Project

Smart-U-Green

Urban landscape transformations come with conflicts involving many actors, interests and rapidly changing advocacy coalitions. Together with local governments, local businesses, citizen initiatives and NGOs Smart-U-Green will investigate more organic, collaborative and transformative forms of governance and develop new forms of governance.

Urban landscapes witness major transformations that affect urban landscape quality and quality of life. Some transformations are desirable, such as greener urban landscapes. Some are inevitable, such as changes due to major economic or cultural changes. Urban landscape transformations come with conflicts involving many actors, interests and rapidly changing advocacy coalitions.

Bottom-up initiatives, such as community gardens, introduce new forms of urban landscape management, sometimes confronting urban planning regimes with the challenge to adopt more organic, collaborative and transformative forms of governance. Smart-U-Green will investigate these developments in urban regions in the Netherlands, Italy, France, and with input from other countries. Together with local governments, local businesses, citizen initiatives and NGOs the project will develop new forms of governance.

The project aims to analyze stakeholder perspectives to understand their arguments in policy controversies; analyze policy controversies to understand how (local) power relations inhibit or enable the utilization of (local) knowledge; identify and explore innovative governance options for greening urban landscapes.

Approaches/methods

    • The identification of key regional stakeholders through interviews, document analysis and input from project partners
    • The Repertory Grid technique in combination with statistical analysis to identify the range of perspectives in all case study areas  (Drechtsteden, Regione Marche, Grand Reims, Zagreb, Pskov and Mahilioŭ)
    • The QLand/QLife framework of urban landscape indicators to evaluate decision-making in the case study areas, as well as a political agenda-building approach to map out political processes
    • Stakeholder workshops in the primary case study areas (Drechtsteden, Regione Marche and Grand Reims) for joint fact-finding and decision support

 

The expected results and impacts are an assessment of stakeholder perspectives and options, the involvement of diverse user communities, the creation of cross-regional networks and a rethinking of the existing framework for urban planning, making space for bottom-up initiatives.

Duration of the project
Smart-U-Green runs from 2017 to 2020.

Funding
Smart-U-Green is funded under the EU Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) Urban Europe.

Project Partners
SAAD, University of Camerino, IATEUR IRCS, Université de Reims, Regio Drechtsteden, Marche Region, Grand Reims, University of Guelph, University of Zagreb, Pskov State University, EKAPRAEKT, CIVILSCAPE.

DRIFT Team
Matthijs Hisschemöller & Timo von Wirth