Urban Forests, Trees, and Greenspace
A Political Ecology Perspective
Routledge Studies in Urban Ecology Series

Urban forests, trees and greenspace are critical in contemporary planning and development of the city. Their study is not only a question of the growth and conservation of green spaces, but also has social, cultural and psychological dimensions. This book brings a perspective of political ecology to the complexities of urban trees and forests through three themes: human agency in urban forests and greenspace; arboreal and greenspace agency in the urban landscape; and actions and interventions in the urban forest.

Contributors include leading authorities from North America and Europe from a range of disciplines, including forestry, ecology, geography, landscape design, municipal planning, environmental policy and environmental history.

1. Introduction L. Anders Sandberg, Adrina Bardekjian, and Sadia Butt Part 1: Human Agency in Urban Forests and Greenspace 2. Urban Forests are Social Natures: Markets, Race, Class, and Gender in Relation to (Un)just Urban Environments Harold Perkins 3. From Government to Governance: Contribution to the Political Ecology of Urban Forestry Cecil C. Konijnendijk van den Bosch 4. A Genealogy of Urban Forest Discourse in Flanders, Belgium Ann Van Herzele 5. Institutions, Law, and the Political Ecology of Urban Forestry: A Comparative Approach Blake Hudson 6. Manufacturing Green Consensus: Urban Green Governance in Singapore Natalie Gulsrud and Can Seng Ooi 7. The Places of Trees in Honduras: Contributions of Public Spaces and Smallholders Joby Bass Part 2: Arboreal and Greenspace Agency in the Urban Landscape 8. (Urban) Places of Trees: Affective Embodiment, Identity and Materiality Owain Jones 9. Order and Disorder in the Urban Forest: A Foucauldian-Latourian Perspective Irus Braverman 10. High and Low, West and East: Four Arboricultures of the Tokyo Metropolis Jay Bolthouse 11. The Unruly Tree: Stories from the Archives Joanna Dean 12. Seeking Citizenship: The Norway Maple in Canada Brendon Larson 13. Queering the Urban Forest: The Ecological Ethics and Politics of Arboreal Entanglement Darren Patrick 14. The Thin End of the Green Wedge: Berlin’s Planned and Unplanned Urban Landscapes Cynthia Hammond Part 3: Actions and Interventions in the Urban Forest 15. "A Few Trees" in Gezi Park: Resisting the Spatial Politics of Neoliberalism in Turkey Bengi Akbulut 16. Constructing New York City’s Urban Forest: The Politics and Governance of the MillionTreesNYC Campaign Lindsay Campbell 17. Promoting Green Space in Cape Town, South Africa: The Role of the African Centre for Cities Pippin Anderson 18. Cultivating Citizen Stewards: Lessons from Formal and Non-formal Educators Greg Smith 19. Learning and Acting through Participatory Landscape Planning: The Case of the Bräkne River Valley, Sweden Helena Mellqvist and Roland Gustavsson 20. A Step, A Stitch, A Sense of Self: Woods Walking as an Artist’s Path to Creating Identity Kathleen Vaughan

L. Anders Sandberg is Professor and former Associate Dean in the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Toronto, Canada. His two most recent books are The Oak Ridges Moraine Battles: Development, Sprawl and Nature Conservation in the Toronto Region (2013) and Urban Explorations: Environmental Histories of the Toronto Region (2013).

Adrina Bardekjian is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Toronto, Canada, where she studies under-represented narratives and strategic visioning for urban forestry praxis. She is an urban forestry researcher, writer and educator, and works with a number of organizations on a diversity of projects and initiatives.

Sadia Butt is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Forestry at the University of Toronto, Canada. She has worked in urban forestry for the last 15 years as a practitioner, reseracher and volunteer in raising urban forest awareness through environmental education.