Urban Forests, Trees, and Greenspace

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.

"This book is the first to use the lens of political ecology to understand urban forests and finally provide us with a much needed politicized view of these spaces, based on case studies from around the globe." –Guy Baeten, Lund University, Sweden. "This wonderful volume incorporates new theoretical ground in the field of political ecology. Diverse chapters bring nuanced and balanced attention to the social and ecological dynamism that shapes the myriad ways through which urban forests constitute and are constituted by everyday lived experiences, politics, and institutional dynamics of today’s cities. Through engaging exploration of diverse cases around the world and their beloved as well as neglected trees, parks, and other spaces, the chapters provide rich analyses of distinctive place- and regionally-oriented histories, changing market and economic dynamics, emergent forms of governance and institutional contexts, and ecological and social complexity, all framed within the central thematic dimension of power." – Patrick Hurley, Ursinus College, Collegeville, PA, USA. "A collection that makes urban political ecology accessible to a wide readership without losing the sophistication needed to handle the complexity and contradictions of the field. Its compelling narratives stretch from unruly trees and people in diverse cities around the world, to original ways of thinking about nature and the city." – Alan Mabin, Research fellow, Capital Cities project, University of Pretoria, South Africa.'This remarkable book brings a new perspective to urban forests and green spaces as political and social constructs. ... For critical readers at any level, nothing could be more valuable. Summing Up: Highly recommended' -S. Hammer, Boston University , CHOICE, April 2015

• 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