Reconceptualising green space: planning for urban green space in the contemporary city

Urban greenspace has risen up the policy and research agendas, buoyed by a heightened awareness of the role nature plays in addressing contemporary urban challenges, such as climate change, chronic health conditions and waning biodiversity. Lauded for their economic, environmental and social benefits, urban greenspaces are presented as a policy and planning panacea as urbanisation continues at a rapid pace. In practice, however, urban greenspaces do not realise this full potential. Instead of being managed as essential elements of a multifunctional, interconnected system of green infrastructure, greenspaces are conceptualised as an ornamental afterthought, detached from the city around them. This is because greenspace planning adheres to an institutional and cultural focus on a form and function of publicly accessible greenspace established nearly 200 years ago in Victorian England. As such, a gap between the theoretical way urban greenspace is discussed and the practical way it is delivered leads to missed opportunities to address the impacts of urbanisation. Using qualitative research conducted in three Inner London boroughs, this thesis shows that, despite recognition that urban greenspaces can provide vital contributions to the contemporary city, a conceptualisation of greenspace based on heritage has become institutionalised. This has led to planning, governance and funding processes that further embed a path-dependentway of thinking about greenspaces as conduits to the past rather than as assets to address present and future needs. Yet, this research identifies three processes of change that, collectively, may break the path dependency: changes in the understanding of environmental systems, changes in population, demographics and preferences, and changes in governance. Together, these forces may open the door to reconceptualising greenspace as critical urban infrastructure that grows and changes with the city and makes essential contributions to urban life.