of UGS, we can learn from the successes and failures of greenbelt management. Here, there are governance challenges with addressing multiple policy goals that converge on UGS. Even successful greenbelt strategies produce mixed outcomes such as leapfrog development or environmentally damaging levels of tourism and recreation (Macdonald et al. 2021). Greater governance capacity is needed to achieve policy goals and integrate them with supporting policies and frameworks. Evidence suggests that collaborative and integrated approaches, in the case of greenbelts, are better suited to implementation at higher levels of government (ibid). This runs contrary to the Norwegian regulatory environment. Still, the trend could be seen that planning and decisionmaking processes in the Presthus and Høyskoleparken cases improved for the public interest with the intervention of higher levels of government.

7

Conclusion

As the cases of urban and peripheral UGS in Trondheim show, on the one hand, uneven power to shape discourses led to decisions that could be considered far away from the public interest in terms of land use and UGS, albeit in the name of sustainability. On the other hand, our material also shows how targeted action from the community can change this unfortunate course of events by forging new alliances and introducing alternative narratives that may produce a lasting transformation of the existing landscape. We cannot ignore the crucial role of local media to give voice to these communities and third sector actors. Effective forms of public participation exist or are latent and able to be activated through formal and informal networks, alluding to the strength of social and democratic values

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underpinning the Nordic approach to sustainability. Given the experiences in these ongoing processes, however, public participation could be fostered more intentionally and followed up with collaborative governance networks to safeguard UGS. Between the urban and peripheral cases, improved public participation could emerge in different ways. In the Høyskoleparken case, urban FM has potential as a strategy for taking public, private and citizen needs into account for the long-term sustainability of the campus area and its integration with central Trondheim. In the Presthus case, agricultural and environmental interest groups need to be empowered to participate in public debates. In comparison to the urban setting, the citizen group is less represented in the periphery, as there are fewer residents and users to counteract powerful business and political actors. Through comparison of the MaP analyses conducted for the two cases, we reveal the underrepresentation of the community sector, both formally and informally. The appropriate scope of citizen participation in a peripheral area is less clearly defined, so there is a need for civil society organisations to fill that role. When this was the case in Presthus, the citizens could lead the controversial development proposal to a different outcome than had resulted from similar proposals threatening the greenbelt. As a further step, it is important to consider new governance models for the sustainable management of UGS. There is a general assumption that governance —by involving a large number of interdependent and autonomous actors with different but complementary resources—can produce more effective and legitimate outcomes than the traditional hierarchical government. However, our cases have shown that, even with the strong Nordic democratic tradition, sustainable development can be challenged by a lack of transparency towards interests and strategies, conflicts of interests and perspectives towards sustainability, frustration over the lack of clear and visible results, and distortion and change of the set agenda or policy process. In addition, the diffuse range of potential stakeholders negotiating

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sustainability in the urban environment complicates collaborative governance under existing structures. As Gohari (2019) concludes, in order to enhance governance effectiveness, all actors need to fully understand decisional processes and realise the model of governance and subsequent power relations. Yet, the model of governance itself is left in doubt, due to power imbalances shown by the failure to include the community sector in both accounts. Engineering effective governance is a challenging task, and factors related to the culture of the institution and government priorities have a large influence on the outcome of the planning and decision-making processes. Ineffective governance systems have long been recognized to obscure information, thereby enabling the misuse of knowledge and manipulation of participation (Forester 1989). In the era of neoliberal urbanism, the drive for social innovation in governance for greater participation and inclusion highlights the need to rearticulate state-market-civil society relationships (Swyngedouw 2005). In light of the Trondheim cases, we stress the need for an intermediary actor that has the necessary knowledge, resource, power and relationships to make the most of the existing assets, while protecting the weaker parties (e.g., citizens) against a poor agreement and developing mutual benefits (Gohari 2019). Environmental justice, as an underlying social aspect of the Nordic approach to sustainability, can stand to be strengthened in local processes despite the tradition of good governance and the existence of a legal concept (grønnstruktur) protecting access to green space. The experiences outlined in these cases from Trondheim beg the question: how? It is important that stakeholders understand processes of change with the potential to reinforce or undermine sustainability, including how and why they have happened and whether the change is in response to external (e.g., SDGs, climate change, international or national political mood) or internal (e.g., community’s resistance) demands. Urban FM, which has the role of improving citizens’ quality of life by stimulating and facilitating their participation in local development processes, can act as an intermediary between

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diverse stakeholders, ensuring that social value is embedded with economic and environmental concerns (Temeljotov Salaj et al. 2020). The advantages of such a system are clearer for urban settings, where the multiple actors are highly visible and scrutinised and structures are formalised, than for peripheral ones. Nevertheless, we propose that enhanced collaborative governance focused on sustainability values will also benefit peripheral UGS through increased transparency and formalised roles for local actor groups to partake in shared governance. Acknowledgements This chapter draws from research supported by the Research Council of Norway project no. 280715 “BE(E) DIVERSE The flowers and the bees— Solutions and tools for integrated sustainable planning to safeguard biodiversity in urban landscapes” and no. 220691 “Frogs, fuel, finance or food? Cultures, values, ethics, arguments and justifications in the management of agricultural land (FORFOOD)”.

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Same, Same but Different? The ‘Right’ Kind of Gardening and the Negotiation of Neoliberal Urban Governance in the Post-socialist City Lilian Pungas, Bianka Plüschke-Altof, Anni Müüripeal, and Helen Sooväli-Sepping

1

Introduction

‘But this is not urban gardening!’ was Gustav’s (politician, Tallinn) puzzled answer when asked about the missing political support for dacha1 allotment gardens while at the same time community gardens in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, are flourishing with the support of the city government. In Estonia, as in other Central-Eastern 1

Dacha—a Russian term for a relatively small plot of land, often with a seasonal allotment house, mostly used for food production.

L. Pungas (&) Institute of Sociology, Friedrich-Schiller-University of Jena, Jena, Germany e-mail: [email protected] International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Hague, The Netherlands B. Plüschke-Altof School of Economics and Business Administration, School of Natural Sciences and Health, University of Tartu, Tallinn University, Tartu, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] A. Müüripeal School of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] H. Sooväli-Sepping Rector’s office, School of Natural Sciences and Health, Tallinn Technical University, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: [email protected]

European (CEE) countries, dacha gardens in the urban peripheries have been the common form of urban gardening since socialist times. Despite the current strive towards sustainable urban planning against the backdrop of an increasing global urbanisation and environmental crisis (Davidson 2010), dacha gardens have come to live a rather marginal and ‘quiet’ existence (Smith and Jehlička 2013). Community gardens, however, are at the forefront of Tallinn’s ambitions to win the European Green Capital Award. The chapter discusses the unequal treatment of both gardening types in the light of neoliberal urban governance that has taken hold since Estonia regained its independence in 1991 and opted for a radical neoliberal development path. We argue that it is the formidability to neoliberal urban governance practises, which determines the way in which different urban gardening forms are treated despite their arguably similar sustainability benefits for the city. To analyse the ways in which neoliberalisation processes are projected upon, fostered by and negotiated in community and dacha gardens, we built on Barron’s (2016) analytical framework who treats urban gardens as key sites of socio-spatial contestation. Our analysis expands this framework by focusing on three categories, socio-spatial discourses, spatial materialities and cultivated subjectivities, which point to major dynamics of the neoliberal city: privatisation, entrepreneurialism and devolution (ibid.).

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Plüschke-Altof and H. Sooväli-Sepping (eds.), Whose Green City?, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04636-0_7

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While the focus of the analysis lies on neoliberal urban governance processes, we acknowledge that in post-socialist space these were enforced and realised in an non-comparably drastic and rigorous manner and, as we will demonstrate, Estonia serves as a prime example for this. Drawing on the writings on negotiating neoliberalism in Western (Blanco 2015; Elwood 2006; Ernwein 2014) and post-socialist contexts (Stenning et al. 2010; Zavisca 2003), we, therefore, pay special attention to the tensions arising between the ‘domestication and challenging’ of neoliberal urban governance in various urban gardening forms in the post-socialist city. The chapter brings together results of repeated fieldwork in (peri)urban gardens in Estonia since 2017, which is critically scrutinised from the perspective of consequential geographies within neoliberal city governance (Lefebvre 2002; Harvey 2008; Soja 2010) that figured as a core issue for understanding urban gardening dynamics in Estonia. In the following, we will first develop a conceptual framework for studying urban gardening in the neoliberal city. This is followed by a short introduction of the methodological approach and case studies. In the analysis, we will convey how dacha and community gardens relate differently to neoliberal discourses, spatialities and subjectivities and argue that these differences are the source for their unequal treatment.

2

Urban Gardening in the Neoliberal City: Conceptualisation

In the context of an accelerating urbanisation and gradual environmental crisis, nature-based solutions to ecological, climatic, health-related and socio-economic problems are seen as key to enhancing urban sustainability (UN.org 2020). Sustainability has become a ‘master-signifier’ in urban planning (Davidson 2010: 390, see also: Loewen et al. in this volume) and, in many cases, urban gardens are ascribed a crucial role for achieving it through community-building, social integration, re-creation of public spaces and the enhancement of ecosystem services. However, in

the context of urban gardening2 in Estonia (and CEE in general), this sustainability framing is rather attributed to community gardens, defined here by their common focus on communitybuilding and location in shared (semi)public gardening space, than to the socialist heritage of dacha gardening. Dacha gardens are the prevalent form of allotment gardens in CEE (Szumilas 2014; Trendov 2018), made up of similar-sized individual plots on municipality-owned land and organised in cooperatives. Considering this sociohistorical context, discursive othering (Essed and Goldberg 2002), de-colonisation (Quijano 2000) and approaches pointing to the symbolic meaning of dachas as relics from an unwanted socialist past seem to be crucial at first to understand the favouring of community gardening in the postsocialist neoliberal city. However, these approaches cannot sufficiently explain the new hype of community gardening as exemplified by the success story of Laagna Garden. Located in the mainly Russian-speaking panel housing district of Lasnamäe in Tallinn, the garden played an immense role in the revival and upscaling of community gardening in Estonia. We thus argue that the socio-political processes resulting in literally making space for one form of gardening while at the same time side-lining or ignoring the other, go beyond anti-Soviet or anti-Russian sentiments. We will show that they are deeply embedded in neoliberal governing practises that came to dominate the political landscape in the post-socialist period (Lauristin and Vihalemm 2009). Neoliberal urban governance is characterised by three major processes: (1) entrepreneurialism and creative competition, (2) privatisation, and (3) devolution (Barron 2016; Mayer 2017; Peck 2010). All of them have spatial ramifications that affect urban gardens. First, the move towards 2

We use urban gardening to denote all gardening practises located in (peri)urban spaces. As an umbrella term, urban gardening refers to different gardening spaces, practises and foci: from ‘urban agriculture’ (Lohrberg et al. 2016) and ‘urban farming’ (Miazzo and Minkjan 2013) striving for food justice towards urban gardening practises focusing on edible and decorative plants; from individual gardening plots in allotment gardens and (semi) public community gardens to the temporary spatialities of guerrilla gardening (Barron 2016).

Same, Same but Different? The ‘Right’ Kind …

entrepreneurialism tends to motivate activities that increase economic growth, investment and employment. It thus seeks to maximise the exchange value of spaces over their use value. This often results in favouring lucrative realestate investments that threaten the very existence of urban commons such as urban gardens (Petrescu et al. 2016), and/or seeking market solutions to socio-ecological problems, which also includes the creation and maintenance of urban green spaces (Barron 2016, see also: Smith et al. in this volume). It, moreover, privileges those able and willing to engage in creative place promotion. Second, privatisation points to the limits of material and discursive space for gardens in the city (ibid.). The main reasons are manifested in the increasing control and loss of public space that has been particularly pronounced in the postsocialist area (Stenning et al. 2010), while simultaneously the real estate development of private space benefits from the same processes. This is relevant for urban gardens as it limits their possible locations or facilitates green gentrification that can be spurred by the presence of urban gardens (Barron 2016; Rigolon and Nemeth 2018). A third characteristic of neoliberal urban governance is the devolution of regulatory responsibilities to volunteers and community groups that occurs as a shift from government to governance (Swyngedouw 2005). In this regard, gardening projects have been promoted as an alternative self-help to state-funded social welfare programs (Pudup 2008). The described neoliberalisation processes manifest in (1) socio-spatial discourses, (2) spatial materialities and (3) cultivated subjectivities that function as core analytical categories as we investigate the way these are domesticated and/or challenged by gardening activists and users.

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Pungas (2019) and Jehlička et al. (2013) convey how essentially comparable gardening practises come to be framed in very different ways in Western and Eastern Europe, as either contributing to urban sustainability or being mere strategies for the ‘survival of the poor’. Allotment gardens in general have suffered from an unsustainability frame, being regarded as wasteful use of space and enforcing unsustainable modes of transport due to their usual location at the city outskirts (Ernwein 2014; Exner and Schützenberger 2018). As sustainability has become a hegemonic discourse in city planning and governance (Davidson 2010), what comes to be framed as sustainable, and whatnot, is consequential as it can result in the preferential treatment of one gardening form over the other. In addition, it is important to ask by whom such framing is used. Elwood (2006) and Ernwein (2014) show that framing occurs externally as well as internally, meaning that community (garden) organisations also engage in framing practises. Self-portrayals in neoliberal readings of sustainability by referring to entrepreneurial opportunities or active citizenship practises, for example, can be more than a simple reproduction of hegemonic frames. They might instead resemble a strategic use for their own objectives. In the CEE context, such strategic framing has been observed in the form of a rebranding of existing practises in Western knowledge frames (Visser et al. 2019). Moreover, in a situation of urban rivalry (Mayer 2017; Peck 2010), a framing in ‘asset narratives’ is used by community organisations ‘to illustrate resources for positive neighbourhood change, or existing opportunities for improvement’ (Elwood 2006: 332). Hence, framing can also be used for the purpose of place promotion, which might become crucial for urban gardens in neoliberal contexts to enhance their exchange value on the market.

Socio-Spatial Discourses Socio-spatial discourses contribute to consequential geographies (Soja 2010), being deeply intertwined with practises and materialities (Lefebvre 2002). This also holds true for urban gardens. In their studies on dacha gardens,

Spatial Materialities Next to socio-spatial discourses, neoliberal urban governance shapes materialities by defining spaces mainly based on their exchange value and

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the spatial control that can be exercised over them. The focus on spatial exchange values encourages the subordination of green commons in general (Petrescu et al. 2016; Porter et al. 2011) and urban gardens in particular (Benjamin 2020; Schmelzkopf 2002) to more profitable land uses such as capital-intensive commercial or realestate developments. There are prominent cases where this profit-orientation led to the economic displacement of disadvantaged citizens caused by green gentrification (Rigolon and Németh 2018). However, typically urban gardens show high economic, ecological or cultural use values for the communities, but lack in exchange value. They can rather be characterised as urban commons by being (1) communally managed and (2) non-commodified spaces usable for selfsufficiency (Barron 2016). Schmelzkopf’s (2002) study on urban gardens in New York portrays them as contested space in which poor and working class people fight for maintaining the commons in an increasingly up-market urban landscape, even at the price of becoming placeholders for real-estate investments (Benjamin 2020) or greening otherwise underinvested public spaces. The ‘non-uniform, unplanned, and unpredictable appearance’ (Barron 2016: 9) of urban gardens runs counter to the abstract modernist notion of spaces as ‘controlled, planned, orderly, and safe’ (Smith 1998 in Barron 2016: 9). As Sovová and Krylová (2019) have shown in the example of the Czech Republic, the need to control or spatially marginalise gardens in the city is especially pronounced for allotment gardens which were framed as ‘ulcers on the face of the [modernist] city’, already during socialist time. For community gardens, this manifests in discussions on (un)fencing the gardens against potential vandalism, administrative regulations, such as conditions laid out in the rental contracts, the installation of greenhouses, but also in the need to form juridical entities such as NGOs that can be held responsible for adhering to spatial norms (Barron 2016; Bonow et al. 2020; Schmelzkopf 2002). However, there are varying degrees to which gardening projects follow spatial and aesthetic norms and regulations: from a

L. Pungas et al.

more confirmative collaboration to open and ‘quiet’ forms of resistance (Blanco 2015), such as ‘simply ignoring’ them (Visser et al. 2019).

Cultivated Subjectivities Finally, neoliberal urban governance cultivates subjectivities, or, affects the sense of self and community (Barron 2016). Pudup (2008) and Rosol (2012) have demonstrated how gardening projects have been associated with the ‘roll-out’ neoliberal state, by putting individuals in charge of their own adjustments to the socio-economic failures of the system through self-help technologies framed as ‘self-improvement and moral responsibility’ (as stand-in for state-sponsored policies). But also whole community organisations might find themselves in the role of flexible, low-cost and non-state service providers to substitute for social service cutbacks under the veil of active citizenship and participatory urban planning (Peck 2010; Petrescu et al. 2016). While some cultivated subjectivities rather sustain neoliberalism by (un)intentionally operating as a ‘buffering mechanism’ for the socioeconomic failures of the system, others counteract, undermine and resist neoliberal motifs, practises and paradigms. We will use Barron’s (2016) typological framework to describe the different ways in which those involved in urban gardening relate to neoliberal dynamics. As her focus lies on food systems, we have completed this typology with works focusing on the spatialities of gardening. Entrepreneur, consumer and volunteer can all be seen as mirroring neoliberal subjectivities or ‘a sense of self pervaded by market logic that reflects a consumerist mindset, accepts the retrenchment of the state from its former social welfare responsibilities, and embraces the ideals of individualism, choice, entrepreneurship, and self-help’ (Barron 2016: 5; Allen and Guthman 2006; Guthman 2008). A commonality to neoliberal subjectivities is the emphasis on personal responsibility and self-cultivation as healthier, more active, employable citizen subjects. The cultivation of an entrepreneurial

Same, Same but Different? The ‘Right’ Kind …

subjectivity sees entrepreneurship as capable, responsible and best suited for solving food safety and sustainability issues. For gardeners, the cultivation of an entrepreneurial subjectivity could mean to engage, for example, in farmers’ markets. Consumer subjectivities locate the solutions within the realms of consumption. Food insecurity and unjust food distribution are depoliticised and reduced to a consumer’s inability or unwillingness to purchase green consumer goods. A promotion of proenvironmental behaviour and green consumption (‘voting with [the] fork’, Pollan 2006) is thus seen as a substitute for addressing the problematic aspects of the current agri-food system and for environmental problems (Barron 2016). Volunteer subjectivities take onto themselves a responsibility to provide something that was formerly guaranteed by the social welfare system. Thus, they might end up buttressing a weakened network of state social services, thereby ensuring the survival of neoliberal governance systems by compensating for its main shortcomings. In addition to food provisioning, urban gardening volunteers also deliver other essential services that decrease the pressure on the state such as increased community cohesion, promotion of healthy and active lifestyles, as well as citizens’ empowerment. Among the subjectivities who are affected by neoliberal systems but rather engage in resisting them in different ways are citizen, producer and activist subjectivities (Barron 2016). In contrast to active citizenship as it is often promoted by a neoliberal framing that transforms into the notion of self-help and enables state retrenchment, citizen subjectivity for Barron (2016) entails the subject seeing herself as belonging to a larger entity with both rights and responsibilities, as opposed to being a bare economic actor (Barron 2016: 7). The producer subjectivity, in contrast to being a mere consumer dependent on food supply of providers and her own purchasing power, engages in the time-consuming physical labour, experience and challenge of growing one’s own

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food, and thereby acknowledges the complex natural processes that food production is embedded in. Producing one’s own food not only increases the gardeners’ control over the food they consume, but, as emphasised by the food sovereignty movement, additionally gives them an opportunity to co-design and establish alternative food systems that they wish to be part of. Self-identified activists are either attracted by gardening communities or the participation in gardening projects itself cultivates activist subjectivities. Especially the processes of defending lease contracts of garden plots and demonstrating the multidimensional benefits of gardening, as well as negotiating suitable legal frameworks with public officials might increase gardeners’ critical awareness of injustice (e.g. Schmelzkopf 2002; Tornaghi 2014). However, activist and citizen identity are under threat of being co-opted by neoliberal urban governance systems through the ‘reduction’ of active gardening activists to unpaid project managers (Elwood 2006). Next to potential co-optation attempts, research in the CEE context (Visser et al. 2015) conveys that counter-strategies can be realised either openly or ‘quietly’. Hence, production, activism and citizenship are contingent on the socio-spatial context they are embedded in—a fact that is often overlooked within Western knowledge frames. Figure 1 subsumes the conceptual framework. Following this, we will explore the intersections of urban gardening and neoliberal urban governance processes in Estonia through three main categories. First, we investigate the socio-spatial discourses that the gardens are subjected to, and engaged in, by focusing on hegemonic frames and discourses in the form of place promotion. Then, we examine the manifestations of neoliberal urban governance in the material spatialities of gardens, with regard to the land ownership and land use, spatial control and landscape aesthetics, as well as the relationship between exchange and use value of spaces. Finally, we explore different subjectivities that are being cultivated within urban gardening projects in Estonia.

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L. Pungas et al. Neoliberal intersecƟons Socio-spaƟal discourses

Material spaƟaliƟes

CulƟvated subjecƟviƟes

• Hegemonic framing

• Land ownership and land use

• Neoliberal: • Entrepreneur • Consumer • Volunteer

• Place promoƟon

• SpaƟal control and landscape aestheƟcs

• Counter-neoliberal • CiƟzen • Producer • AcƟvist

• Exchange value vs use value

Fig. 1 Conceptual framework

3

Methodology

Case Study Introduction: Why Gardening? Why in Estonia? For studying the intersection of urban gardening with neoliberal urban governance processes, Estonia serves as a prime example, because not only did it set neoliberal economic reforms as the priority after regaining independence in 1991 but it also enforced these reforms with a rigidity unlike any other post-socialist country (Bohle and Greskovits 2012). Attempting to shake off the unwanted postsocialist and post-soviet past as well as Eastern associations in the present, Estonian political elite opted for ‘an intentional and complete break with the Soviet past and everything that reminds us of it’ (Lauristin 2003: 610), including socialist structures and institutions, but also equality and solidarity norms (Bohle 2009; Lauristin and Vihalemm 2009). True to the motto ‘the more opening up to the West, the more protected one is from the East’, Estonia created an unprecedentedly open economy within a very short period of time. The ensuing above-average economic growth brought with it the reputation as the ‘Baltic tiger’. However, the costs of the economic transformation were unevenly distributed (Drahokoupil 2009; Lauristin 2003), rendering parts of the

population such as pensioners, unemployed and ethnic Russians as ‘invisible and silent losers’ (Pungas 2017b; Vanhuysse 2009; Romano 2014) who suffered from massive unemployment, meagre social benefits, and/or a loss of citizenship (in the case of most ethnic Russians). The latter had tangible effects as this part of the population not only lost their voting rights in national elections but also experienced limited access to land ownership in a time of an intense privatisation of formerly state- or municipality owned land (Andersen 1997). The radical neoliberal transformation also manifested spatially (see also: Sechi et al. in this volume), in largely unregulated urbanisation and privatisation processes that resulted in an increasing peripheralisation of small towns and the countryside (Plüschke-Altof et al. 2020a), a decrease of urban green space due to real estate and infrastructure development (Sepp and Poom 2020), the privileging of private car-based mobility over public transport (Tuvikene et al. 2020) and a socio-spatial polarisation in living conditions as a result of large-scale, unregulated privatisation of the housing market (Kährik and Väiko 2020). As a consequence, spatial activism has become more vivid in recent years, advocating against the shortcomings of neoliberal urban governance, especially in terms of access to urban commons and pedestrian rights (Kljavin et al. 2020, see also: Pikner in this volume).

Same, Same but Different? The ‘Right’ Kind …

Following Barron (2016), we investigate urban gardens as key sites of socio-spatial contestation in which the negotiation of neoliberal (urban) governance in Estonia takes place. The gardens of interest here are dacha cooperatives in Eastern Estonia and community gardens in Tallinn. Historically, the first gardening cooperatives in Estonia were formed before the 1st World War as part of industrial complexes for the food provision of the workers (Vacht et al. 2020). The socialist period saw the birth of dacha gardening as a specific form of allotment gardens in CEE (Trendov 2018) that in Estonia is shaped by its socio-economic and demographic history. After WWII hundreds of thousands of Russians (got) resettled to the Eastern parts of, back then, Soviet Estonia, to work in the local industry (Raun 1997: 336). To guarantee food security and more diverse food supply in a shortage economy (Kornai 1980), local factories and kolkhozes gave their employees gardening plots on devalued state-owned land in the 1970-1980s. After the collapse of the USSR, most dacha gardens got privatised and now, while still being part of an official garden cooperative, are mostly in private hands. However, there are also many dacha gardens that are being leased and some that do not have any legal status whatsoever. Therefore, their future perspective differs a lot. While some are about to challenge their historical status as a mere horticultural cooperative by becoming a suburban residential area (Nuga 2016), others face the threat of not getting further lease extensions or, even worse, being demolished for the sake of new infrastructural or real estate projects (Tint 2013 and Suržikova 2013 for the case of Soodevahe). Community gardening represents a rather new phenomenon. First pilot studies were carried out in 2007–2008, when the still ongoing ‘edible city’ movement was born (Tint and Robal 2009). They were spearheaded by activists in the gardening experiments at the Estonian Art Academy (ibid.), urban farming at Tallinn’s cultural hub ‘Kultuurikatel’ (Pikner 2014), and the ‘New world’ community gardening—named after the district it was located in (Keskkonnaveeb 2020).

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The focus lied on food urbanism (Koort 2018), and urban activism that engages in spatial politics through spatial interventions (Vatalin 2017). Building on the experiences of these small-scale experiments, the ‘communal urban farming’ project was submitted to the 2016/17 idea competition ‘Tallinn’s route map to innovative solutions’, which was part of Tallinn’s ambitions to win the European Green Capital Award. It resulted in the founding of a showcase garden in 2017, which came to be known as the ‘failed experiment of Skoone’ and had to be removed shortly after its creation. In the same year as Skoone’s demolition, Laagna Garden in the largely Russian-speaking district of Lasnamäe was initiated, which is seen as a best practice example of urban gardening in Tallinn (Vacht et al. 2020). Since then, this ‘success model’ was upscaled with the help of the Environmental and Communal Department who in 2018 employed one of the main Laagna Garden activists as urban gardening coordinator. Until the time of writing this chapter, 21 (June 2022) community gardening projects were initiated. Within the frame of environmental learning, the coordinator is responsible for community and school gardens in Tallinn. At the same time also less formalised modes of (guerrilla) gardening are emerging. (Peri)urban gardening has been a way to gain access to home-grown food rather for the Russian minority (24,8% of Estonian population, 2011) as second-home ownership and (peri-/sub) urban home ownership are more widespread among the Estonian majority population (Leetmaa 2017; Szumilas 2014). Thus, the majority of dacha gardeners are ethnically Russian. They often belong to an older generation (approximately 60–70% retired), predominantly having been resettled to the respective town during the Soviet era (Pikner et al. 2014; Pungas 2019). Members of the Russian minority (next to ethnic Estonians) also play a tangible role in spearheading the community gardening movement, especially in Laagna garden. However, in contrast to dacha gardeners, the ‘typical’ community gardening activists are highly educated young adults in their 20s and 30s.

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Research Design and Database To study these two gardening types, the chapter builds on qualitative research design including short-term fieldwork visits in 10 different gardening communities since 2017 in and around the Estonian cities of Tallinn (Pelgu and Laagna community gardens), Tartu (Eco garden), Narva (Kudruküla, Olgina, Kulgu), Sillamäe (Sputnik), Aespa, Laitse, Maardu and Loksa. It employed on-site observations, informal conversations with urban gardeners, and participation at public events organised by community gardening activists, such as communal work, gardening workshops, and planning meetings, which were documented with written and visually documented field notes. The sample represents a diversity of gardens in terms of location, target and activist groups, and legal status. Locations included perceived wastelands, road and railway side areas, or courtyards. The legal status varied from ‘illegal’ self-established garden plots and community gardens negotiating their legal status to well-organised dacha cooperatives in private ownership. At the core of the research were in-depth interviews with urban gardening activists, gardeners/garden users and supporters on one hand, and city representatives including politicians and public officials, on the other. Using semi-structured interview guidelines, altogether, we held 23 interviews with activists and city representatives (lasting up to 90 min) and 56 with garden users (including 5–10 min ad-hoc interviews and between 45 and 180 min in-depth interviews). They focused on (1) gardening practises and user groups, (2) the socio-spatial and political context of their creation and existence as well as (3) environmental awareness of gardeners and perceived benefits of the gardens. The interviews were conducted in Estonian and Russian, transcribed with Webtrans (Alumäe et al. 2018), partially translated into English for the purpose of this chapter, and anonymised by the authors using pseudonyms. The sampling was based on initial contacts identified with the help of a context analysis that scrutinised former studies, policy documents and media articles.

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The following snowball sampling was conducted until a point of theoretical saturation. As the list of cited interview persons (Table 1) shows, interviews drawn upon in the analysis largely originate from dacha gardens in Eastern Estonia and community gardens in Tallinn.

4

Analysis

Socio-Spatial Discourses Hegemonic Framing The interviews convey two main frames that the urban greenery, in general, and urban gardening in particular are subjected to. First, the framing as a ‘garnish’ (Maaja, public official, Tallinn), something extra, which can be dealt with after ‘real’ problems are solved—a framing referring to a post-socialist ‘catching up’ narrative that is common also to other environmental and climate related issues in Estonia (Plüschke-Altof et al. 2020b). ‘It is not understood why greenery is needed—clearly we don’t deal with such teeny tiny things’, is how Tallinn public official Maaja summarises the attitude towards gardening as irrelevant, which she often encounters in the city government. Second, the framing of gardening as a practice from the socialist past when ‘we still had to grow everything […], there were potato fields even in the apple tree gardens’ (Ülle, public official, Tallinn)—a need left behind after regaining independence when suddenly ‘everyone terribly wanted to mow the lawn’ (Maaja, public official, Tallinn). As a result of this link with the socialist past, edible city practises are associated rather with economic survival strategies than urban sustainability or personal wellbeing (in the example of dacha gardening: Pungas 2019; Jehlička et al. 2013). Green city aspects came back into the frame with Tallinn’s ambitions on winning the Green Capital Award, but rather in the form of green beautification and environmental learning such as ‘showing city children where the carrot originates from’ (Ülle, public official, Tallinn). Community garden activists and supporters relate to these hegemonic frames to prove the

Same, Same but Different? The ‘Right’ Kind … Table 1 List of cited interview persons

1

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Interview Partner

Role

Location

Mikk

Civil servant

Narva

2

Vladimir

Civil servant

Narva

3

Maaja

Public official

Tallinn

4

Ülle

Public official

Tallinn

5

Helen

Public official

Tallinn

6

Gustav

Politician (city government)

Tallinn

7

Mihkel

Supporter (media representative)

Tallinn

8

Ann

Community gardening activist

Tallinn

9

Maris

Community gardening activist

Tallinn

10

Kadri

Community gardening activist

Tallinn

11

Hugo

Community gardening activist

Tallinn

12

Pille

Community gardening activist

Tallinn

13

Magda

Community garden user

Tallinn, Laagna

14

Sergej

Dacha gardening activist

Sillamäe

15

Maria

Dacha gardener, cooperative board

Narva, Kudruküla

16

Inna

Dacha gardener, cooperative board

Narva, Olgina

17

Jelena

Dacha gardener

Narva, Kudruküla

18

Ljuba

Dacha gardener

Maardu

19

Nikolai

Dacha gardener

Narva, Kulgu

20

Nina

Dacha gardener

Narva, Kudruküla

21

Nataša

Dacha gardener

Maardu

relevance of gardening in a neoliberal governance context where the exchange value of places has become prevalent. On one hand, socialist connotations of urban gardening are overcome with references to its popularity in ‘many Northern and Western-European cities’ (Maaja, public official, Tallinn) in ‘modern urban space’ (Gustav, politician, Tallinn) while at the same time the commonality of home grown food traditions in Estonia’s (peri)urban areas is generally taken for granted: ‘why would we talk about them [dacha gardens]?’ (Mikk, civil servant, Narva). This orientation towards Western role models tends to reproduce governmentalities aimed at ‘catching-up with, emulating, imitating, “cloning” or conforming to hegemonic models’ (Figueroa Helland and Lindgren 2016: 433). On the other hand, community gardening activists have been eager to convey the relevance of growing food in a green, sustainable city, by employing two main narratives that are deeply

intertwined with the hegemonic frames and have gradually been attuned to them. The first portrays gardening as a safe practice in the city, where the potential environmental pollution of the harvest through car and other fumes is often used as an argument to reduce gardening to decorative horticulture instead of food for subsistence (e.g. Koff 2020). The second narrative portrays gardening as pleasure that enhances individual wellbeing and a sense of community—thus relating to social aspects of urban sustainability. Here, an interesting shift has occurred over time when resistance-based frames of food urbanism have been replaced by a more confirmative framing referring to public health, environmental learning, food education and the potential economic prospects of urban gardening. Maris (community garden activist, Tallinn) explains the lessons learned: ‘We try to avoid this negative bubble, this negative opposition. We rather search for joy in growing food in the city’.

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Quite the opposite, dacha gardening representatives largely refrain from a (Western) sustainability label due to its neoliberal co-optation: ‘They called everything sustainable, sustainable this, sustainable that … I was like, come on guys, this is not something sustainable … It's just like good construction practice [common sense]. It doesn't have to be special, it's like fucking normal […] It’s not like you now suddenly invented sustainability. People have been building like this for thousands of years’ (Mikk, civil servant, Narva). The phenomenon of not framing sustainability-compliant practises within the sustainability discourse has been dubbed as ‘quiet sustainability’ (Smith and Jehlička 2013). The impact of dacha smallholders on sustainability is often taken for granted externally and expressed as a common sense internally, as illustrated by the same city official in Narva: ‘They [the gardeners] do not put a label […]. But they know what it [sustainability] is—it’s just like a respectful thing. That you have to be able to live in balance with nature. I think this is one important subject that dachas certainly teach’ (Mikk, civil servant, Narva).

Place Promotion Moreover, community gardening activists, especially in the most popular Laagna garden, have engaged in raising the exchange value of gardening spaces via place promotion: This idea created a kind of hype that became visible ‘like an explosion’ (Gustav, politician, Tallinn). For community gardening activist Ann, this visibility also improves the image of Lasnamäe district. Using social media and access to local and national print- and visual media, Laagna garden has come to be known for its aesthetics as ‘lush oasis in a concrete city’ (Kurk 2019), location for events where communication is seen as ‘the biggest benefit’ (Gustav, politician, Tallinn), and powerful imagery that attracts many famous visitors: ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if soon the first politicians come to perform at the garden, sending the message “see, people, I am one of you!”’ (Mihkel, supporter, Tallinn). While most dacha gardens, in contrast to the latter, cannot be found in social media, the

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importance of showing value gradually comes to be acknowledged. In 2019, the dacha festival was planned as part of Narva’s cultural programme for the European Cultural Capital candidacy to demonstrate the (use) value of dachas and to show that this is ‘quite unique […] and that’s cool’ (Mikk, civil servant, Narva). Various other cultural events such as exhibitions about dacha cooperatives in Soodevahe (Tallinn) or elsewhere3 have also drawn attention to these phenomena as something special and valuable. To some extent, this can be considered as a process of rebranding in Western frames (Visser et al. 2019), happening also in other post-socialist countries and using formats such as social media and artistic creativity to make various postsocialist phenomena more accessible, likeable and ‘hip’ to the general public.

Spatial Materialities Land Ownership and Land Use In terms of land use and ownership, both dacha allotment sites and community gardens are a much more insecure form of land tenure than privately owned gardens. However, many dacha gardening plots got privatised during the 1990s and are now as private property part of an official cooperative, thus underlying certain regulations and restrictions. In addition, there are a variety of other ownership forms. In some cooperatives (Maardu, an area with steadily increasing exchange value), the leasing contracts are extended only by 1 year. In others, like Kulgu, the garden plots have no legal status or institutional form, but instead are merely being tolerated by the local municipality or the land owner as self-organised dacha settlement because of their location in urban wastelands with relatively low exchange value (partly under high voltage transmission lines, for instance). Despite the considerable size of some cooperatives, the 3

See for example: Tallinn-Soodevahe [https://www. annikahaas.com/planewatchers/] and [https://www.timo. ee/soodevahe/], Tartu-Hiinalinn [https://ajakirimaja.ee/ maria-kilk-fotoseeria-tartu-hiinalinna-aedadest/].

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necessary infrastructure (roads, sewage system) is still deficient since they were initially meant as limited, seasonal housing or a mere area for food growing (Tuuder and Paulus 2020; Pikner et al. 2014; Solodova et al 2018). A city official in Narva commented on the problem: ‘In the beginning they were mere gardens, which means that people were just given a tiny piece of land, to grow their own [food] there, potatoes or so… But over time, people started developing their real estate and now in some places there have emerged two storey houses. But at the same time, since they were designed as horticultural cooperatives […] water-sewerage is completely unresolved’ (Mikk, civil servant, Narva). Another aspect that manifests itself with regard to the dachas’ status of a seasonal housing is the legal framework that does not provide protection from environmental hazards, which was stated as a major conflict of interests and concern for gardeners in Sillamäe, near a shale oil power plant (Sergej, activist, Sillamäe). For community gardens in Tallinn, the main challenge is to find municipal land to rent in the first place. In Tallinn municipal land constitutes less than a third (37,6%) of the land ownership as a result of the radical privatisation in the transformation period, and most of it is covered by public roads and social infrastructure (Vacht et al. 2020). This sets tangible restraints to finding spaces for community gardens, which have for now been largely created on the territory of city institutions (such as youth clubs or libraries) or on existing green spaces (such as parks or courtyards). On one hand, sharing space with public institutions provides opportunities for fruitful collaboration as has happened with Tallinn’s library on whose territories some gardens are located. While gardeners have a place to grow food, public libraries can diversify their portfolio, (re-)connect to communities, and potentially attract more readers (Helen, public official, Tallinn). One outcome is the idea of a ‘seed library’ (ibid.). On the other hand, it potentially externalises responsibility for ‘keeping order in public spaces and providing additional free-time activity’ (Ann, community gardening activist, Tallinn).

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Spatial Control and Landscape Aesthetics Both gardening types have faced conflicts over landscape aesthetics. These have manifested mainly with regard to building materials, with contrasting aesthetic perceptions in community and dacha gardens. For dacha gardens it is their ‘eclectic, patchwork-like, jerry-built ramshackle look’ that has somehow rendered them as ‘low value urban space’ (Maris, community garden activist, Tallinn), as it runs counter to the ideal of controlled and planned natures in modern cities (Sovová and Krylová 2019). Due to its perceived lack of aesthetics, especially the Soodevahe dacha garden community near Tallinn airport—nicknamed ‘shanty town’4 and largely demolished by now —was labelled as ‘disgrace of Estonia’ (Suržikova 2013). However, irrespective of their sustainability framing, also community gardeners have experienced limits of ‘legitimate’ aesthetics. In fact, the community gardening showcase experiment Skoone garden, located at the fringes of Tallinn’s touristic Old town, had to be removed a few months after its founding, due to a greenhouse construction from reused materials that ‘made the Muinsuskaitseamet [Estonian for National Heritage Board] people see red’ (Maaja, public official, Tallinn). But also the alleged nonaesthetics of edible plants in the touristic centre played a role: ‘We don’t want cabbage there!’ (Ülle, public official, Tallinn). Taking these experiences into account, aesthetics has been important to community gardening point persons: ‘We knew that one central aspect that we have to address is aesthetics’ (Ann, community gardening activist, Tallinn). One of them, for example, regularly plants tulips in early spring to make the garden more beautiful (Hugo, community gardening activist, Tallinn). While inexpensive materials such as euro pallets used in dacha gardens are considered cheap, messy and unaesthetic ‘garbage’, in community gardens the same materials are framed as DIY, recycling, zero-emission, and sustainable construction material (Pungas 2017a). 4

Garrett 2014 [https://www.featureshoot.com/2014/10/thelast-remaining-residents-of-an-estonian-shanty-town/].

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Photo on the left: Lilian Pungas, Loksa, 2017. Photo on the right: Gallo Metsa, Laagna, 2020 (Facebook ‘Laagna Aed’). The level of experienced spatial control seems to decrease in the dacha gardens. Local civil servant Vladimir in Narva told us that in general the city is benevolent towards dacha gardens and that there is an ‘unwritten rule that the city does not interfere much’, despite of ‘not all buildings there being entirely legal [e.g. with regard to building permits]’ because ‘people just build the way they can’. The point persons of the government supported community gardens face much higher expectations on keeping order including a ‘correct appearance’, ‘cool’ spatial solutions, but also for example preventing and repairing signs of vandalism (Ülle and Maaja, public officials, Tallinn). These expectations are actually seen as ‘a great responsibility’ by the activists as failing to perform these tasks would give sceptics in the city government yet another reason to say ‘See, it wasn’t a thing after all!’ (Ann, community gardening activist, Tallinn). It seems that landscape aesthetics and spatial control play an important role mostly in higher exchange value, city-supported, and ‘very visible’ gardening spaces that have to look ‘decent’ (Ülle, public official, Tallinn). The perceived (peri)urban wasteland can to some extent operate on its own terms.

Exchange Value vs Use Value The prevalence of exchange over use value characterising neoliberal urban governance affects both gardening types, but in different ways. In the community gardens for instance, higher garden beds have become the best practice model.

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The main reasons mentioned for this ‘arguably more water-consuming’ (Kadri, community gardening activist, Tallinn) garden bed choice are aesthetics and food safety (i.e. non-polluted soil), by officials and gardens users alike: ‘Beautiful garden beds, well taken care of, […] always looks fresh’ (Magda, community garden user, Tallinn). However, higher garden beds are also more mobile than in-ground alternatives. In this, they are susceptible to function as place-holders for the yet non-materialised future, meaning until the exchange value exceeds the use value. When asked about his support for community gardens, city politician Gustav explained: ‘Temporary solutions such as the container forms [raised garden beds] signal to people better that everything can change here’. According to community gardening activist Ann, this also means ‘to be prepared that if it doesn’t work out, we’ll remove it’. For dacha gardens, it is the low exchange value of their usual locations that has sustained their existence. They are officially allowed or tolerated predominantly in urban wastelands where the use value exceeds the current exchange value. Vladimir, city servant in Narva, reasoned the development of the biggest local dacha cooperative Kudruküla exactly with that: ‘It’s a pretty swampy area, it does not promise any profit for real estate developers’. In areas where this is the opposite (e.g. Maardu), leasing contracts are only extended by 1 year each year. This does not allow gardeners to make long-term plans or invest into their garden (e.g. build a greenhouse). What is similar to the experiences of both garden practises is that despite their high use value they are often perceived as simply

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‘filling the empty gap’ until a profit-promising exchange value project will take over and drive out the former.

Cultivated Subjectivities Pro-Neoliberal Subjectivities While we encountered hybrid, potentially ambivalent subjectivities in both gardening types that are constantly negotiating the neoliberal urban governance system, there are however tendencies of adjusting to, being formed by or strategically counteracting and utilising neoliberal processes that can be pointed out. In terms of entrepreneurial subjectivities, as pro-neoliberal subjectivity, dacha gardeners seem to be more engaged than community gardeners. However, their entrepreneurialism does not seem to fit neoliberal profit-maximisation and businessmaking (cf Barron 2016). It rather resembles a self-reliant (as opposed to welfare-state-reliant), pro-active and creative way of overcoming challenging times, such as the socio-economic hardship in the 1990s. Ljuba (gardener, Maardu) recalls: ‘The dacha helped, of course. In this mess […] people just had to manage somehow’. Another gardener described how he adjusted to financial difficulties by picking and selling cranberries from the forest: ‘People took holidays for cranberries in September, picked them and gave the bags away for money. I picked them for two months […]. Afterwards we bought an engine for the boat with that money’ (Nikolai, gardener, Kulgu). Until today, gardening produce is sold at the local market or at the roadside as an addition to meagre pensions or as utilisation of garden produce that exceeds family needs. In this way, some dacha gardens have until now maintained the function of a buffering mechanism to socio-economic failures of the system. The situation is different in community gardens. Individual gardening plots are allocated within wooden boxes with the dimensions of 1.2 m 0.8 m, which is insufficient space to produce enough food for entrepreneurial activities or selfsufficiency. Next to other activities such as communal events, some activists have criticised

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that growing food has become a mere ‘side activity’ (Mihkel, supporter, Tallinn). For instance, entrepreneurialism in the form of place promotion and event-making is highly encouraged by public officials and politicians, who awarded one of the main community gardening activists with the citizenship award for the ability to ‘make things very visible’. In the same line, urban gardening itself is used as a showcase project in Tallinn’s attempt to win the European Green Capital Award. As for consumer subjectivities dacha cooperatives seem to be slowly transitioning from producers to consumers: ‘If you compare the way we are living here now with the past…Nowadays these cooperatives are rather made for holidays. There is more lawn and barbecue, but in the beginning it was a farm. We grew vegetables, potatoes, planted apple trees, secured ourselves for winter’ (Inna, gardener/ cooperative board, Olgina). This incrementally prevailing consumer subjectivity has become particularly visible in the increase of the so-called green zone area in comparison to vegetable beds: ‘If people start reducing the vegetable gardens and replace it with the lawn, then it means that they are no longer short of vegetables, there’s plenty’ (ibid.). In community gardens other forms of consumption seem to be prevalent: besides producing the rather symbolic ‘salad leave for the sandwich’ (Ann, community gardening activist, Tallinn), it seems that there is a tendency to encourage the consumption of gardening space over gardening produce. Accordingly, ambitions that go beyond gardening creation and consumption are critically scrutinised by city politicians and officials: ‘This community garden [in city centre] just wants to prevent realestate development there’ (Gustav, politician, Tallinn) which is seen as illegitimate cause. Many scholars (Pudup 2008; Barron 2016; Rosol 2012; Harris 2009; Alkon and Mares 2012; Poppendieck 1998; Jessop 2002; Allen and Guthman 2006; Guthman 2008; McClintock 2014) have problematised the cultivation of volunteering subjectivities in neoliberal systems. In the Estonian case, volunteering subjectivities seem to be more prevalent in community gardens, but manifest themselves in dacha gardens

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as well: ‘You know, my daughter works in a nursing home and I send a lot of left-over vegetables there. We actually collect them here in the cooperative’ (Inna, gardener/cooperative board, Olgina). Community gardens find themselves every now and then negotiating the conditions of volunteerism. At the initial stages of their ‘boom’ they were praised by public officials for their huge engagement through forums such as TEDx talk5 and the ‘good citizen’ online portal.6 Helen, a representative of a public institution that tenures land to the gardens in Tallinn, for example told how ‘they [the community gardening activists] agreed themselves to do so much […] this is only good for us’. Also activists themselves in former interviews encouraged good citizenship: ‘when I see litter in the staircases or courtyard, then I just go and pick it up and don’t wait for the city to do it’ (Ann, community garden activist, Tallinn). However, over time, a potential overuse of such good citizenship was experienced. It was not only incentivised for maintaining gardens as orderly public green spaces, but in some cases for substituting social services, when gardening projects are encouraged to cater for the needs of socially disadvantaged groups such as youth from poor socio-economic backgrounds or people with disabilities. In light of this externalisation of public services, overburdening has become an issue: ‘I have seen them [activists] with sparks in their eyes [..] This burden is so big, free labour and fighting with windmills […] And then these eyes just fade away’ (Maaja, public official, Tallinn). In reaction to this experience, also those who formerly promoted active citizenship against the backdrop of a post-socialist path dependency of top-down state-citizen relations and more passive forms of citizenship, have changed their framing. Today, Ann (community garden activist, Tallinn) does not get tired of pointing out that ‘somehow it is believed that we only live out of “air and love”’ and advocates for fairer compensations for volunteers.

5 6

See: https://tedxlasnamae.org/et/. See: https://heakodanik.ee/vabatahtlikud/.

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Counter-Neoliberal Subjectivities The first subjectivity that counters the neoliberal paradigm is that of a producer. This not only entails producing one’s own food through physically challenging labour, skills and know-how, but also making conserves and jams, sharing and gifting home produced food. Many gardeners in dacha cooperatives used to produce food out of almost every square metre in their garden plot: ‘In the 1990s dachas supported a lot. You were always busy, you had to come here after work. But then you also received [food]. […] I didn't feel distressed. I had compotes in 3l jars, I don't even count the little ones. In addition, we also went mushrooming’ (Jelena, gardener, Kudruküla). However, today for most ‘this is not necessary anymore’ (Inna, gardener/cooperative board, Olgina). In the community gardens, the quantity of food production differs and the limited space does not provide an opportunity to grow enough for self-provisioning. However, both in dacha as well as in the community gardens, there is a prevalent longing to ‘put the fingers into the soil’ (Pille, community garden activist, Tallinn) and in such manner to de-alienate oneself from the soil and food (McClintock 2010; Pungas 2019). The emphasis lies rather on the activity and process of growing food in the fresh air (and not on the final product). In dacha gardens, citizen subjectivity manifests mainly in terms of the knowledge of, and care about, healthy and pesticide-free food production. Such organic food production is almost taken for granted, also because gardeners consume their produce themselves or give it to their family members: ‘If I use chemicals, then it is not food anymore’ (Nina, gardener, Kudruküla). Furthermore, as exemplified by Nataša’s (gardener, Maardu) comment about the recent canola poisoning that killed many bees in Estonia, many gardeners proved to be well informed about potential side effects of industrial agriculture in regard to chemical pesticides. In most cases, they voiced concern for the environment in general and stated that humans do not have ‘enough respect and reverence for nature nowadays anymore’ (Nataša, gardener, Maardu). However, they would still never label themselves as food

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citizens or part of some wider food democracy or sovereignty movement. Instead, dacha gardeners ‘quietly’ continue their food growing practice in a manner they regard as common sense (Smith and Jehlička 2013; Visser et al. 2015). Food citizenship in the community gardens is encouraged via the notion of food education. Organised as collaboration between various stakeholders and community gardening activists, regular workshops take place focusing on topics such as permaculture, composting, or healing plants. However, the initial active citizenship in the field of spatial justice has slowly become depoliticised. At the beginning, community gardening initiatives originated largely from members of the urban activists’ organisation Linnalabor [Estonian for urban lab] and focused on issues of accessibility of public spaces, revitalising city space and ‘making the city for people’ (Gehl 2010). This bottom-up approach was over time transferred into a top-down project of scaling-up the blueprint of Laagna Garden’s success story. On one hand, this enabled the blooming of community gardens within a very short time. On the other, it transformed and potentially co-opted counter-neoliberal citizenship subjectivities as reported by one community gardening activist in Tallinn who could only come to play a bigger role in the movement after declaring that he had no political ambitions. Ensuring ‘apolitical’ point persons might thus be seen as an attempt to avoid an undermining of the (neoliberal) status quo. The third counter-neoliberal subjectivity, activism, was encountered in both gardening types. However, in dacha cooperatives, it oftentimes might run counter to typical activism forms known in Western scholarship. One dacha cooperative board member (Maria, Kudruküla) showed us articles that she had published in a local newspaper about the dangers of blocked drains and problems of local pollution and garbage dumping in a nearby forest. Near Sillamäe where the export of the locally produced shale oil takes place, many cooperatives have mobilised politically and legally to defend themselves from the hazards of potential accidents, hinder new

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mega-projects of the shale oil industry and demand better filters and equipment to reduce the stench caused by the export of the shale oil cisterns (Sergej, activist, Sillamäe). In comparison to these visible forms, there are various other activism forms of ‘everyday resistance’ (Scott 2008) that remain invisible, such as boycotting, foot dragging, non-compliance, pilfering, desertion, feigned ignorance and slander. Moreover, the existence of dacha cooperatives themselves with their main focus on food self-provisioning as a concrete and widely practised alternative model to the current agri-food system as well as the gardeners’ partial rejection of the industrial agrifood system resembles a form of ‘quiet everyday resistance’ (Pungas 2019: 85). By contrast, community gardens seem to be connected to more (visible) forms of activism. The creation of Laagna Garden for example was part of diverse spatial experiments in Lasnamäe district including pop-up street festivals, urban art installations, open-air cinema and many others. By skilfully using the ‘environmental and participatory vocabulary’ (Kadri, community gardening activist, Tallinn), this activism has gradually been subjected to the project managerialist workings of neoliberal urban governance (cf Mayer 2017). Project management has become ‘the main [obligatory] skill’ expected of community gardening point persons ‘and gardening skills as something extra’ (Maris, community garden activist, Tallinn). While this is agreeable to many point persons, for some this expectation has also led to a refusal to become the spokesperson of the gardens ‘within this system how the city works’ (Kadri, activist, Tallinn), where one is the ‘victim of communication and information duties’ (Maris, community gardening activist, Tallinn), or the side-lining of point persons who are not seen fit as project managers by respective city departments. This happened to Pille (community garden activist, Tallinn), who got overburdened with the expectation of knowledge on the city’s management structure and reachability within project management cycles and was gradually replaced by a new point person.

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Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter analyses the ways in which urban gardening projects relate to neoliberalisation processes in the post-socialist city. Former studies have either investigated the subjection to (Barron 2016; Schmelzkopf 2002) and negotiation of neoliberal urban governance (Elwood 2006) in Western community gardening contexts. Or they have focused on the domestication of neoliberalism in CEE in general (Stenning et al. 2010), and dacha gardens as post-socialist heritage in particular (Jehlička et al. 2013; Smith and Jehlička 2013; Sovová and Krylová 2019). We have brought these debates together to understand why community and dacha gardens are differently treated in Estonia, despite both equally fostering urban sustainability (Smith et al. 2015; Pungas 2019). Through the lens of neoliberal urban governance, this chapter investigates three analytical levels: socio-spatial discourses, spatial materialities and cultivated subjectivities. In terms of socio-spatial discourses, both garden types are subjected to framings of secondary relevance as environmental initiatives against the backdrop of more prevalent problems during the post-socialist transition, or to a portrayal of food growing as a necessity from the socialist past that has become obsolete. At the same time, urban sustainability framing has gained popularity in city planning, also for purposes of green place promotion. While dacha gardeners rather refrain from engaging in these discourses, especially in (neoliberal) sustainability labelling, community gardeners do so actively by presenting gardening as safe, pleasurable, and healthy practice, and by placing themselves in line with often cited Western and Northern best practice models of sustainability. However, this strategic use of hegemonic discourses is more than a naive reproduction of, or co-optation by the neoliberal urban governance system (Elwood 2006). In fact, it has helped to shake off postsocialist associations with food growing. But this does not come along without its drawbacks as such (self-)framing in Western knowledge frames has brought a gradual de-politicisation

and has been actively used for a green place promotion of Tallinn, thereby overshadowing the persistence of not-so-green practises such as the privileging of private car mobility over greener ways of transport (cf Tuvikene et al. 2020). It might also further spur the marginalisation and stigmatisation of other existing modes (Figueroa Helland and Lindgren 2016: 444; Jehlička 2021), such as dacha gardening. Concerning spatial materialities, land ownership and land use have been a challenge to both gardening types, mainly as a consequence of post-socialist radical privatisation processes. Major differences, however, can be found in terms of aesthetics. Both, community and dacha gardens, build on a rather similar design of food growing and reused materials that stands in stark contrast to the controlled and planned nature of modern cities (Sovová and Krylová 2019). Community gardens in particular have invested in aesthetical norms, but at the same time have also been more subordinated to them—as exemplified in the forced destruction of a community garden near Tallinn’s Old Town as reaction to a greenhouse made from reusable materials. Aesthetics remain a relevant aspect also for dacha gardens, as they are critically scrutinised from the outside due to their alleged non-adherence to (unwritten) aesthetic standards which also influences their overall legitimacy in public gaze. However, since dacha gardens are often located in urban wastelands with low exchange value on the real estate market, they are not subjected to rigid aesthetic norms in the same way as community gardens. In contrast to dacha gardens, community gardens’ locations are closer to public gaze and their areas higher in exchange value. As a result, aesthetic norms have been imposed more rigidly through codes of orderly conduct in rental agreements and a blueprint standard of higher garden beds that are not only seen as safer and more aesthetic but also more flexible (with regard to their removal) for the sake of potential real-estate development projects on the gardening sites. As to the subjectivities, it is not possible (and maybe not desirable) to determine which type of

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urban gardening cultivates more pro-neoliberal or counter-neoliberal subjectivities. In both cases, there is a complex and curious variety of subjectivities to be found that either fosters neoliberal urban governance, or undermines and challenges its paradigm. However, we argue that there is one significant difference when comparing these two—as pro-neoliberal subjectivities in community gardens enable a short-term thriving of neoliberal urban governance, whereas the dacha gardening rather maintains neoliberal urban governance by compensating for the shortcomings of the latter. Community gardens seem to be more vulnerable towards various cooptation tendencies but at the same time they strategically make use of the opportunities that are given to them by the city administration. While activism and critical citizenship still exist in community gardens, their formidability to the neoliberalising context of Tallinn, as newly emerging form of co-creation between the city and active citizens, has been one of the reasons for the city’s support: ‘The community garden format was successful as the city was looking for a good idea that was not revolutionary’ (Gustav, politician, Tallinn). The analysis does not only empirically reveal the complex dynamics of neoliberal urban governance and negotiation processes in both gardening types but it also demonstrates the limitations of neoliberalism-critical studies in the field of urban gardening as these are mostly embedded in a specific Western context of knowledge production that cannot be easily attuned to the post-socialist context. In fact, as Jehlička (2021) has pointed out, due to the current power relations in knowledge production, CEE is generally not considered as a theorygenerative context that would expand beyond regional studies. However, as the analysis shows, the ‘universal’ validity of Western concepts in non-Western regions has to be critically reflected and questioned. This means that while the neoliberal urban governance approach has been useful to elaborate an understanding of the maltreatment of dacha gardening on one hand, and the hype and support of community gardening

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projects on the other, it has to be applied with caution. Conceptualisations of entrepreneurship, volunteering, citizenship or activism as subjectivities tailored to a specific Western context might not be applicable as such in post-socialist context, as the refraining from the sustainability labelling of dacha gardeners conveys. Or the subjectivities manifest themselves with potentially very different motifs. This figures, for example, in the grounding of Barron’s (2016) subjectivities in the food (production) system. Due to the relatively wide-spread tendency to seasonal living in Estonia, and a long tradition of home-grown food in CEE in general, inequalities in food provision might not be the central issue in post-socialist space. Instead, the struggle for green (public) urban space might be more prevalent in a context where rapid privatisation processes occurred during the post-socialist transition. This might be perceived as such even more by the members of the Russian minority in Estonia who not only act as main protagonists in the dacha gardens but also play a considerable role in the community gardens. Largely excluded from land privatisation processes in the transition phase, they depend more on public urban spaces and are thus more vulnerable to inequalities with regard to its access (ibility) and quality. Hence, there is reason to widen the focus additionally to the production of space rather than solely on food, incl. entrepreneurial place promotion through green washing, volunteers struggling to maintain green urban space and/or its access, activists and citizens fighting for the (green) ‘city for all’. Finally, in the process of space production, as in addition to food, some forms of urban gardening might remain entirely invisible and ‘quiet’ (Smith and Jehlička 2013; Visser et al. 2015), as is often still the case with the dacha gardens. Hence, it is essential to consider all, visible and invisible, forms so that the respective scholarship does not reproduce the de-visibilisation and further marginalisation of certain forms through the usage of Western (or Eurocentric) lens to explore phenomena in different regional and sociohistorical contexts (Jehlička 2021).

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As a result, the chapter conveys that both gardening types are deeply intertwined with neoliberalisation processes in the post-socialist city. While community gardens actively engage with neoliberal discourses and practises, thereby allowing them to thrive, dacha gardens play a more ‘quiet’ role in maintaining the same system by offering a buffering mechanism. Whereas dacha gardens often live a rather marginal existence with a latent risk of destruction, community gardens currently enjoy preferential treatment and political support. However, as we have shown, being—at least currently—framed as the right kind of gardening due to its aesthetics, visibility and (pro-) active engagement with the neoliberal urban governance system, this preferential status comes with a price: a higher vulnerability to co-optation attempts and neoliberal control of space to which dacha gardens have hitherto quietly resisted. Acknowledgements This study was carried out within the Junior Research Group Mentalities in Flux (flumen), funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and based at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany. In addition, the research presented here was supported by the Tallinn University Research Fund (TF519), as part of the research group on Human-nature Interactions in the City, and the European Union’s Central Baltic Interreg Program Visionary, Participatory Planning and Integrated Management for Resilient Cities. We would like to thank the book editors, the anonymous reviewers, the student assistant at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Lara Gerlach, as well as the interview respondents for sharing their insights and experiences. Without them, this study would not have been possible.

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Science, Art and Other Ways of Knowing: A Proposal from a Struggle Over a Helsinki Green Space Eeva Berglund

1

Introduction

If concerns of an environmental nature increasingly preoccupy mainstream politics in Europe, subtle but potentially far-reaching shifts are also taking place in the way science and art operate in environmental thought. This demands reworking the understanding of both environmental injustices on the one hand and science on the other. With the environment on the political agenda, there is even increasing recognition in many places of the fact that sustainability is a justice issue. This dimension is captured in the idea of environmental justice, where at stake are local livelihoods and injustices such as silencing, displacement, the threat of violence or worse. Environmental concern among the affluent, in contrast, is usually imagined as a preoccupation with nature detached from everyday life. This also helps account for the prominent role of the natural sciences in the emergence of the environmental movement in wealthy democracies. That said, the history of environmental justice struggles is equally a history of deploying knowledge and struggling to make it relevant. Despite this close association with scientific knowledge, environmentalism continues to be

E. Berglund (&) Aalto University, Espoo, Finland e-mail: eeva.berglund@aalto.fi

widely associated with idealism and romanticism. From a social and historical perspective, it is nevertheless clear that since the 1960s, environmentalism has above all been a cognitive challenge (Yearley 1993; Jamison 2001; Guha 2014). Knowledge claims remain central to the politics of sustainability from climate crisis to local amenity, and they feature routinely in accounts of environmental struggles, however, defined. Knowledge practises were prominent in the controversy that I sketch out here. It concerns an island called Vartiosaari, a site of exceptional natural as well as cultural heritage within Helsinki’s municipal limits, which the city wanted to connect to the mainland and modernise. As the controversy unfolded through the 2010s, actions for both developing and not developing Vartiosaari were presented as the sustainable thing to do. Perhaps this was greenwashing or ecogentrification, public-spirited and eco-friendly argumentation to hide more mean-spirited or NIMBY-style interests (like property values) that disadvantage the poor (White et al. 2016; Benjamin 2020). And yet, other, more interesting things may be going on. The difficulty of fully accounting for white middle-class environmentalism leads me to confront the binary thinking— in all its guises—prevalent in environmental discourses. Expertise about the island’s varied heritage was insufficiently powerful to protect the green space values of Vartiosaari, the courts eventually were. As ways of knowing, two art

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Plüschke-Altof and H. Sooväli-Sepping (eds.), Whose Green City?, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04636-0_8

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events and the forms of activism that developed alongside them, certainly generated hope, new thinking and possibly new ways of doing environmentalism, encouraging engagement with the island’s landscape in ways that mixed science with art, and treating local problems as also global ones. Having researched environmental activism for almost 30 years, I draw on this controversy to think somewhat against the grain and play with two axes by which environmental thought has been differentiated. One distinguishes between the ‘ecology of the affluent’ and the ‘environmentalism of the poor’, following Ramachandra Guha (2014). The other distinction is that between rational-calculative vs. romanticaffective reasoning—sometimes aligned with technocentric versus ecocentric environmentalism (Pepper 1996). The green space in question here, Vartiosaari, is technically an urban location. The activists involved are mostly rather privileged. The debate over its future has unfolded within a complicated background situation of metropolitan-level landuse politics. Whilst the case contains familiar elements from the literature on people mobilising in the name of sustainability, the work and the creativity of the residents and neighbours as well as that of the artists, full-time and occasional campaigners, whose work I sketch out here,1 indicate active formulation of novel ways of learning about the world. Conventional, expertbased grounds for preserving Vartiosaari as green space were used, as alongside them, art-based forms of activism flourished. Not that art was impactful in an instrumental sense, since the defining issues of the case were legal. Nevertheless, the case well illustrates how the roles of art and science in generating environmental knowledge are shifting. Like all green space controversies, the case is highly contextual, stamped by Finland’s relative success as a forerunner of sustainable 1 They are too numerous to mention by name. I am grateful to all of them. Thanks go also to the editors and anonymous reviewers for patiently providing constructive feedback on an essay born less of scholarly research than citizenly engagement.

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development and Helsinki’s recent adoption of a new, politically green-tinged, development plan: ‘The City Plan 2016 facilitates Helsinki’s growth into a dense city where the several centres are linked together by rail transport: metro, trains and light rail trams. Construction has been specifically centred around the hubs of rail transport and the major stations. […] In this city plan, Helsinki is still a green city, and its urban forests and cultural environments are its strengths’ (City of Helsinki 2019).

Surrounded by water and forest, with wellmaintained technical infrastructure and a mostly low-rise and pedestrian-friendly built heritage, Helsinki is a place where environmental problems are indeed relatively few and green space abundant (Hannikainen 2016). However, residents appear to be increasingly afraid for its future, calling out the injustice each time a local forest, park or parklet, or even a single tree, is threatened. When, in the early 2010s, people learned that Vartiosaari was to be developed, the sense of injustice went beyond local residents. After all, it is arguably one of the most remarkable 80 hectares in the city, without even a bridge to connect it to the mainland. ‘Save Vartiosaari’ became the title of a website, a Facebook page, a social media handle, an art event and a slogan. One trace still available online is a video of a flash mob at Helsinki Railway Station in May 2015 (Save Vartiosaari 2015). Locals have been aware of many plans to transform Vartiosaari for decades, but for me and many others, the story begins in 2013, one year after the planning office (then Kaupunkisuunnitteluvirasto, in Finnish) had launched a website as part of the planning process for the island’s redevelopment. By the time I visited by row-boat on a sunny April afternoon, I had heard much about its charms from activists I knew from elsewhere. I was not disappointed, everything here spoke of an exceptional bio-cultural history. Like others, I found this starkly at odds with how proponents of development at times spoke of it as empty space. With no modern infrastructure, the island was ideal for imagining, even practising, alternative versions of a good life, free of the downsides of twenty-first-century normality on

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Fig. 1 Vartiosaari talli (‘stables’), summer 2015, during a public event. Photo by the author

the mainland. The very idea of modern technological development here ran counter to everything I knew and felt about the multiple crises of our times (Fig. 1). The quotation below, from an activist website (in the original English), captures the sense of disbelief that any further—scientific, economic, and political—arguments might be needed to oppose construction here, the island itself, seeming to ‘speak for itself’. ‘So close but a world away. Vartiosaari feels like it’s somewhere deep in the countryside, where the natural landscape is still intact. The island is located in the inner archipelago of Eastern Helsinki […] 7 km as the crow flies East from the city centre. […] The whole area is important habitat for bats and includes the only spot in Finland where the critically endangered plant petasites spurious (also known as ‘Wooly [sic] Butterbur’, or ‘Rantaruttojuuri ‘ in Finnish) has been found. Interesting geological features include large boulders, rocky remnants of the ancient shoreline and the Litorina sea. Over 50 villas, the oldest dating back to the late 19th century, form part of Vartiosaari’s cultural equity…’ (Villistadi.fi n.d.)

I have often encountered incredulity among activists that not everybody wants to cherish the island’s existing qualities that all but dictate developing it with a light touch. Adding insult to injury, the city pushed for the island’s construction

as part of ‘sustainable’ urban planning. When I myself wrote to politicians seeking to transform it, I appealed to them to visit, assuming that first-hand knowledge would be enough to change their minds. I was astonished to hear they had visited. One explicitly professed indignation that citizens (me) could even imagine leaving city-owned land undeveloped. Two lessons there: one, my firsthand experience and hers were not the same; two, housing pressures in Helsinki required a response from the municipality.

2

Conceptual Approach: Ways of Knowing the Environment

The rest of this chapter builds on my accidental —as I explain below—acquaintance with the issue, which drew my attention to the evolving identity and uses of science in the last halfcentury and the impact of this on environmental thought and politics. To quote one activist, ‘we live in a society of experts’. He added that decision making is supposed to be based on accumulated expert knowledge, but that in Vartiosaari it appeared to have become impotent and meaningless, the effort of gathering it a placatory but empty ritual.

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Finland is far from the only place where art and science have developed distinct identities and where sustainability concerns pose a challenge to treating them as distinct and opposing. To summarise a recent exploration of how art and science mingle in the environmental realm (Santaoja 2016: 18), science tends to seek objective truth claims and art tends to play with perceptions and emotions. In this paradigmatically modern schema ‘science’ ‘discovers’ ‘truths’ about ‘nature’ while art is about other things, but this idealisation always breaks down eventually. In Vartiosaari, I noted a selfconscious effort to intensify or accelerate such breakdown. This impulse was noticeable particularly among artistically oriented activists when they endorsed the powers of both art and science, and acknowledged their mutual entanglements. The Vartiosaari situation also nurtured confident critiques of urban growth, underpinned by arguing that to grow the city while destroying parts of its green space totally missed what is valuable about Vartiosaari—the whole. Protest wasn’t an affective reaction against reason (let alone science, the supposed model for rational thought); it was a legitimate construal of available knowledge, including science. Meanwhile, art often incorporated science so that the identities of art and science became hazier. Activism brought to the fore ancient connections between art and the natural sciences and, indeed, nature. Engaging with environmental change through art is becoming popular, as numerous publications, including many Finnish ones, attest (Beloff et al. 2013; Berger et al. 2020; Gustafsson and Haapoja 2020; Santaoja and Suonpää 2016). Activist art was pursued in Vartiosaari at two international festivals that I attended. The island itself acted as a sensitising device, provoking curiosity, learning and effects such as delight but also fear. The first festival I discuss was Camp Pixelache in 2014, and the second was the Arts in the Environment Symposium three years later. Along with other happenings about which I am less knowledgeable, these gatherings commented on and challenged urban environmental politics, but not in any simplistic binary way pitting the romantic-

E. Berglund

affective knowing of the artist against the rational-calculative reason of the technical or scientific expert. The art mobilised aspects of modern science to practice other ways of knowing and new forms of environmentalism. This interpretation owes much to research on the social and philosophical dimensions of science and technology. Crucial to ordering modern societies, they are so central that their powers are invisible even to the most acute commentators (Latour 1987; Jasanoff 2015), perhaps particularly so when they percolate through environmental politics. Though the literature is huge, in this essay I draw particularly on Isabelle Stengers’ Another Science is Possible (2018), where she argues that it is not so much that modern traditions of knowing should be transcended. She calls instead for ‘regenerating’ or ‘civilising’ the practice of science, through recognising its historically shaped peculiarities. Stengers reminds us that there is an important distinction between facts and values, but also insists that the work of science is always socially entangled, its truths necessarily partial and partisan (2018:12).

3

Methodological Approach: Research from an Activist Position

I thus adopt an activist-academic position that questions the modern way of splitting researchers from their capacity to ‘envisage, [] feel, think or imagine’ (Stengers 2018: 107). My approach is anthropological and ethnographic, attentive to how events are experienced and to the existing context, but the analysis also engages environmental research today, which is explicitly oriented towards alternative futures. Stengers, for example, alerts readers to the possibility of another science, whilst Anand Pandian calls for A Possible Anthropology (2019). With Stengers and Pandian I am seeking ways to use the ‘special position’ of academics (Stengers 2018: 106) to posit possible, alternative ways of knowing and thus pursuing environmentalism. Pandian, who like me is trained in anthropology, has worked with artists himself and yet maintained

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his social researcher’s identity. He explains in an interview that anthropology is above all an empirical research field, one that has never ‘simply abstracted people from place and context in order to say something about them. […] There’s no way of producing an adequate understanding of what might happen in a particular human milieu without paying attention to an infinity of details about all the other human and nonhuman elements, living and non-living, that populate, animate, and motivate that lifeworld. So … anthropology has long had resources for a more robust environmental orientation’ (Yamada 2020). Such hopes also support my unorthodox methodology of pressing personal involvement into academic service. In the period I describe, I was producing a book about urban activism in Helsinki (Berglund and Kohtala 2015), which gave me insight into developments there. As a part-time academic and Helsinki resident, I was also invited to help organise the Arts in the Environment Symposium on Vartiosaari island and was able to learn from as well as contribute to the environmentalism it was realising. I participated in and helped organise demonstrations and events related to the case. I also interviewed over a dozen involved people about the controversy without a clear plan of what to do with the material. This is not the kind of research currently preferred in academia. It is also not participatory action research (PAR), where researchers and communities explore problems and solutions together. It does, however, strive towards timehonoured ethnographic virtues such as ample contextual knowledge and treating analysis and data as continuous. Such an idiographic approach is also very beneficial for green space studies, which have hitherto been dominated by quantitative research (Plüschke-Altof and SooväliSepping in this volume). Like in my doctorate, where local activists guided my efforts to explore why environmental problems are framed the way they are (Berglund 1998), in studying the shifting articulations of science and art, I am thinking

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alongside and with the many artists who have come to Vartiosaari themselves to ponder humanity’s relationship with the natural world.

4

The Case: Vartiosaari

There is a considerable body of research on the island, linking local knowledge to the international reach of scientific discourses. Within modern governance, such knowledge has usually appeared as the epistemic foundation for decision making. However, as the environmental justice struggle indicates, this bias towards expert knowledge generates epistemic injustice (Temper and Del Bene 2016), side-lining local people, matter and meaning. Vartiosaari’s unique cultural and also ecological inheritance has inspired numerous dissertations of varied academic levels in different fields—subfields of ecology, architecture and planning, social psychology and education, and art, to name a few. Surveys and studies about it also provide the documentary sources for my analysis (e.g. Arjanko 2015; Syväilo 2014), as does the ample knowledge produced to prepare for its prospective redevelopment. More knowledge was and is available in the form of personal and local histories, not least about Helsinki’s numerous islands, now popular topics of debate. From the nineteenth century, wealthy Helsinki residents built villas on them, which made it possible for a paterfamilias to commute to work in town, often by steamboat, leaving their family to enjoy idyllic summer life by the sea. Through the twentieth century, the villas and cottages of Vartiosaari also started to be used by charities, which brought people to the island for short stays. Its interior was left largely to nonhuman species but it also hosts allotment gardens. In 2016, a new City Plan for Helsinki was approved. Green spaces across the city were key flashpoints of the process (Hannikainen 2019), gathering groups of activists around them. People feared for local ecology and heritage, some also protested the slow violence of urban growth. The

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parts of the plans that concerned Vartiosaari were eventually dismissed via the court system, which deemed the plans unlawful. To paraphrase, the city was not at liberty to dispose—as it were—of land which is of value to the whole country. In late 2018, when Finland’s Supreme Administrative Court ratified the decision,2 activists heaved a collective sigh of relief. I too was relieved. This colours but hopefully also enriches my analysis, which I contextualise in the next section by highlighting all environmentalism as a social, that is peopled, movement. I then sketch out relevant key features of the Vartiosaari controversy before moving on to the ways that art and artistic ways of knowing were inserted into the conflict.

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Analysis

Environmentalism is Always About People By any comparison, Vartiosaari activists were privileged. Many proponents of development argued that islanders’ motives were based on NIMBY-ism. This echoes critical histories of environmentalism, which indeed show that appeals to shared nature have often bolstered privilege while disempowering the already vulnerable (Cronon 1995). This has typically been achieved through trivialising or erasing the role of people and social arrangements. Wealthy environmentalists especially have blamed humanity as a whole for damaging nonhumans or nature as a whole, sidestepping tricky details about how and why environments are shaped as they are. In Vartiosaari, activists did make much use of nonhumans, but this did not in fact mean erasing people from the argumentation. Indeed, across environmental politics, old key terms like

2

Information is available mostly in Finnish, e.g. on the Court’s own website (accessed December 2020): https:// kho.fi/fi/index/paatokset/vuosikirjapaatokset/ 1541580128040.html

‘nature’ and ‘science’ are ever more comfortably than before getting mixed with terms like ‘humanity’, ‘values’ and even ‘politics’, not least in relation to global discourses around climate and biodiversity. And as people are inserted into the discussion, their concrete worries and environmental politics come ‘down to earth’, to use Bruno Latour’s phrase (2018). This is paradigmatically the case with campaigns for environmental justice, where people and their bodies have long been prominent (Agyeman et al. 2016; Bullard 1990; Ottinger and Cohen 2011; Schlosberg 2013; Sze and London 2008). Nevertheless, acknowledged or not, people are key to all environmental politics. Hence words like Marx, racism, digitalisation and other terms denoting obviously social players, have become as significant in environmental studies and geography as have features like rivers and mountains. Research on environmental politics could hardly do without the notion of hybrids, things that are at least partly the result of human design, intended or not (Jasanoff 2015; White et al. 2016). People are also the issue in the debate over the Anthropocene or Human Geological Era (Tsing et al. 2017). This debate, straddling humanities, engineering and the natural sciences, is part of the phenomenon I am describing. It too needs to be critically evaluated, particularly because it lends itself to flattening out differences within the perpetrator group—Anthropos—and so has an ambivalent place at best in critical scholarship just as it does in advocacy (Alhojärvi 2020; Yusoff 2018). The very idea of protecting one environment from one humanity disempowers many local activists and has more than a trace of colonial history. It is rooted in the capitalist transformation of nature into a resource to be managed, yet it also emerged out of scientific enterprise and the awe that early European explorers experienced as they encountered new worlds and new creatures and different ways of being human. Later, the term ‘environment’ entered international politics, spurred on by the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm. Once used to denote an all-encompassing and globally shared issue of

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concern, this usage also determined who had the power to speak for and manage this ‘it’. Influential critics like Sabine Höhler (2015), Tim Ingold (2000) Wolfgang Sachs (1999), among others, have long argued that the idea of global environmentalism as it took shape in the 1960s and 1970s was technocratic and in fact a denial of real people’s connections to their environments. This detachment, they argue, was only exacerbated by the photograph of the earth taken from space, which concretised the idea that the planet as a whole could be an object of human management. Such symbols of global environmentalism coexist with endless local forms of environmentalism with ever-shifting and always contextspecific knowledge practises, however. These complex trajectories have been extensively studied (Cronon ed. 1995 and Pepper 1996 being good starting points in addition to the works in the reference list). Analysing environmentalism remains a tricky business, as almost anything one might write about it presents philosophically and politically awkward conundrums (Guha 2014; Haila 2012). But systematic patterns do emerge. Much has been learned from research that has catalogued the uneven distribution of environmental goods and bads, under rubrics like political ecology (Peet et al. 2011) and environmental justice (Sze and London 2008). Some research (e.g. Latour 1987) starts by critiquing modern, Cartesian, ways of classifying and knowing the world, dwelling for example on the role of knowledge in colonialist violence. (No wonder the call to decolonise is gaining momentum.) More complications arise when we recognise the powerful aesthetic and ethical impulses across varieties of environmentalism. Substantially derived from monotheistic religions, environmentalism in the west and beyond incorporates older notions of the good and beautiful derived from those religions (Cronon ed. 1995; Guha 2014). The humanity invoked in ‘mainstream’ environmentalism usually appears as the humanity lucky enough to be unmarked, that is, white, educated, industrialised, rich, democratic and therefore not just WEIRD (from the first letters of

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that list of attributes) (Berglund and Julier 2020), but ignorant of the contingent histories and geographically unequal effects of the environmentalism they espouse. They/we, the then growing middle-classes of Europe, North America and Australasia, were central protagonists, with key roles not only in technological innovation but also in how environmental regulation, science, expertise, democracy and public institutions co-evolved. Critics of modern society’s enthusiasm for technology, such as Rachel Carson in biology or the economist E. F. Schumacher, worked from within their expertise to develop different approaches to science and technology. This indicates that environmentalism has always had a strong cognitive element, with the cranks and critics of yesteryear often becoming the valued pioneers of good policy and practice today (Jamison 2001). Other contradictions and surprises abound in the processes in which post-war counter-cultures emerged when environmentalist critique jostled with varied projects for social justice, notably democracy, feminism and the peace movement (Guha 2014: 110). These protests came to be known as New Social Movements because their demands seemed to revolve less around class or economic gain (as in the older ones) and more around identity and how one wanted to live. Even in its variety, environmentalism since has been able to bolster western, capitalist, hegemony at the same time as claiming cultural and political neutrality (Guha 2014; White et al. 2016). For instance, simply to claim that a contest over a cherished island-like Vartiosaari was a case of environmentalism may further this problematic heritage. Then again, merely to live on planet Earth now involves living with all the dimensions of this legacy, whether one likes it or not, whether one talks of the Anthropocene or not. The literature and activist networks engaging with environmental justice, that is, with the unequal production and experience of harm in local environments, point to the way the institutionalisation of environmentalism at a global scale has marginalised already disempowered groups (Sze and London 2008). Their lives and worlds are cheap, even suitable to be made

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dumping grounds for other communities’ toxic overflows (Bullard 1990) while their humanity may be qualified and their choices limited. This may be because they are only allowed to appear as exotic but less-than-human ecologically noble savages, whose right to decent treatment is based on keeping their traditions and thus not aspiring to modernity or wealth (Escobar 2006). Or it may be because environmentalism follows patterns of racial and gendered violence, against bodies and environments but also against ways of knowing that dominant groups and their thinking belittles as mere beliefs (Collier in this volume; Schlosberg 2013; Temper and Del Bene 2016). Science and its institutions help authorise such judgements. These problems are not only reproduced but also reconceptualised when scientific value is based on detachment and effectively erasing humans and human values from consideration. We can call this technocratic environmentalism even if (unlike its technocentric cousin) it foregrounds the intrinsic values of whatever environmental feature is at stake (Pepper 1996). Technocracy refers to a mechanistic reliance on the procedure and imagined objectivity—and numbers. These have been and remain prominent if fickle elements in scientific culture (Porter 1995), offering a seductive sense of clarity and the promise of keeping value judgements and politics out of human affairs. Since at least the Enlightenment numbers have helped police the boundary between science and politics, and systematically distance science from social agents (Latour 1987), publics in large-scale democratic societies not only learned to respect but also demand numbers, while expertise is still built on the virtues of disinterestedness and objectivity symbolised by numbers and meant to keep petty local squabbles out of the picture. Yet even objectivity, so central to expertise, is far from a simple virtue. With all its appeal to calculations, objectivity ‘refers at once to metaphysics, to methods, and to morals’ (Daston 1992: 597). Numbers thus do the work of persuasion and rhetoric, of affecting people and decision making. It is people, however, who police what to count and whose knowledge about this question is

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relevant even if, when issues are debated, they are rendered irrelevant as people. Their actions— as scientists or bureaucrats charged with managing (environmental) affairs—follow procedure, and that, by definition, is impersonal.

Environmentalism is About Matter and Meaning If it is always peopled and political, environmentalism is always also concerned with matter and meanings. The importance of this becomes clear as soon as we attend the national and local levels. As Yrjö Haila reminds us, ‘the first measures toward nature protection were [probably] triggered by peculiar, historically shaped reasons in different countries’ (2012: 37). People and social questions are key here, together with their material surroundings. Finland’s history as a forestry dependent economy is a great example, with the mutual entanglements between forests and humans reflected in Finnish environmentalism. Not only activists but also researchers have noted that as Finland’s forests were harnessed to serve the industry from the late nineteenth century, they gradually became somewhat akin, in biological terms, to humanly created monocultures or plantations. In earlier work, I showed that in Finland forestry expertise has indeed been a key arena where the politics of knowledge has been played out. State bodies since the nineteenth century have been keen to evaluate forests’ merits across the country, in both private and public ownership, through counting trees and processes related to them (Berglund 2001). Unsurprisingly, Finns have also developed other criteria of value—emotional, cultural and economic—for their wooded landscapes. Forests continue to be celebrated and even worshipped as a source of collective identity as well as places of comfort (Beloff 2020). When in the 1990s the sector underwent a restructuring whose impacts are still felt around the country—not least in declining work opportunities for men—global environmental governance introduced the discourse of biodiversity into forest politics. Geographer Ari A. Lehtinen argues that gradually the

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Finnish state did acknowledge that forests were important beyond the needs of an energy-hungry and ultimately fickle export market. At the same time, he writes, ‘the general public had awakened to question the intensive wood exploitation and processing’ (Lehtinen 2006: 51) that had become such a normal aspect of life. Appreciation of forests is now increasingly related to bioeconomy and sustainability. Although the stakes and stakeholders are different from 20 years ago, science talk remains prominent, so the debate over forest management has an uncanny resemblance to the fights over facts of the 1990s. If attitudes towards the forest sector are prone to heated debate in Finland, this legacy is relevant to Vartiosaari in an unexpected way: many of Helsinki’s larger green spaces feature extraordinary biological diversity precisely because of not having been managed for industrial uses. They were instead cultivated for leisure as part of wealthy homes and estates. In her doctoral thesis on Helsinki’s manor houses in the urban structure, Ranja Hautamäki (2016) shows how the numerous large estates—she studies 27 —are an essential part of Greater Helsinki’s history with impacts on land-use and urban structure as well as ecological diversity. Over the period of the planning controversy in Vartiosaari—as later with Covid-19—the healing properties of forests and other ecologically rich landscapes became a popular topic. Writer and activist Marko Leppänen has an association with Vartiosaari going back to the 1990s. His perspective is overtly humanist in its critique of technological society, mixing quantitative evidence fluidly with qualitative observations and empathetic descriptions. For instance, the book he co-authored with Adela Pajunen (2019) lists numerous scientifically authorised examples, complete with quantified values, for instance, that a ‘longer visit to nature increases creativity by a substantial 50 per cent’ (p. 162). The reference list is long. Such appeal to facts is a typical feature of environmental justice campaigns, certainly when understood as mobilisations that bring ‘attention to the environmental conditions in which people are immersed in their

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everyday lives’ (Schlosberg 2013:39). Facts have supported communities seeking to hold polluting industries to account (Ottinger and Cohen 2011), and they have arguably helped challenge the global view that made ‘some kinds of people count far more than others in terms of who is most impacted by ‘environmental bads’’ and decide ‘whose understanding of environmental problems are legitimated and heard, and who pays the intended and unintended costs’ (White et al. 2016: 143). Environmental justice discourse thus foregrounds not only people but also the material conditions that make their lives meaningful and possible. The wealthiest and most comfortable, who in general are the worst polluters (Wells and Touboulic 2017), seldom feature in the research or, indeed, even in the politics. In this case, however, people who might have been expected to make their knowledge count, thanks to their socio-economic status, did experience a form of epistemic injustice (Temper and Del Bene 2016), as the knowledge they considered most relevant was side-lined.

Ways of Knowing the Environment: Surveys and Other Data There exists, indeed, a plethora of surveys about both natural and built features of Vartiosaari’s environment, all presented as politically neutral. Any protestor would have quickly encountered much regulatory expertise and official knowledge to support decision making, as well as a planning process so complex that keeping up with it was almost a full-time job. Activists’ claims that real decision making is obscure and inaccessible have academic support (Bäcklund et al. 2018). A key observation, in relation to land-use agreements specifically and planning generally in Finland, is that ‘the relations between the background documents … and the actual agreements are variably difficult to decipher’ (Bäcklund et al. 2018: 316). It has even been suggested that the ongoing transformation in Finland could threaten the foundations of municipal democracy (Bäcklund et al. 2018: 320), which in turn ‘hinders the

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possibilities for excluded stakeholders, such as citizens’ self-organised groups, to politicise issues effectively’ (p. 321). The city’s main apparent motive for building in Vartiosaari was to ease the housing shortage as well as to attract ‘good taxpayers’, a typical dynamic in such situations (Benjamin 2020). It was embedded in the new City Plan, the political context for the controversy, put out for consultation in 2012 and adopted in 2018. The plan was produced as its own process (City of Helsinki 2019, also Granqvist et al. 2019), but it merged into policies to alleviate housing pressure and also into preexisting participation exercises. These had already brought artists and other ‘creatives’ like designers, students, performers and change-making provocateurs into urban change and politics, subtly altering conceptions of how the city could be developed (Berglund and Julier 2020). Crucially, the City Plan included linking Vartiosaari to the mainland and its modern infrastructure and constructing housing for 5000–7000 new residents. Opposition was voiced in face-to-face interactions on social media, blogs, articles in newspapers, letters to newspapers and local radio shows. Activists were angered by many issues, usually many at once,

Fig. 2 Visitors waiting to be taken by boat from the island to the mainland, Vartiosaari Day, August 2016. Photo by the author

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and gradually the case received publicity across Helsinki. Only about 20 residents, after all, lived on the island. A handful of properties are in private summer-only use, but increasing numbers of non-residents had started to visit the island’s villas and cottages as the planning progressed, and the allotment gardens have long been available to non-islanders. As news spread of the plans, many people like myself, living rather far away, thus also felt an injustice. To understand how the situation relates to the politics of urban green space, some detail about Helsinki planning is helpful. The City Plan is Helsinki’s strategic development plan, known also as a local master plan (yleiskaava), and this new one replaces the previous one from 2002. In the city’s communications, sustainability and everything ‘green’ were key (e.g. Niemelä 2018). In a critical overview, Hannikainen (2019) notes that although green space appears in planning debates with an increasingly ecological spin, local recreational areas are still being put at risk, and that green space near where people live has in fact dwindled (Fig. 2). Alongside progressing the City Plan, the city consulted on what is called a component plan (osayleiskaava), a more detailed proposal for Vartiosaari alone. When it approved this in

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October 2016, the City Council paved the way for construction, which would have altered the island’s character completely. Eleven plaintiffs appealed the decision, both individuals and organisations, including the Finnish Heritage Agency (under the Ministry of Education and Culture) and the Finnish Association for Nature Conservation, the largest non-governmental environmental association in the country. The City responded by defending the high standards to which all evidence in the matter had been produced. To no avail, in late 2018 the Supreme Administrative Court rejected Helsinki’s plans. The island was deemed regionally too significant, both in terms of built and natural environment, to be treated as ordinary construction land. Activists have told me how relieved they were to hear this, but nervousness persists, the zombie plans may yet resurface. I have made no comprehensive survey of available data, but when the component master plan outline was published, it included summaries of 19 impact assessments (Helsingin kaupunki 2015). The consultation and assessment plan published in 2012 (Helsingin kaupunki 2012) outlined the knowledge base deemed relevant in the process, and it seems this shaped the shared discursive space within which the controversy unfolded. To synthesise (Helsingin kaupunki 2012): Relevant considerations included the island’s inclusion in the inventory of built heritage of national significance; it is Finland’s only habitat for a rare butterbur and on that basis protected since 1995; it is a significant habitat for bats, protected under European legislation; it features several geologically valuable sites that also add to landscape value; it forms part of plans for a wider cultural heritage park for Eastern Helsinki and it plays a part in various proposals to enhance green infrastructure networks. Reports to support planning included numerous inventories of fauna and flora, built heritage, coastal landscape, and several new reports were in process, notably an updated cultural heritage inventory encompassing gardens and biodiversity. Impact assessments would be (and were) made relating to citizens’ experiences

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of the surroundings, minerals and water, plants, animals and other biodiversity, spatial planning including municipal infrastructure and transport links, and the landscape qualities of the area. Parallel to these reports, information to support economic decisions circulated, based on demographic trends, calculations of profits and losses, and the imperative to construct more housing. These numbers in fact circulated constantly in the media, accompanying controversies around Helsinki’s neoliberal real estate policy (Berglund and Julier 2020). As Helsinki has grown and planning has become organised around commercial viability (Hyötyläinen & Haila 2018), citizens (like research) have noticed the loss of green space (Hannikainen 2019). De-emphasising heritage, cultural or natural and focussing on future construction needs are more than a value preference and ideological bias; it is an epistemological commitment. Unfortunately, to assume that the ‘market knows best’ or that ‘it’s the economy’ arguably incapacitates governments in a systematic way, leading them to deny the seriousness of environmental threats (McNeill Douglas 2020). Appeal to commercial value also closes down debate.

Ways of Knowing the Environment: Art And yet debate was opened up somewhat. Parallel to the circulation of all this information, people engaged with the island through artistic activities, so reformulating the very basis on which the environment—the island—might be known. What could be learned in art was imagined and practised as complementary to and often entangled within conventional expertise of the kind described above. Vartiosaari’s various buildings and several in situ environmental art pieces have long been drawing attention to environmental change here. They have invited visitors in subtle ways to reflect on human and nonhuman creativity: nesting boxes for birds arranged on top of each other, perhaps questioning the rationale of even

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more dense urban living for humans; an outdoor version of a Christian church (vartiosaari.munstadi.fi, n.d.) complete with crucifix and altarpiece, constructed of rock; street-signs in the style of mainland Helsinki, playfully accentuating the urban location of the island (Miettinen n.d.)3; summer cafes; nature trails; meditative walks and more. On-off events have brought their own more temporary artworks and people to Vartiosaari. Most have taken place in the summer, although a winter festival was held to great acclaim in 2019 (Parviainen 2019).4 Images and accounts of these can be found in social media posts, flyers for events and many websites. Yet it is the almost overwhelming bodily experience, nourishing all the senses, that has drawn in waves of domestic and international visitors to Vartiosaari. The sensory richness intuitively leads to wonder at the dynamics that have produced it, and people start to make connections with the broadly western understanding of science and the creation—or Creation—of the place. Camp Pixelache in 2014 and the Arts in the Environment Symposium three years later drew simultaneously on affect and techno-science, and both relinquished some of the clarity and objectivity through which science-based expertise (as conventionally viewed) carves up the world. Far from keeping science and art separate, both events explored possibilities for reconnecting them or practising the distinction itself in new ways. In short, they featured activities that fostered awareness of consequential shared realities, but refused, hacked or somehow playfully experimented with the simultaneously hyperactive and impotent knowledge practises around Vartiosaari. In early June 2014, the Pixelache association of artists curated, free of charge, a programme of presentations, discussion groups, performances, ‘Path Signs’ is by Anu Miettinen, whose work in and on Vartiosaari has been an entry point and an inspiration for my own thoughts. 4 The main feature was a solar-powered ice-carousel, an intervention by technological means that playfully drew attention to the massively different temporal and spatial scales that come into play in climate crisis. 3

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walks, workshops and other activities over several days. Pixelache’s name refers to the ache or feeling of being stuffed (ähky) with pointless data, resonating with the tendency to amass information but no wisdom, seemingly unfolding at the time around the planning process. Since its founding in 2007, Pixelache has maintained a self-consciously trans-disciplinary and antiinstitutional ethic. Its activities communicate normally obscured realities or connections between things in our everyday lives that are not ordinarily problematised. The collective’s foci have ranged from digital culture, invisible chemical cocktails and bacteria, to geological processes that are not perceptible to the human senses, to ways to diffuse social conflict, and more. Under the title ‘Commoners Unite’, the event’s agenda took shape as a so-called unconference, a self-organising real-time and face-to-face way of planning activities. Over 100 people attended actively contributing or simply following presentations and hanging out (Pixelache 2014a, b). In its communications, Pixelache was openly political, highlighting that Vartiosaari was under threat of full-scale residential development and hoping that Camp Pixelache could give support to local activists and provide a discussion forum around commons issues in Helsinki more widely. The event deliberately valorised different ways of knowing and it approached the common theme in a flexible way. The topic of commons, now a frequent element of environmental politics, was rather novel at the time, but the organisers welcomed all kinds of contributions broadly in the fields of resource economics, urban culture, open knowledge and, brushing with international Anthropocene-talk—which was also rather a new thing at the time—bio-art. This form of environmental art has been particularly developed through the Finnish Society of Bioart, which has nurtured much of the literature that influences this essay also (see references). Events and encounters took place all around the island. My notes from it were not made for the purposes of academic research, but they are a trace of a programme that presented grassroots

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and DIY (do-it-yourself) activities, and art projects elsewhere in Finland and around the world. It taught a lot, first-hand often, about how people had been mobilising, usually quite successfully, around social and environmental problems of many kinds. The discussion repeatedly returned to the commons and contrasted this way of imagining social and political order to the private property model of capitalism-as-usual. There were presentations and discussions on already celebrated cases of urban commoning, such as Madrid’s Campo de Cebada, and on emerging models for citizen action from within the P2P (peer-to-peer) community that generally involved some kind of creative repurposing of existing structures and values. A workshop introduced participants to the political, economic and artistic positions orbiting the phenomena of nuclear decay, where a low-budget radiation detector made concrete the links between the times and spaces of everyday activity, nuclear power and earth systems. A fascinating, challenging workshop was held around the bio-commons, the topic of a keynote by Markus Schmidt, a selfdescribed science communicator. In line with bio-art, these discussions thoroughly undid any assumptions that the biological is opposed to the technological, that is humanly designed, exploring as they did the new field of synthetic biology and discussing bio-hacking, a concept that was as alarming as it was novel. Very conscious of the power of peer-to-peer learning and online access to information, Pixelache’s own documentation was excellent, and can still be accessed (Pixelache 2014a, b), as can interviews with participants that were edited into an activist video for an international project, Remix the Commons (Camp Pixelache 2014a, b). The atmosphere was festive and sometimes anarchic but also intellectually demanding, forcing at least me to update my approach to the biological sciences, stretching my understanding of what artistic practice might be and how it dovetailed with activist practises. The Nordic Symposium on Environmental Art in 2017, which I helped organise, pushed my thinking in this direction further. Involving environmental artists, scientists, thinkers and the

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public, the programme combined keynote talks and discussions, video art evenings, workshops, environmental art works and performances to engage with current developments in environmental art and sciences. Some of the people who had attended Pixelache earlier participated, and once again all the event publications highlighted the potential threat to the island, making a point of supporting preserving Vartiosaari as a recreational area. Organised primarily by LARU ART Association, an artist-driven non-profit organisation based in Helsinki, the event bridged many communities across the worlds of art, science, urban development and local stakeholders. The programme included a number of sitespecific works (Nordic Environmental Art 2017). Søren Lose from Denmark created a ‘Halkopino or Lament for Vartiosaari’ out of four tons of birch wood, which he contextualised in earlier work on landscapes that are losing their character. Like Lose’s, other exhibited works made oblique as well as direct comments on the destructive practises of capitalism. Perhaps the most topical and powerful at the time for me, was Kristina Lindström’s and Åsa Ståhl’s ‘Un/Making Plastic Imaginaries’, which involved scavenging around the island for discarded plastic, in a local version of what in Sweden had recently become popular as ‘plogging’, cleaning up other people’s rubbish while jogging. Their exhibit also featured a delicate installation of items made with beeswax alternatives to plastics, and discussions about the life cycles of different materials. In addition to the temporary artworks and events on the island, the symposium included conventional talks juxtaposing (environmental) art with politics, science and aesthetics. This is not the place to summarise the talks, but to note that constant references to Vartiosaari meant that place-based attachments to the material conditions and to people and their concerns were never far away from discussion, however abstract it was. Significantly, the discussion featured considerable specialised and esoteric scientific understanding as well as a boldness to comment on the ills of the world. My notes include over a dozen statements that suggest, now in 2021, that

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the speakers made observations of a rather philosophical kind highlighting concerns for the future that were much more existential—or tinged with pathos, depending on one’s attitude— than was typical at the time even in sustainability-related discussions. Only some of these are in quotation marks indicating they were verbatim, but re-reading them just four years later, I note how much the discursive space of environmental politics has changed. Formerly implausible or impolite ideas have since become almost common: the end of civilisation is not inconceivable; we use concepts like nature very consciously; we can collectively make sense of things that are not articulated in words; bio-arts produce data, and more. Both these events were linked to global circuits of activist innovation yet their aesthetic and political qualities drew, in particular, from local and regional (Nordic, Baltic) inspirations, whilst consistently returning the focus on the island and its immediate networks. Both events also linked audiences in Finland to those elsewhere interested in pondering environmental sustainability, whether at cultural venues and events, in books or online, or through forms of protest like artivism (Danko 2018). This activity and the work of those non-artist activists including islanders who assembled knowledge to protest through democratic channels—as described above—proceeded along many pathways. That together they generated the possibility, at least, of new ways of engaging with environmental threats and injustices is my speculation. But I do have records and many memories of occasional approving comments from islanders regarding the artists. Some tensions aside, my sense is they were helpful to the organisers of the two events and vice versa. What strikes me is how all those who worked to keep the island undeveloped were sensitive to the myriad features that made the island as a whole so precious. This was a contrast with the city’s plans and the mass of data surrounding them. Here Vartiosaari emerged repeatedly as a landscape that was more than the sum of its separately surveyed parts. As a meaningful place on its own evolving trajectory, it was irreducible to

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abstractions and objectifications, more than data underpinned by detached science. It seems that the authorities agreed, at least partly. In their letter objecting to the city in 2016, local activists simply paraphrased the city’s own evidence: ‘The greatest value of Vartiosaari is the ensemble of its natural, cultural and landscape values’. They noted further that this cannot be made apparent or visible in the additive (‘summamenetelmä’) methodology used to establish Helsinki’s nature protection measures (Vartiosaari Seura ry 2016, my translation).

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Conclusions: Knowledge and Environmental Justice

The green space controversy and the artistic creativity around it that I observed were (and continue to be) many things, but certainly, it was a site for rethinking science as part of environmentalism. Science and art were not opposing but mutually engaging practices. The case also had features associated with the struggles of more vulnerable social groups: mobilising expertise as well as meaning and emotion to claim a right to familiar surroundings, and demanding respect for locally relevant concerns and meaningful knowledge. The Vartiosaari case also drew from protest repertoires with carnivalesque tactics of a kind that have flourished over decades (if not centuries) as people have come together to defend their ways of life and livelihoods (Graeber 2007). The art pursued in Vartiosaari also linked up, through individuals, their art and their writing, to newly dynamic creativity in public institutions. It could, in hindsight, even be linked to moves to decolonise the politics of doing good through artistic critique such as Sami (and other minorities’) culture jamming (Junka-Aikio 2018), and so challenge definitions of success. As regards science, Stengers’ bold analysis of a world on a frightening trajectory, substantially shaped, as she argues, by mistaken as well as barbarous views and practices of science, offers eloquent and helpful coordinates for navigating the trickiness of environmentalism today. She

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advocates reclaiming science from those who would bind its progress to industrial innovation (Stengers 2018:124), and this way ‘civilising modern practices’, to quote the subtitle of her concluding chapter. This requires appreciating a point she develops in relation to the inappropriate extension of laboratory science into the world beyond it: ‘no one should be authorised to define generally ‘what really matters’’ (Stengers 2018:79, original italics). Closing down debate and refusing to hear local concerns, is indeed familiar from environmental justice discourses, where contestation is always both place-based yet invariably connected to other places, and where it always involves both techno-scientific (or technical) and affective knowledge. In an important sense, this is about relative power. But power works in complicated ways so that expertise (of many kinds) always turns out to be both necessary and insufficient (Jasanoff 2015), and always involves reason and affect, not least the affective plea to be reasonable. No wonder calculations and abstractions were invoked in Vartiosaari’s planning in abundance. Some gained traction while others did not, as the city’s main imperatives—related to economic growth—were given attention in the decision making. It was the wider, deeper and scarier implications of run-of-the-mill habitat destruction that inspired the art, the island’s lushness further sustaining such interest and rewarding empirical attention to what was there for artists to build upon. I highlighted how connections were constantly being made, both deliberately and inadvertently, between the right-here-and-now and the far-away. Much as the literature notes how environmental justice advocates succeeded in ‘bringing attention to the environmental conditions in which people are immersed in their everyday lives’ (Schlosberg 2013:39), artscience-activism now brings attention to how vastly different scales are implicated in environmental damage. The examples at the festivals, from art about plastic to commercial public space, drew attention to global circuits of materials and ideas that will impact life right here even as their sources and future trajectories are beyond local control.

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I am suggesting that in defending the places they live in, like Vartiosaari, people are also bringing the world out there to the world right here. The artworks and the discussions around them made connections between the cherished site they were concerned with and everybody’s shared planetary backyard, whether or not we capture that idea with the Anthropocene term. Put another way, the environmental art at Vartiosaari has engaged people’s active attention by bringing the unseen and the distant, often also the scary, to the island. This contrasts with how detached data aims to represent reality to a passive but also deficiently informed audience. The capacity of art to make present and not just represent also helped provoke speculation about what is not known (but what might be relevant), a point much discussed by those involved. A prolific Finnish writer in the area, Laura Beloff, for instance, has written about art creating both a concrete experience and speculation about what might be, what can be inferred as being elsewhere or in the future. Artworks themselves ‘have a material presence, which can be sensed and observed by the audience’ (Beloff et al. 2013: 44). This allows newly forming relations between nature, humans and technology to be experienced as concrete elements of ordinary everyday life. Further, ‘in art which includes the use of living and organic materials, the presence effects have taken on a prominent role through the physical and material presence of the actual living artworks’ (Beloff et al. 2013: 46). Similarly, Minna Santaoja, drawing on John Dewey, notes the relative freedom of art to ‘imagine, create and dwell in other possible worlds’ (Santaoja 2016: 203) and adds the important point that meaning is not simply transferred from an artist to an audience. Their relationship is active and open. And it allows art and science, like artists and scientists, to maintain their own identities. Santaoja adds that in forging new links between art and science, and between here and far away, now and in distant pasts and futures, this style of exploring the world is not so much about ‘fear and moralising (‘look what you have done!’), but about imagining alternative futures (‘look what you can do!’)’ (Santaoja 2016: 206).

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All the activists involved, the artists and the residents and their socioeconomically lucky neighbours and friends, spent vast energies on Vartiosaari. Sometimes they defended their assets and privileges, sometimes they were drawn into activism without really knowing why, as environmentalists often are. I have argued that in the process they have reworked the cognitive tools for pursuing environmentalism and challenged damaging but obdurate epistemological commitments. This is hard work, subject to ridicule and not always the most rewarding fight to pick. It is thus important not to banalise it by dismissing it in either of the two ways I have mentioned: on the grounds that the victims of the injustice are not sufficiently vulnerable, or on grounds that they fail to choose between science or art. Since beginning work on this text, the involvement of groups of artists-activists with institutions like museums, galleries and universities (Røstvik 2019) appears only to have intensified, in Finland and beyond. The impacts of these engagements can only be guessed at now. My (hopeful) observation is that the last decade’s mobilisations around planning in Helsinki, and particularly—but not exclusively—in its green spaces, are influencing the way the good city is now imagined and presented, a trend given new impetus by the Covid-19 pandemic (Anguelovski et al. 2020). As art-inflected activism shifts local discourses and understandings of what science can do, it also introduces the idea, familiar from environmental justice discourse, that environmental contestation hinges utterly on what is deemed worth attending to and that science and technology are fundamentally social. This was perhaps where art could be said to have had some instrumental value, in how Helsinkibased environmentalism appears to be mixing people, science and even art with increasing ease. At a more general level, I hope to have shown what might be lost if researchers, like political antagonists, too easily dismiss or belittle the environmental concerns of those with privilege or wealth, or simply assume they automatically align with the state or elites. I propose instead, confronting binary thinking and recognising ‘both-and’ as well as ‘either-or’ in analysis.

E. Berglund

Certainly the wealthy, in a lucky, green city like Helsinki, by definition live unsustainable lives. Yet sometimes we, the wealthy, can and do challenge intellectually flimsy and politically destabilising knowledge practises, and help make space for other ways of learning and for other possible environmentalism.

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161 Höhler S (2015) Spaceship earth in the environmental age, 1960–1990. Routledge, London & New York Hyötyläinen M, Haila A (2018) Entrepreneurial public real estate policy: the case of Eiranranta, Helsinki. Geoforum 89:137–144 Ingold T (2000) Globes and Spheres: the topology of environmentalism. In: Milton K (ed) The Perception of the environment and in Environmentalism: the view from Anthropology (1993). Routledge, London & New York Jamison A (2001) The making of green knowledge environmental politics and cultural transformation. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge Jasanoff S (2015) Future Imperfect: science, technology, and the imaginations of modernity. Jasanoff, Sheila & Sang-Hyun Kim (2015) Dreamscapes of Modernity: Sociotechnical imaginaries and the fabrication of power. Chicago University Press, Chicago, pp 1–33 Junka-Aikio L (2018) Indigenous culture jamming: suohpanterror and the articulation of sami political community. J Aesthetics Culture 10(4):1379849 Latour B, transl. C Porter, (2018) Down to earth: politics in the new climatic regime. Polity Press, Cambridge Latour B (1987) Science in action. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts Lehtinen A (2006) ‘Green waves’ and globalization: a nordic view on environmental justice. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift-Norw J Geogr 60(1):46–56 Leppänen M, Pajunen A (2019) Suomalainen metsäkylpy. Gummerus, Helsinki McNeill Douglas R (2020) The ‘glass ceiling’ of the environmental state and the social denial of mortality. Environ Politics 29(1):58–75 Miettinen A (n.d.) Polkukyltit/The Path Signs artwork on Vartiosaari island in Helsinki since 2012. https:// www.anumiettinen.com/artist/?p=1632 Accessed Dec 2020 Niemelä J (2018) Kestävän kehityksen kaupunkipolitiikka in pp 64–67. https://www.hel.fi/static/helsinki/ julkaisut/kaupunkien-aikakausi-2018.pdf Nordic Environmental Art (2017) Symposium website http://www.nordicenviroart.org/exhibition-2/. Accessed Dec 2020 Ottinger G, Cohen B (eds) (2011) Technoscience and environmental justice: expert cultures in a grassroots movement. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA Pandian A (2019) A possible anthropology: methods for uneasy times. Duke University Press, Durham Parviainen T (2019) Matkustimme Vartiosaaren jääkarusellilla 23.2! URL: https://www.vartiosaari.fi/uudet_ sivut/uncategorized/matkusta-vartiosaareenjaakarusellilla-23-2/. Accessed Dec 2020 Peet R, Robbins P, Watts M (2011) Global nature. In Peet, Robbins, Watts (eds) Global political ecology. Routledge, London Pepper D (1996) Modern environmentalism: an introduction. Psychology Press Pixelache (2014b) Pixelache Festival 2014b. https://www. pixelache.ac/festivals/festival-2014). Accessed Dec 2020

162 Porter TM (1995) Trust in numbers: the pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton University Press, Princeton Plüschke-Altof B, Sooväli-Sepping H (in this volume). Contested urban green spaces and the question of environmental justice. Examples from Northern Europe. In: Plüschke-Altof B, Sooväli-Sepping H (eds) Whose Green City? Contested Urban Green Spaces and Environmental Justice in Northern Europe. Examples from Northern Europe. Springer Nature Switzerland AG, Cham Røstvik CM (2019) Visual narratives: a history of Art at CERN. Leonardo 52(1):30–36 Sachs W (1999) Planet dialectics: essays on ecology, equity, and the end of development. Zed Books, London Santaoja M (2016) Imaginaries of hope. In: Santaoja M, Suonpää J / Subzero Collective (eds). Interventions: visualizing environmental change. Oulanka Research Station, Oulu Santaoja M, J Suonpää/Subzero Collective (2016) (eds) Interventions: visualizing environmental change. Oulanka Research Station, Oulu Save Vartiosaari (2015) Flash mob video. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=JO3I569qBF4. Accessed Nov 2020 Schlosberg D (2013) Theorising environmental justice: the expanding sphere of a discourse. Environ Politics 22(1):37–55 Stengers I (2018) Another science is possible: a manifesto for slow science. Polity, Cambridge Syväilo E (2014) Eräs Vartiosaari, Diplomityö (Master’s thesis), Oulun yliopiston Arkkitehtuurin tiedekunta

E. Berglund Sze J, London JK (2008) Environmental justice at the crossroads. Sociol Compass 2(4):1331–1354 Temper L, Del Bene D (2016) Transforming knowledge creation for environmental and epistemic justice. Curr Opin Environ Sustain 20:41–49 Tsing AL, Bubandt N, Gan E, Swanson HA (eds) (2017) Arts of living on a damaged planet: ghosts and monsters of the Anthropocene. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis Vartiosaari.munstadi.fi (n.d.) https://vartiosaari.munstadi. fi/saaren-nahtavyydet/. Accessed Dec 2020 Villistadi.fi (n.d.) http://www.villistadi.fi/places/ vartiosaari. Accessed June 2021 Wells P, Touboulic A (2017) Rich and famous lifestyles are damaging the environment in untold ways. The Conversation online, January 23, 2017, https:// theconversation.com/rich-and-famous-lifestyles-aredamaging-the-environment-in-untold-ways-71641 White DF, Rudy AP, Gareau BJ (2016) Environments, Natures and Social Theory. Palgrave, London & New York Yamada S (2020) Imaginative ecologies and the possibilities of anthropology/More-Than-Human Vol.6 An Interview with Anand Pandian (Interviewer: Shoko Yamada), Ekrits online https://ekrits.jp/en/2020/11/ 3922/. Accessed Dec 2020 Yearley S (1993) Standing in for Nature. In: Milton K (ed) Environmentalism: the view from Anthropology, 1993 Yusoff K (2018) A billion black anthropocenes or none. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

Contingent Urban Nature and Interactional Justice: The Evolving Coastal Spaces of the City of Tallinn Tarmo Pikner

1

Introduction

Urban greenery can be considered an extended sphere that brings the city and its inhabitants together through fringes, water bodies and diverse non-human entities. The term green often becomes associated with entities related to nature and open access, although in reality the picture can be more complex. Coastal spaces are part of everyday living environments and development initiatives in many cities by providing historic context, economic linkages and recreational means. Diverse disturbances and related ecologies can become part of the wastelands associated with coastal spaces by generating potentials and tensions in urban change. The post-socialist context vividly brings to the fore the tensions between valuable nature and unintentional designs, which are affected by disturbance-based ecologies. This chapter focuses on the intersections between urbanity, unfolding nature and disturbances in relation to coastal spaces, which are affected by post-socialist transformations. It unfolds how recent urban transformations relate to (dis)continuities of socialist legacies in coastal spaces. The study focuses on two questions: a. what kinds of environments and qualities of

T. Pikner (&) School of Humanities, Centre for Landscape and Culture, Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia e-mail: [email protected]

nature are formulated and made public in planning and interpreting urban coastal spaces? b. how have (post)socialist disturbances and interim usages become associated with transformations of urban green spaces? While working with these questions in the framework of environmental justice, the need for further elaboration of the environmental justice approach in the context of transforming postsocialist cities becomes apparent. While the existing framework (Kronenberg et al. 2020; Haase et al. 2019) integrates the interactional dimension on environmental justice, it does not sufficiently recognise contingent relations between humans, non-humans and surrounding environments in the negotiation of interactional justice. To outline the potentials of further acknowledging more-than-human agencies in environmental justice approaches, this chapter brings together the concepts of interactional/ recognition justice (Kronenberg et al. 2020; Haase et al. 2019) and urban nature (Angelo 2019; Gandy 2013), and this is done on the case of transforming post-socialist spaces. One important analytical aspect is to look at the intersections between (dis)continuities of socialist spaces and related environmental concerns (Müller 2019; Jechliča and Jacobsson 2021) as well as disturbance-based ecologies (Tsing 2015) in contributing to the contested formations of urban nature. This integrated approach contributes to understanding thus far less studied aspects of environmental justice in the post-socialist context.

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 B. Plüschke-Altof and H. Sooväli-Sepping (eds.), Whose Green City?, Sustainable Development Goals Series, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04636-0_9

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Methodological Remarks

The theoretical framework is elaborated together with two empirical examples of coastal areas in the city of Tallinn (Estonia)—Kalarand and Paljassaare. These two different examples, one located in the city centre and the other in an urban fringe, make it possible to discuss the complex role of post-soviet legacies and of interim phases in transforming coastal green areas. The empirical material is heterogeneous, integrating expert interviews (n = 7 in 2012 and 2017 with case-related architects, municipal specialists and members of an NGO, who are quoted anonymously in this chapter) and the published stories of active people (2011–2020) involved in the city’s waterfront processes, analysis of selected planning imaginaries and the author’s ethnographic observations of the two coastal examples. Since 2010, I have often visited and followed the changes in these two coastal spaces in Tallinn. The ethnographic experiences and descriptions make it possible to use situated knowledge and opening accounts ‘to reinstate the silences and gaps as ways of engaging with the field’ (Crang 2003: 143), which becomes part of unfolding new associations and meanings in interpretations of urban dynamics. This engagement with the thematic field allows to bring together situated encounters and related stories about change on Tallinn’s coastal zone over a decade. The selection of interviewees and situated narratives derived from the two examples or cases involved diverse public values, interim usages and disturbance-based potentials in post-socialist change along Tallinn’s coastal spaces. The scope of this empirical material allows to connect the empirical examples with wider phenomena of urban nature and environmental justice in urban change and elaborate thematic approaches to learning from the cases (Flybjerg 2006).

3

Formations of Urban Nature and Extended Interactional Justice: Theoretical Discussion

Urban environmental justice or the right to access environments in a city brings up diverse meanings, experiences and value politics related to nature and the ‘green’ aspects of urbanity. This link between (environmental) justice and the framing of nature qualities requires further attention in analysing contested imaginaries and qualities of nature in the context of urbanisation. The environmental justice paradigm merged through the senses of collective injustice, which bridged environment, labour, recreation and social justice for mobilising diverse resources and structures in public movements (Taylor 2000). According to this perspective, environmental justice mainly refers to hazards, but there is a challenge to analyse disturbances and contributions associated with intersections between dynamic environments and changes of urbanity. Agyeman and Evans (2004) argue that the perspective of environmental justice can indicate gaps and potential in advancing ‘just sustainability’ across development policies. The framework of environmental justice allows to examine contested urban green spaces through three dimensions: distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional/recognition justice (Kabisch and Haase 2014; Kronenberg et al. 2020; Low 2013). These dimensions share overlapping characteristics largely based on idealised forms of participation. Interactional justice is defined as follows: ‘recognising the needs, values and preferences of all stakeholders in a safe, fair, and non-discriminatory environment’ (Kronenberg et al. 2020). The environmental justice approach analyses urban green spaces mainly through human-centred qualities of availability, accessibility and attractiveness (Kronenberg et al. 2020). Thus more-than-human co-productions between nature, the city and

Contingent Urban Nature and Interactional Justice …

urbanity have not been taken into account in recent discussions about environmental justice in the context of the post-socialist city (e.g. Kronenberg et al. 2020; Haase et al. 2019). The challenge is to understand the process of giving voice and values to particular characteristics of nature in emerging urban green spaces. This challenge leads to discussions on urban nature and political ecologies in the urbanisation process. There is potential to link the dynamics of environmental justice closer to the contextual urbanisation process that redraws binaries as nature-city, urban–rural, formal-informal and modify meanings of urban nature going beyond the central districts of the city (Angelo 2017; Pikner et al. 2020). This elaborated approach makes it possible to follow entanglements between the city, nature and socio-politically contested spaces over a longer time frame and through dynamic spatiality, which bring together (and also splinter) people and non-human entities in urban fringes. Therefore, the dimensions of environmental justice can become embedded within situated knowledge and political interventions that modify embodied access and engagements with nature forming urban green spaces. Matthew Gandy (2010: 179) has pointed out that nature’s etymological roots can be traced to the Latin word natura, meaning not only birth and nature but also the intrinsic qualities or characteristics of a person or thing. Often nature appears in judgements as an independent state out there threatened by invasion or experienced through holiday trips. It is possible to approach nature as an enacted co-production between multiple entities and their characters (Hinchliffe 2007). This means that there is not a set amount of nature which is progressively eroded as society changes and cities transform but nature is continuously co-produced with characteristics of urbanity. According to Doreen Massey (2005), the multiplicity of spaces (and of the qualities of urban nature) appears within articulated stories, durations and trajectories of change. Besides articulated stories, it is important to recognise spaces which contribute to the emergence of stories so far. This means that novel ‘spaces of

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representation’ (Lefebvre 1991) can appear with suspended and interim functions in the urban fringes making it possible for particular qualities of nature to be made public. The shift from urban nature to urban green space can be problematized and understood through the notion of greening. This notion has diverse political and ideological connotations from ambitious sustainability goals to problematic green washing. Angelo (2019: 647) argues that greening is not an ideological reaction to problems with urbanism, but a ‘social practice driven by a new social imaginary of nature as an indirect moral good that can be mobilised by a range of actors as a vehicle for very different normative visions of society’. It means that articulated and contested urban green spaces ultimately indicate relations between valuable nature and human practice becoming mobilised through visions and trajectories of change. Urbanisation processes and politics of greening are entangled with coastal and marine areas (Adams 2017). Therefore, there is a need for approaches to understand intersections between urban green (terrestrial) and blue (marine) spaces, which have become part of experienced and enacted urban spatialities. Previous research has already shown that urban greening can enact diverse environments, for example, from modelbased eco-cities and the reconstruction of wastelands to the common practises of community gardening (Caprotti et al. 2015; Gandy 2013; Pikner et al. 2020). Generating links between cities and nature have taken the form of naturebased solutions as imaginaries and actions, which are inspired by, supported by or copied from nature, and therefore encapsulate green and blue infrastructure and biomimicry towards ecologically sensitive urban development (Scott and Lennon 2016). Green spaces in the city coexist with diverse social assemblages, which design, maintain or emotionally engage with these spaces. These dynamic assemblages become more visible and establish new allies as publics during the stages of (projected) change, revealing different values and calculated rationalities bound to the city’s environments. Diverse social groups can contribute to

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making the valuable qualities of nature visible and advocating for endangered ecologies and spaces of coexistence caused by extending the urbanised infrastructure. Therefore, it is important to understand the socio-ecological settings of endangerment (Choy 2011; see also Gandy 2019), which influence the sensibilities and politics of environmental justice in the sense of what needs to be preserved and maintained. This means that spaces of conservation in the city can be seen through achievements, which are made public and try to limit threatening aspects via established boundaries and regulations. The desirable characteristics of urban green spaces shift in time and through diverse influences, where the lay ways of knowing combined with expert knowledge, and diverse practises mingle with socio-political contexts (cf Berglund in this volume). This also indicates that there is a need to discuss the argument that generally in post-socialist cities the ‘slowly growing importance of environmental justice is probably related to the impulses from elsewhere as an impact of EU and Western experiences, funding programs and international projects’ (Kronenberg et al. 2020). This partly speculative notion articulates one rather directional sense of learning from Western models and is salient to situated capacities, seductions of infrastructural revitalisation and evolving spatial settings through disturbances, which open or close some trajectories of urban change. According to Jehlička and Jacobsson (2021), there exists a wider tendency of presenting Eastern Europe’s environmentalism as ‘incomplete and in a perpetual state of catching up with its Western counterpart’. Situated knowledge and practises in urban change thus need to be considered without rendering the spatial multiplicity of transformations as homogeneous in linear time (Massey 2005). The post-socialist city should be seen as a deterritorialised concept, which makes it possible to analyse particular layers and continuities in urban transformations (Tuvikene 2016). Continuities and discontinuities of Soviet legacies raise an interesting issue about disturbances in the surrounding environments. Studies of postsocialism have over-privileged the rupture of the

T. Pikner

political-economic regime, and therefore alternative and longue durée approaches are needed, making it possible to analyse more nuanced (dis)continuities (Müller 2019). The CentralEastern European context contributes to diverse pro-environmental behaviours, which do not always frame their claims in terms of the master frame of sustainable development (Jehlička and Jacobsson 2021). Instead of distinctive ruptures of regimes and of related landscapes, there is a challenge to observe and understand ‘disturbance-based ecologies in which many species live together without either harmony or conquest’ (Tsing 2015: 5). This perspective allows us to see coastal spaces in the dynamics of unintentional design bypassing centralised human control and problematising the intentionality of spatial planning. In her book, Tsing (2015) reveals the ways in which matsutake mushroom-picking might open associations between disturbed ecologies, transnational cultural practises and capitalist value production. According to Tsing (2015), anthropocentrism hinders our attention to patchy lived spaces, multiple temporalities and shifting assemblages between human and non-humans. Similarly, Reinert (2016) argues for the need for ‘new conceptual vocabularies of nonhuman spaces to supplement (or supplant) the earth-locked perspectival solidity of “land-scape”’ (Reinert 2016: 50). I propose that disturbances related to Soviet era enclosed seashores and their possible futures after the collapse of the regime should take into account the complex entanglements bound to capitalist systems and situated ecologies. Therefore, I find it useful to approach relations between coastal (post)socialist disturbances and multiple constructions of valuable urban nature.

4

Wider Trajectories of Change: The Case of Tallinn’s Waterfront

The waterfront in Tallinn is an intensive coastal space, which brings together deep historical layers, post-socialist transformations and multiple stories of lived spaces. The coastal areas were highly guarded by Soviet border guards, but

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there existed more accessible spaces for leisure activities and unmapped-closed settlements in this militarised zone (Malkova 2019; Printsmann and Pikner 2019; Sepp 2011). The collapse of the militarised border regime and several industrial complexes left voids behind, which quickly became territorialised through the privatisation of land and fragmentary planning initiatives. Therefore, the disturbances bound to the (post)Soviet period generate particular characteristics of the coastal green spaces in Tallinn. In cities in Western Europe, the processes that have led both to the decline and the renaissance of urban waterfronts have been primarily economic (Feldman 2000), and there is evidence that cities used to apply the borrowed policy models in waterfront developments through excluding the opinions of the local inhabitants (Jauhiainen 1996). In Tallinn, the waterfront was administratively cut off from the rest of the city, and industrial development in these areas was centrally planned by following the demands of state agencies, state-owned enterprises and the Soviet military (Feldman 2000). In addition to enclosed zones, parts of Tallinn’s waterfront were made open due to establishing infrastructure (e.g. City Hall, Pirita Road and the yacht club) to accommodate the sailing regatta of the Moscow Olympics in 1980 (see Bruns 2007). Consequently, the Soviet political-economic regime inscribed remarkable traces and trajectories along the waterfronts of Tallinn, and the change of regime in 1991 opened the coastal spaces to extreme capitalist forces. This rapid transformation phase in Estonia caused perceived injustices, which were mainly related to social inequalities, human rights and property rights, but not to the inequality of environmental conditions (Raudsepp et al. 2009). Planning became dictated by investment pressures, and the city government and the municipality had little capacity to utilise economic restructuring to their public benefit (Feldman 2000). The lack of strategic spatial planning initiatives towards a coherent and accessible urban space in Tallinn can be seen partly as the afterlife of weak capacities across scales of governance during a period of extremely fast restructuring.

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The extent of land privatisation can be seen as one result of these dynamics, which determined the fate of publicly owned land and public functions near the waterfront. Altogether, the municipality of Tallinn owns about 30%, the state about 30% and private owners about 40% of the city’s territory. However, concerning these numbers, the municipal and state-owned land includes streets and roads, public parks, educational facilities, military defence areas, etc. Therefore, there is very little left for planning new public functions on land owned by the city or state. Tallinn City has about 46 kms of shoreline where 16 larger or smaller harbour sites are located, and many of these (former) harbour areas are privatised. In the regional context, Tallinn and the growth of its new residential districts has covered former agricultural and forested lands and areas owned by gardening cooperatives, but also formerly militarised coastal terrains (Peterson 2010; Tammaru et al. 2009). The post-socialist transformations indicate that green infrastructure was not a priority and some qualities were lost because of a lack of maintenance and care during the period of rapid restructuring in the 1990s (Haase et al. 2019). However, new potential and suspension phases for urban green spaces also emerged, and these will be analysed through two examples of coastal areas in Tallinn. These examples or cases differ in terms of location, social density, urbanisation forces and natural characteristics (see Fig. 1). Such coastal areas near the city centre and also on the urban fringe allow to discuss the wider spectrum of the ‘environment’ in the contested dynamics of environmental justice bound to the urban green spaces in Tallinn. The land ownership trajectories in these two cases indicate differences dependent on functions in the Soviet era. The near-shore land of Paljassaare mostly belonged to the Soviet army and after Estonia regained its independence, and this land was delivered as state defence land to the Estonian state. Therefore, privatisation of this area was limited. In the Kalarand Area, there was a fish factory (Kalakombinaat) in the Soviet era, which was privatised in the 1990s and the land sold to a private real-estate developer.

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Fig. 1 Allocation of studied coastal terrains, Kalarand and Paljassaare, in Tallinn urban area

Taking into account these intensified dynamics, the coastal spaces of Tallinn can be approached as ‘contact zones where the overdetermination of circulations, events, conditions, technologies, and flows of power literally take place’ (Stewart 2007: 3). This contested contact zone co-produced diverse imaginings, splinters and interventions forming green qualities of urban spaces. For example, the European Capital of Culture in Tallinn in 2011 generated spatial metaphors and temporary activitymobility spaces which opened some potential waterfront spaces and attracted public concern (Pikner 2011). The acceleration of mobility-based circulations through the central waterfront areas was pushed by new residential districts, real estate of (cultural) services and additional passenger-cargo flows travelling through the Tallinn Old City Harbour terminals. These terminals are located just next to the medieval old town and a 5-min

walk from the Kalarand waterfront. During the liberalisation of the Soviet regime under Khrushchev, some 15,000 tourists visited the city, and by comparison about 10 million passengers travelled through the Old City Harbour in 2017 (Pikner 2019). Thus, parts of the waterfront’s contact zone become very dense causing traffic jams, heated debates about sustainable futures and the loss of green spaces through the prioritisation of car users and cargo transport through the city centre. For example, Pehk (2017: 98) describes the collaborative initiative to stop ‘the ghost named Reidi road’, which was built between the waterfront and a park in the city centre, and this road became a symbol of the ignorance and over-politicisation of living environments. Despite critical voices from the general public, this (modernist) highspeed infrastructure plan could establish supporting allies, not least by utilising EU support programmes. These processes at Tallinn’s

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waterfront indicate the rise of environmental justice concerns. It also makes clear that the role of Western models and international projects require further research and discussion. The waterfront terrains form one characteristic of the urban green spaces in Tallinn. A public survey (Tuhkanen et al. 2018, see also Sepp and Lõhmus 2020) comparing 2009 and 2017 indicates that citizen satisfaction (80%) with parks and green areas within a distance of 300m was stable, and problems are associated with some districts (e.g. city centre, Lasnamäe). This indicates that the distributional justice in regard to green areas is (still) perceived to be rather good in Tallinn, but tensions emerge on the basis of interactional/recognition justice and procedural justice. According to this survey, the main motivation for visiting green areas in Tallinn is spending time with people or pets, and improving personal fitness through breathing fresh air, being at peace and walking in the natural environment. This means that engagements with nature and dynamics of environmental justice bound to urban coastal spaces can differ across districts and locations. The waterfront at Kalarand brings together contested values and plans in the context of privatised land in the city centre. Paljassaare peninsula presents processes along coastal green spaces in the city’s fringe, which has received less attention in discussions and studies so far. Both waterfront areas have experienced a suspension phase in the postsocialist transformation that delayed some development initiatives. On the basis of the waterfront dynamics in Tallinn’s city centre, Unt et al. (2014: 284) argue optimistically that ‘derelict sites are the potential spaces where spatial disorder can lead to new spatial qualities’. Kiivet (2017) articulated the possibility to choose future trajectories of waterfront change and also criticised the weakness of the city strategic planning, leading to the fragmentary condition of wastelands and commercialised areas. The integrity of the urban coastal space is sought through the envisioned and partly realised (see the Kalarand case) promenade connecting splintered sites through mobility options.

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The disturbances caused by militarised borders, post-socialist phases of suspension and contested capitalist real-estate plans based on two decades of land privatisation all certainly indicate the dimension of temporality affecting coastal green spaces in Tallinn. Tensions emerge within a process where spatial detailed planning no longer matches the context because the surrounding society and its socio-ecological conditions change over time. According to architect and active spokesperson of contested waterfront plans, Toomas Paaver (see Pae 2017), this problem stems from long-term and vague building rights and also unclear and unrelated processing procedures, which trap privatised plots into outdated rationalities. In addition to social change, the environmental conditions of urbanisation dynamics also shift. Some coastal areas of Tallinn (including the Kalarand and Paljassaare areas) are associated with flood risk at the state level1 taking a 10to 1000-year perspective (see Estonian Ministry of Environment 2017). A significant part of the Paljassaare Peninsula has been modelled for flooding risk already for the 10-year perspective. The allocation of the peninsula as a flood risk area and the presence of the city’s sewage water treatment plant have triggered future directed speculations. Paljassaare has become a field of experimentation, where possible relations between humans and their environs are projected in light of the climate change crisis (Dawood et al. 2020). The narrow shoreline at Kalarand is mapped as becoming a risk zone within a decade, while taking a 100-year perspective for a slightly wider coastal area and almost the entire terrain at Kalarand has been modelled under flood risk within a millennium. The perspective of a millennium brings up the particular dimension of temporality, which contrasts with the accelerated circuits of real estate often operating with perspectives of 50 years. Maps of flood risk and flooding areas. Report by Estonian Ministry of Environment (2019). https://www. envir.ee/sites/default/files/Vesi/uleujutused/kaardid/uleuju tusohupiirkonna_ja_uleujutusega_seotud_riskipiirkonna_ kaardid_aruanne1.pdf. Accessed 17 September 2020.

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Analysis

Kalarand: Making the Natural Beach Public in the Middle of Contested Waterfront Kalarand (meaning fish-beach in Estonian) is a waterfront area located in the Kalamaja District (in northern Tallinn) with close proximity to the Old Town and the passenger harbour terminals. The name and historic layers indicate that this area has been part of fishing activities for centuries. Century-old photographs show small sailing boats anchored on the stony shore alongside simple wooden houses. The splintering of the coastal terrain from the urban fabric started already at the beginning of the twentieth century because the new city vision did not prioritise the waterfront, and industrial and cargo functions were allocated to these areas (Bruns 1993). The enclosed fish factory with harbour functioned in Kalarand during the Soviet era and the cargo railway corridor ran between the city centre and the waterfront. The land at Kalarand became privatised in the 1990s during the rapid transformations when the capacities of state and municipal institutions were too weak to use restructuring for public means (see Feldman 2000). However, in regard to privatisation, access to waterfronts in Estonia is regulated by the planning law and the right to roam and so a building restriction zone exists. Kalarand became surrounded by two large state/municipally owned complexes on the shore (Patarei Sea Fortress/Prison and City Hall), which are both remarkable pieces of architectural heritage.2 These complexes lost their active 2 Linnahall (City Hall)—an impressive building established as a waterfront opener and cultural centre for the 1980 Moscow Olympic regatta. This building accommodated a concert hall, skating arena, and diverse cultural and political events until the 2000s. After that several regeneration attempts have failed, but in 2020 Tallinn’s municipality signed a deal with Tallink to develop the City Hall as an international conference centre. accommodating an international ferry harbour/terminal. The Patarei Sea Fortress, built in the nineteenth century as a military garrison, operated as a prison through the Soviet era and later until the end of the 1990s. Afterwards, the dark-difficult heritage of the complex was publicly

social functions and started to fall apart because of limited maintenance. These dynamics can be seen as an expression of the tensions and ambiguities in dealing with socialist-era built legacies (Martinez 2018). The Kalamaja neighbourhood was waiting for its awakening and accelerated change. This condition generated a suspension phase for the Kalarand coastal space, where interim public uses were possible alongside the simultaneous activities of the owner preparing real-estate plans and giving the municipality time to build connecting infrastructure. Unt et al. (2014) consider Kalarand as a piece of urban wilderness that could supplement the regulated public space, and a rich playground of opportunities. They argue that the suspension phase in the waterfront district brings together a perceived sublimity of unregulated spaces inspiring people and, on the other hand, the haunting of the Soviet past associated with the impression of derelict landscapes. The wilderness becomes articulated mainly through the means of unregulated and informal spaces attracting diverse spontaneous and recreational activities. However, I would argue that beside the spontaneous happenings these suspended (and temporary) spaces should be considered as particular achievements realised through practises of care and repair, which influenced the framing of characteristics of urban coastal spaces and access to the waterfront. Informal interventions coexisted with powerful actors in planning and land ownership dynamics. The complex and contested planning process of Kalarand started in 2003. According to Lippus (2012), procedural and communicative issues related to the planning were significantly influenced by blurring the roles and responsibilities of actors because the municipality outsourced the generation and public consultations for the detailed plan to a private company. The first plans (in 2007) proposed a district of apartments enclosing the sea views with a private harbour. Due to high public attention and contra-arguments the municipality exhibited and spaces were made available for cultural activities. However, in 2020, the state sold the complex to a private entrepreneur with plans to generate a multifunctional centre to be completed in 2027.

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decided to rework the detailed plan and organise an open architecture competition for the Kalarand Area (Lippus 2012). However, the reworking and proceedings for the detailed plan took an additional 8 years, and the Telliskivi neighbourhood association (established in 2009, assembling mainly people from Kalamaja and Pelgulinn Districts) became an important factor in bringing the dimensions of public access and the quality of the living environments to the planning debates. The period during which the reconstruction wave was suspended brought elements of abandonment into the process at Kalarand. The abandonment of the site provided opportunities for the evolution of socio-ecological characteristics and its own context (DeSilvey 2017). The ruined buildings of the fish factory were demolished and the former railway track was transformed into a light-traffic path. This provided additional room for trees to grow and people started slowly discovering a hidden corner of the waterfront. The (winter)-swimmers found the open strip of seashore in the city and used it all year around. Here the (Telliskivi) neighbourhood association of the Kalamaja District played a remarkable role in making the potential visible and publicly contesting the over-sized real-estate plans. In 2010, the wider reconstruction plans for Kalarand became public. Architect Toomas Paaver wanted to preserve the well-functioning part of the un-built waterfront and initiated the informal building of a cloth changing cabin on the shore for his birthday party (see Alver 2018). This initiative continued and was extended in a collaborative framework of architecture installations realised within the programme of Tallinn’s 2011 European Capital of Culture. The programme supported the installation of simple furniture, organised the removal of rubbish and included a few gatherings to emphasise the natural coastline and encourage people to dip their toes in the water and go swimming in the city centre (Viljasaar 2012). The neighbourhood association generated diverse interventions to make the existing qualities, potential and possible endangerments of Kalarand visible to the public. For example, water probes indicated that the water quality was suitable for bathing and

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Fig. 2 Summer day at Kalarand waterfront. The adhesive warning tape marks the proximity of proposed apartment houses to the sea

adhesive warning tape was stretched along the shore indicating the proximity of the proposed apartment houses to the sea (see Fig. 2). Similar initiatives of care, for example, cleaning rubbish and recolouring the furniture at Kalarand, were mobilised every spring as part of a wider collective environmental action (talgud within the initiative of the Let’s Do It! and World Clean-up Day campaigns) with a deep historical association and novel technological platform (see Pikner and Jauhiainen 2014). These bottom-up initiatives generated enough public attention to oppose the enclosure of the Kalarand Apartment District through the plans for private harbours on the site. The regeneration of the former fish-factory area and increase in the number of apartment buildings in the coastal part of the Kalamaja District were bound to the planned street near the waterfront. A significant number of trees were cut in constructing the initial gravel path (as the important trajectory for the Tallinn’s European Capital of Culture programm in 2011) towards this becoming a street corridor running along Kalarand. The realisation of this plan generated modest public protest. According to Kiivet (2017), this tension can be seen as part of a wider conflict between the transport engineering and constructed happiness of infrastructure development versus people focusing on small-scale landscapes. In addition to the contested planning of Kalarand, a seaside vision competition was organised, which projected the following characteristics: network of open spaces

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(including a green network), continuous development of uninterrupted promenade involving temporary and permanent spaces, about 50 new streets leading to the sea and solutions for temporary flooding. The means of intermediate interventions and temporary uses were formulated as follows: ‘to experiment with various practises to enhance or maintain the identity of place, create new destinations, increase property value and generate a positive image’ (Kiivet 2017: 43). The private owner and the city co-organised a public architectural competition to find new solutions for the Kalarand coastal terrain in 2017. This competition was based on the modified detailed plan. All three awarded architectural solutions3 proposed slightly different versions of an apartment district with a publicly accessible waterfront where a smaller boat/yacht harbour would be located on one corner. The winning entry (named ‘Centre-village’) envisioned a rather straight sandy strip of beach and plots of greenery next to car-free streets. The appearance of elements of the public beach in architectural solutions can be seen as an achievement where several proposals from the neighbourhood association were accommodated into the framework of the new plan and the architectural competition. Before the public arhitectural competition, the openness and natural character of Kalarand advocated by the neighbourhood association was opposed by the legacies of the former fish harbour, which feeds imaginaries towards a privatised beach and yacht harbour. The presence of the harbour would have made it possible to bypass the building restriction zone on Estonian coastal areas, which reaches from 50 m (in densely built areas) to 200 m (on islands) (Estonian Parliament 1995). The members of the neighbourhood association generated a simplified scheme showing realistically the dimensions and coastal proximity of the planned new 3

Information about these awarded works from the Kalarand architectural competition (design solutions titled ‘Marmalade’, ‘Sea-home’, ‘Centre-village’) were taken from the Estonian Architecture Museum and personal communications with the architects who won the 1st Prize in October 2020.

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building structures in the Kalarand area. The Estonian Chancellor’s Office of Justice assessed the contested planning procedure and waterfront accessibility by visiting the site in 2015. This assessment argued that the harbour restrictions cannot be extended to the surrounding plots, and clear visualised plans about the Kalarand waterfront were needed in public discussions. It was expressed as follows: ‘The public discussion is only then really fair and open if it is commonly clear, what will be discussed and what will be agreed upon’ (Madise 2015). The argument for an accessible Kalarand was even taken to the courts. Teele Pehk, member of the Telliskivi Association, has dedicated much her personal time and energy advocating for an openly accessible waterfront in the city centre through organising public idea gatherings, coordinating the initiative of a promenade, cleaning rubbish from the site and commenting on the development plans. She considers Kalarand and the waterfront of Tallinn as part of a continuous common shore path (based on the right to roam) and as part of a ‘dormant space that can be filled with human content’ (Pehk 2018: 95). The collaborative realisation of a 2-km beta-promenade connecting Kalarand with previously splintered parts of the shoreline is presented as a positive example. However, the critical attitudes of the neighbourhood association towards the real-estate plans and interpretations of the (partial) fencing of the Kalarand area by the private owner generated remarkable tensions, which ended up in a court case against Pehk. She describes the case as follows: The developer accused me, as an activist of Kalarand, of spreading incorrect information about the area plan. The SLAPP (strategic lawsuit against public participation) lives on in collective consciousness also after the ending of a half-year court case through the initiated agreement of the landowner. (Pehk 2018: 98)

Therefore, the coexistence between temporary unregulated spaces and the institutional legal framework of land ownership rights are important for understanding the dynamics of environmental justice over urban coastal spaces. The poetics and potential of informal interventions

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(see also Unt et al. 2014) caused friction with the formal rights of planning influenced by longterm building rights. Collaborations between actors exist alongside the perceived paradox that the achievements of bottom-up activism and spent energy are also harnessed by the real-estate developers (Kiivet 2017; Alver 2018). There were also initiatives to improve the waterfront design solutions through personal communication between the architects implementing the Kalarand plan in the realisation phase. The idea of a publicly accessible Kalarand was agreed upon, while other proposals remained unrealised, as described in the following quote: The arguing has been a tremendous labour, but slowly we reached agreement that the beach will remain for public use and a harbour does not appear there…But probably the current spirit of place will still transform because we did not succeed in changing the detailed plan so that the apartment buildings would not come so close to the beach. (Toomas Paaver, in Alver 2018: 90).

The discussions surrounding the future of Tallinn’s coast and the Kalarand area include references to Nordic cities like Helsinki and Copenhagen, which were presented as inspiration and also grounding the rationale for lively and publicly accessible waterfront spaces. Even if this reference to Nordic best practice can be critically questioned (see Berglund and Loewen in this volume), it shows that examples of other European cities are actively used to advocate aspects of environmental justice in the context of urban green–blue spaces (see also Kronenberg et al. 2020). However, instead of a linear transition to the West, it seemed more as fora of fragmented revitalisation initiatives and smaller interventions in looking for trajectories of justified change. On the basis of Tallinn’s waterfront dynamics, Unt et al. (2014) argue that ‘the distorted ethics that followed the mimicking of Western ideals are now slowly being abandoned’ (Unt et al. 2014: 227). Their argument is based on the optimistic assumption that Tallinn municipality can learn from some Western mistakes and not allow large shopping malls, securitised blocks and highways on urban waterfronts. The main difference in the planning

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of waterfronts for Tallinn and the Nordic examples is the land ownership structure. The high share of privatised land and the lack of an engaging durable planning vision have led to the dominance of the economic rationale. The land ownership and concerns around land uses in the Kalarand context indicate tendencies noted already 20 years ago, as follows: ‘the legacies of socialism and of the current period of transformations will be manifested in future institutional arrangements and hence in the urban land use change’ (Feldman 2000: 847). The limited capacities of the municipality and ruling business concerns cause us to ask ‘are some ideals considered a disgrace if they cannot be fitted in Excel spreadsheets or as practical indicators of GDP?’ (Kiivet 2017: 44). The unbalanced process of participation generated issues about procedural justice in the planning of urban waterfronts, and arguments for devolving the role of the municipality in the decision-making process were also presented (Kiivet 2017; Lippus 2012).

Paljassaare: From Disturbances to Bird Protection and Valued Green Spaces The peninsula of Paljassaare is located in northern Tallinn, about 4 kms from the city centre. The current landscape of Paljassaare is eclectic, combining a ship repair harbour, industrial complexes, a few apartment buildings, wastelands, a public beach and a bird protection area. The city’s sewage purification plant and a shelter for pets are also located there. A building for film production and DIY-cultural practice are under construction, and additional residential areas connected to a new tram line are also envisioned. This former militarised peninsula has changed significantly. The carpark and bus stops for Paljassaare can become crowded during summer because the sandy beach, self-made grilling sites and walking trails attract people for recreational activities. The unusually large waves near Paljassaare generated by the ferries travelling frequently between Tallinn and Helsinki are enjoyed by children while specialists blame them

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Fig. 3 The raised boardwalk located in the bird protection area of Paljassaare in Tallinn (Photo: Pikner 2020)

for the coastal erosion. Some people go to gather mushrooms on Paljassaare Peninsula (see also Tuhkanen et al. 2018), and the pier offers suitable places for fishermen. People come to visit Paljassaare from different districts of Tallinn, a significant number of visitors come there in all seasons, and the user groups vary slightly between those that frequently visit the conservation area and the nearby recreational area (Veersalu and Sepp 2012). The impact of the increased visitor numbers on the Natura 2000 bird protection area is somewhat mitigated by the addition of a raised boardwalk (see Fig. 3). For centuries, this peninsula was two islands with tall trees, which were cut down to satisfy the growing need for timber among the residents of Tallinn around the eighteenth century. Paljassaare was significantly restructured during the twentieth century—in the 1910s, the former islands were physically tied to the mainland. Material dredged from the seashore to build the ports in Tallinn was then dumped in the shallow straight between Kopli Peninsula and VäikePaljassaare Island. During the Soviet era, the new Paljassaare Peninsula was widened, by dumping construction waste and excavated earth on the site of the current sewage water treatment plant. The rising of the earth’s crust, a post-Ice Age phenomenon in northern Estonia and wave activity also helped in forming the shape of the peninsula today. The era of the Russian Empire located naval fortress constructions on the island, which became part of the current cultural heritage. The

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Soviet period blocked full access to the peninsula as part of a wider guarded border zone enforcing the Iron Curtain. These disturbances added several bunkers, watchtowers and barbed-wire wall structures on the landscape of Paljassaare. Many of these are still visible as ruins today. However, these disturbances also kept human activity on the peninsula rather modest and left nature to evolve. Many bird species created their affinities with the terrain. The current landscape of Paljassaare is characterised by a tension between two forms of rationalities as: ‘…environmentalism that strives to maintain the sites as it is in a state of illusionary wilderness, and commercial development that envisions its transformation into the ideal green city’ (Pasquero 2017: 8). This tension indicates the multiplicities involved in formulating the desirable characteristics of urbanised nature contributing to ecosystems and living environments. And these multiplicities coexist with environmental disturbances and the maintenance of legacies described by the municipal heritage specialist as follows: This enclosure, it is sad for one generation, they don’t know and they don’t see other unrealised changes. Some closeness is good for the maintenance of any heritage because not everyone has a respectful attitude about these things. (Interview with Alo 2016)

The lack of public infrastructure and insecure conditions kept the public away from the peninsula for many years. Bird-watching enthusiasts can be seen as one community of practice that makes the rich ecosystem of migrating birds visible through the activity of mapping, which includes watching and counting birds at particular locations. This passionate activity has indicated distributed flyways, where the peninsula functions as a migration corridor and foraging site for migrating birds. Awareness of these mappings became the main argument for integrating the terrain and its coastal spaces into the panEuropean Natura 2000 protective framework, which was prioritised more compared to the competing plans to establish housing for young families on the peninsula. The multiple spatial boundaries of nature protection became formed through a dynamic process. The establishment of

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a coastal protection area was the initiative of the Bird Club. After successfully having the entrances to the conservation area blocked for cars, the club members and enthusiasts started to clean waste material from the area. This rubbish included refuse from the Soviet navy and also more recent traces of illegal waste dumping. The first management plan for the Paljassaare conservation area (hoiuala) was put together in 2006–2008. However, after a few years, the bird club enthusiasts became more aware of their limits and potential threats to the site. Information boards were erected to announce permitted and prohibited activities on Paljassaare, but in reality policing these restrictions in the interests of nature conservation did not function well. Therefore, they sought to extend the territory of the protected terrain and also make the conservation-regime stricter (interview with a club member and environmental expert Madis 2016). This was submitted for institutional assessment but did not receive support for the extended conservation measures to protect the bird life on Paljassaare Peninsula. Veersalu and Sepp (2012) noted the growing pressures on the peninsula because of the planned residential areas, and they suggested additional infrastructure to mitigate these pressures on the ecological context. The imprints of nature conservation concern and regulations on the landscape of the peninsula generated some tensions in terms of interactional justice in engaging with the coastal area. It is important to notice that in the Paljassaare context, environmental justice combines social interactions (e.g. between people and interest groups) with non-human beings and entities (e.g. relation between humans and birds, and relation between animals). The settings for this extended interactional justice are governed and require constant care as described by the municipal environmental specialist: If the waterbodies overgrow with reeds, then the habitats will also change there. In nature conservation there are several approaches, depending on whether there is a preferred situation or process. In a semi-natural ecosystem, the existing situation is protected. Constant interventions are necessary

175 and Paljassaare is a mosaic. We mow coastal meadows and try to keep them, but the maintenance of water bodies is questionable. (Interview with Peep 2016)

The landscape maintenance interventions described above appeared in the form of fences to keep Scottish Highland cattle and the recent addition of boardwalks on Paljassaare’s coastal terrain. The cattle are moved from their temporary field on the peninsula already in early October and return again in spring. The poster on the fence shows that in some years, cattle and excavators both contribute to the task of preserving the coastal meadows and related ecosystems. However, the territorial borders of the nature conservation area coexist with less visible boundaries related to the value of (nature) life forms. These boundaries are mostly entangled in order to preserve and regulate the relations between the birds and other forms of life. The unleashed running of dogs is considered an extensive threat to the birds nesting on the ground. The formal regulation to keep dogs on a leash does not have much force on the edge of the city. In addition to pets, until the early 2000s, a group of stray dogs lived on the peninsula. Wild boars also liked the Paljassaare environment, and Tallinn municipality decided to protect the birds and urban greenery by giving hunters permission to terminate the pigs. Some plants are clearly labelled as invasive (e.g. Rosa rugosa) and less valuable in the field of municipal environmental management. The period of birdnesting overlaps with the beach swimming period. The nature conservationists are concerned about the (male) nudists who instead of the public beach move to the quieter corners of the shoreline, which are part of the bird protection area. These contested rights to move freely in all seasons around the shore continue quietly because the status of the conservation area provides regulatory suggestions for the public instead of rigid legal rules. Therefore, future plans tend towards raising visitor awareness and limiting paths of movement along the boardwalks. These dynamics indicate that the interactional dimension of environmental justice is negotiated and governed through ‘boundary objects’ (Star

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and Giesemer 1989), which are general enough and also rational to contribute to shared goals in maintaining green–blue areas. These tendencies became visible through boundaries of practice between nature conservation coexisting with formations of cultural heritage on the Paljassaare Peninsula. Bushes as a shared concern in landscape maintenance between nature conservation and culture heritage protection are described by the city’s cultural heritage specialist: …for us the observability of the heritage site is important, that this site would not be covered by bushes and to avoid trees growing on heritage and demolishing its structure. For nature conservation there have never been high trees on the peninsula and in this sense Paljassaare is also for them a historical landscape, which should not be covered by bushes. (Interview with Alo 2016)

In addition to the brushwood, there is also agreement to avoid wall-like doors to heritage sites, which could block any movement of humans and non-humans. Bats often winter in the former military bunkers, and therefore the culture heritage office tries to use trellis and similar structures to allow the bats to move freely and hinder human access to some areas: ‘This kind of general agreement exists across Estonia, one-way doors will not be installed to curb some movements, but humans could not enter the site’ (Interview with Peep 2016). However, people are interested and visit military-related infrastructure (e.g. bunkers), which is derived from the nineteenth-century Russian Empire and from the Soviet era. One problem is the use of metal detectors to find treasures on the former militarised areas, which are now subject to natureculture heritage conservation. Treasure seekers leave open holes behind, which could be dangerous for people practising recreational activities. In recent years, this practice has been criminalised according to legal acts, and therefore the problem has decreased. According to the law, all cultural heritage sites of national importance have the same importance and include protective zones around them. For example, the town hall building or military bunker complex on Paljassaare should be treated and maintained with the same kind of high

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concern. However, in practice, the heritage sites of Paljassaare (allocated partly in the middle of the conservation area) are considered as having secondary importance because there exist in Estonia better preserved historic military structures and similar coastal artillery installations. This means that access and the interactional rights embedded in green–blue areas may depend on expert categorisation of the natural and cultural values. The bird protection area is located next to the water purification plant for Tallinn City. The coastal landscape, with its proximity to the city centre, also mobilised real-estate initiatives on the Paljassaare Peninsula. The industrial harbour currently housing a ship repair is projected to become a lively urban neighbourhood in the next 20 years. It is important to notice here the spatial plans for artificial islands, which merge together with the real-estate plans. The artificial island for gambling casinos very close to Paljassaare has been marked on a preliminary version of the general plan. This plan was contested by the nature conservation actors because according to their view, the casino island is planned in the shallow coastal waters, which provide feeding grounds for migratory water birds. A compromise was found in establishing an additional artificial island for the migratory birds (known as a bird island) by accordingly dumping some material. In addition to the Bird Club activities, the interviews indicated that the coastal terrain of Paljassaare is lacking an active neighbourhood association as several districts in Tallinn already have.

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Discussion: Disturbances, Interventions and Interactional Justice Contributing to Urban Green Coastal Spaces

The two case studies of urban coastal areas in Tallinn indicate that the desirable characteristics of urban nature are co-produced with wider societal change and the processes of urbanisation. Diverse disturbances and visions can

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become part of mobilising the knowledge about nature and engagements with nature as a public value for simultaneous and contested means of urbanising society (Angelo 2019; Pikner 2014). The studied cases indicate that diverse social actors contributed in making emergent qualities of nature and the potential of interim phases publicly visible for the planning of land uses. These tendencies stress the importance of the interactional and recognition aspects of environmental justice, which coexist with the distributive and procedural dimensions (see Kronenberg et al. 2020). However, there is a challenge to overcome light anthropocentrism and city-centre focus in the mentioned framework of environmental justice. The Paljassaare Peninsula case indicates that certain sensitivities and (seasonal) restrictions of access bound to urban coastal green areas merge in the relations between human and non-human beings (e.g. birds). ‘Environments’ do not appear as a passive stage of environmental justice, but as an affective space that generates concerns and engagements forming access and interactional rights. If we ignore these interactions, then it is impossible to grasp the full spectre of environmental justice uniting (or splintering) city centres with morethan-urbanised socio-ecological networks. The spatial connections between diverse green pockets in urban areas can produce a socio-ecological memory as elements of continuity in the middle of rapid change (Andersson and Barthel 2016). Some achievements towards these continuities became visible in the context of the case studies through the mobilised spatiality of accessible promenades along the shore and the transnational routes of migratory birds. The studied processes raise the issue of how to interpret diverse disturbances and the interim period in the evolution of urban green spaces. The two examples indicate that (post)shrinkages and transformed land uses related to the collapse of the Soviet regime became part of new and contested green areas (see also Haase 2019). Here it is fruitful to look at the diverse temporalities and co-produced characteristics of urban nature bound to the spatiality of envisioned change and its procedural logic. Disturbances can

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be seen as the usual components of living environments, which generate complex entanglements between ecologies and social practice (Tsing 2015). The Soviet border regime kept large areas of Tallinn’s waterfront enclosed from the public for many decades, and through that influenced the interactions between the urban fabric and nature. The quasi-naturalness of Tallinn’s waterfronts was formed through politicaleconomic and ecological disturbances, which emerged as co-productions of urban nature. The studied examples show diverse entanglements in translating these (post)Soviet disturbances and evolving coastal assemblages into urban change. In other words, disturbances (temporally) forming wastelands introduce complexity to urban landscapes by bringing together access and landownership with cultural and scientific practises (Gandy 2013). Both cases, Kalarand and Paljassaare, indicate diverse bottom-up interventions and spatial planning rationalities in using and interpreting the potential of open and intermediate coastal green areas. These two cases present rather different trajectories of change depending on former land ownership schemes, spatial settings and the political-economic pressure of development. Bird-watching practises pointed out a rich ecosystem in the urban fringe, which could be maintained through the EU framework. The dimension of procedural justice in the Kalarand context revealed undemocratic political decisions in respect of land privatisation on a wider scale, and contested knowledge and values in formulating plans through private sector dominated city planning. The role of an educated neighbourhood group became important in problematising and making public the (non)desirable relations between an accessible waterfront, real-estate developments and the public space. This role could be understood through mobilised care and skills towards better living environments, which open up multiple roles in coastal green spaces in the contested process of waterfront urbanisation. The role of post-socialist paths of change in the dynamics of environmental justice requires careful elaborations without associating everything in terms of the fabric of Soviet transitions.

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According to Sechi et al. (2021), stakeholder inequalities and discursive conflicts about what has to be considered valuable as ‘green’ and ‘common’ in the city has become part of the dynamics of environmental justice in Riga. Kronenberg et al. (2020) present urban green– blue areas of post-Soviet cities as part of the transition to the West and Europeanisation, which directly incorporates ideals and examples from EU experiences and funding programmes. Instead of a linear transition to the West, the two case studies from Tallinn indicate complex relations between active citizens, initiatives of making socio-ecological qualities public and planning rationalities. These relational dynamics were often based on lived spaces and care about the possible future trajectories of urban green spaces, and these concerns motivated the use of some EU frameworks to upscale ongoing practice. Instead of considering EU initiatives only as ‘extramural’ and unnecessary burdens (see Haase et al 2019: 120), the Paljassaare bird protection initiative shows how passionate practises and negotiated tensions can work in spatializing the Natura 2000 programme through the particular maintenance of coastal spaces in the city. Therefore, the interfaces between post-Soviet legacies and Europeanisation benchmarks in mobilised engagements with urban nature require careful elaborations going beyond the linear transitions (see also Jehlička and Jacobsson 2021). Post-socialist legacies influencing urban coastal areas became particularly visible through the privatisation of the waterfront in the city centre and blurred the state-owned land dynamics on the edge of the city. The land ownership dynamics bound to city waterfronts influenced the spatial planning processes in Tallinn, which cannot be understood as ‘a component of the ‘transition’ to capitalism but rather integrating the existing legal and institutional frameworks of local governance in Eastern Europe into the conceptualisation of governance’ (Feldman 2000: 847). The phase during which planned land uses were suspended in Kalarand provided temporary interventions sites, which produced ‘spaces of

T. Pikner

representation’ (Lefebvre 1991) allowing particular socio-ecological potential to be made publicly visible and to negotiate existing plans. These spaces appear to be rather powerful in supporting affective presence and affinities to places, which are endangered through accelerated transformations. Affective spaces of representation appeared in the Paljassaare context through the practice of bird watching and of recreational activities. In the context of Kalarand, similar spaces merged together with small interventions and temporary small-scale facilities, which made a different presence on the waterfront possible. These dynamics indicate the relevance and contested dimensions of ‘boundary objects’ (Star and Giesemer 1989) in forming the characteristics of urban nature relevant for the general public. These objects as interfaces are sufficiently general while also rational for generating the shared goals of making the qualities of urban nature publicly visible and for maintaining them. The issue of climate change and possible endangerments were also made visible in projections of urban green–blue spaces through artistic representations and reports based on expert knowledge. It means that these contingent spaces of representation should be considered as active agents in contributing to formations of the dimensions of environmental justice bound to urban green spaces. Associations with the Soviet era can be seen, but some of these entanglements go even beyond this. The collective gathering of trash and maintaining of vernacular infrastructure appeared in Kalarand and Paljassaare through collective initiatives (talgud). One can see this as a direct remnant of the organised subbotniks during Soviet times (see Haase et al. 2019), which were also practised in Estonia. However, these recent forms of collective care borrow their name and inspiration from a pre-Soviet era and are supported by a kind of citizen science tool combining spaces of visualisation, embodiment and circulation in making an environmental problem public and finding solutions (Pikner and Jauhiainen 2014). This means that aspects of environmental justice surrounding Tallinn’s coastal spaces are part of the wider urbanisation process,

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and the studied cases can contribute in rethinking the dimensions of post-socialist change beyond linear transitions. As Müller (2019: 545) argues, ‘the end of post-socialism does not mean the end of difference, but that the difference we see is no longer owing to a socialist past and we need to look for more meaningful ways of framing it’.

7

Conclusions

This chapter elaborated on the framework of environmental justice to understand emergent characteristics of urban nature and interim phases of usage in the context of a post-socialist city. Therefore, the study contributes by opening dimensions of environmental justice, which have not yet been sufficiently analysed in the context of urbanisation (Kronenberg 2020). The theoretical approach is elaborated alongside two case studies of coastal areas of Tallinn revealing different (dis)continuities, stories and trajectories of urban green spaces. The study shows that coastal green spaces are part of wider socio-economic transformation processes, which influence land use and collaborative planning procedures in the post-socialist city. The two case examples indicate that the framework of environmental justice has potential and simultaneously also requires elaboration to analyse the dynamic characteristics and process towards desirable interactions with urban nature. Firstly, the elaboration of the framework could benefit from further considering the aspect that the social dimension of environmental justice coexists with emergent spaces and non-human entities, which through relational dynamics generate realities and opportunities as part of an evolving urban space. The studied cases reveal that the needs of migratory birds, issues related to invasive species and the quality of the sea water became part of negotiating the future of city green spaces. The endangered qualities of nature generated public concern and debates. Therefore, interactional justice around city transformations could become more informed about the associations between political ecologies of urbanity (Gandy 2019) and social engagements contributing to public

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qualities of urban nature. Secondly, environmental activism embedded in the post-socialist urban context should be approached in its own terms without the benchmarks always coming from Western environmentalism (Jehlička and Jacobsson 2021). The study indicated the need to rethink the (un)intentionality and interim phases in urban change, which articulated diverse potentials about engaging with urban nature. Urban coastal spaces can accumulate diverse disturbances, whose effects are controversial, and interpretations change in time. The current study indicates complex (dis)continuities of coastal spaces, where the legacies of the Soviet era provide one layer. The presence and later demise of the Soviet-era border regime and its militaryindustrial facilities on the shore generated disturbance-based ecologies (Tsing 2015), which contributed to the evolution of green areas in the city and beyond its territory. These ecologies became possible through interim phases of land use supporting new associations between humans and the surrounding environments. Therefore, these emergent ecologies reframe wastelands and marginal spaces of nature as vibrant dimensions of urban life (Gandy 2013). The interim phase of decentring the human impact in the two cases allowed ecologies and interventions, which gave voice to emergent qualities of urban nature. These qualities were assembled and mediated through spaces of representation, which made the single coastal sites important in the wider city transformation and dynamics of participatory planning. Interactional justice in urban change thus has the challenge of incorporating temporary practises, unintentional design and fleeting more-than-human qualities in the analysis of urban alternatives. Urbanity is dependent on non-city entities and spatially dispersed associations bringing together humans and non-humans. The access to waterfronts and affinities to the sea can be seen as part of coexistence becoming contested in densely populated areas and conflicting interests concerning urban futures. Post-socialist cities embody diverse disturbance-based ecologies, which associate single cases and cities into wider assemblages in negotiating tensions between economic pressures

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and the socio-ecological qualities of spaces. A focus on fragmentary disturbances and longer durations would allow us to problematize homogenous socialist legacies in urban transformations (Müller 2019). The current study indicates that the urban arena of procedural justice in negotiating green spaces consists of diverse links across governance scales bringing together bottom-up initiatives, EU regulatory frameworks, enthusiastic municipal specialists, the chancellor of justice at the state level and planning laws. These links empower certain entities and decentralise other claims. According to Angelo (2017), the city-centred lens in planning blocks the ability to see wider associations between the urban and the non-city. Therefore, in the context of wider green transitions, it would be important to analyse how (post)-socialist legacies and existing spaces of coexistence become evaluated and translated into urban politics of sustainability. Acknowledgements I would like to thank the editors of the book, Meelis Uustal, Oliver Orro, and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. The English language is edited by Michael Haagensen. This research is supported by the Estonian Research Council grant PRG 398 Landscape Approach to Rurbanity.

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