About this Research Topic

Background

Urban green and blue spaces can make a major contribution towards more livable, sustainable and climate resilient cities. To better utilize the multiple potentials of green infrastructure and nature-based solutions, new modes of governance are required for the development, retrofitting and maintenance of urban green and blue. However, the public domain with established separation of responsibilities and often dwindling resources for green space planning and management is challenged by these complex issues that require systemic transformations. Moreover, in many urban regions, green and blue spaces, including farmland and forests in the peri-urban, get lost or are impacted by ad-hoc urban development and planning authorities lack leverages to steer urbanization processes towards sustainability. In particular, there is a need for
- Integration of different sectors of the public domain into the strategic planning of multifunctional networks of urban green and blue spaces as a green infrastructure to create synergies and minimize trade-offs, e.g. between urban greening and technical and social infrastructures such as urban mobility, storm water management and the public health and education sectors.
- Working across horizontal and vertical boundaries of decision making, for instance to establish intermunicipal cooperation in developing coherent green structures within urban regions and to link regional planning with local urban greening projects
- Improving multilevel and multi-actors governance structures to improve collaborations and involvement of relevant stakeholders and actors in participatory and collaborative approaches to the co-design, co-creation and co-management of the urban green resource.
- Identifying the potential of citizen-led urban greening initiatives to improve quality of life and address major environmental, social and economic issues in urban development. Developing inclusive and just planning and governance models, such as mosaic governance, to cater for the diversity of inputs from local communities and strengthen leverage towards urban greening.
- Identify power structures and mechanism between governments, companies and civil society, including social movements that prevent or strengthen transformative processes.
- Finding new ways of funding for the development of urban green, including the maintenance of urban green spaces under pressure from urban expansion
- Enhancing the management of natural resources such as water, forest, particularly in the peri-urban areas of growing city regions where private property rights collide with common property rights managed by rural communities.

This article collection aims to take stock of and advance the current state-of-the-art in green space governance in a global perspective. It seeks contributions from different regional and urban contexts to critically explore the value of governance concepts such as `polycentric governance' 'mosaic governance' for urban greening and green stewardship. Papers with a conceptual and an empirical focus are equally invited.

Suggested topics:
- Integration of public domain sectors in urban greening
- Working across horizontal and vertical boundaries of decision making in urban greening
- Intermunicipal development of green infrastructures
- Advanced concepts of green space governance and governance approaches that improve multilevel and multi-actor governance structures
- Inclusive and just planning and governance models for urban greening
- Citizen-led urban greening: potentials, limitations and innovative approaches
- Funding the urban green and blue spaces
- Natural resources management in peri-urban areas of growing city regions where private property and common property are intermingled

Keywords: urban greening, mosaic governance, green space governance, green and blue spaces, resource management

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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