Bücher der Reihe Cities and Nature

This book offers in-depth ethnographic analyses of key informants¿ interviews on the ecological urbanism and ecosystem services (ES) of selected green infrastructure (GI) in Yoruba cities of Ile-Ife, Ibadan, Osogbo, Lagos, Abeokuta, Akure, Ondo, among others in Southwest Nigeria. It examines the Indigenous Knowledge System (IKS) demonstrated for wellbeing through home gardens by this largest ethno-linguistic group in Nigeria. This is in addition to the ES of Osun Grove UNESCO World Heritage Site, Osogbo; Biological Garden and Park, Akure; Lekki Conservation Centre, Lagos; Adekunle Fajuyi Park, Ado-Ekiti; Muri Okunola Park, Lagos; and some institutional GI including University of Ibadan Botanical Gardens, Ibadan; Federal University of Agriculture Abeokuta Botanical Garden, Abeokuta; and University of Lagos Lagoon Front Resort, Lagos, Nigeria. The study draws on theoretical praxis of Western biophilic ideologies, spirit ontologies of the Global South, and largely, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) to examine eco-cultural green spaces, home gardens, and English-types of parks and gardens as archetypes of GI in Yoruba traditional urbanism, colonial and post-colonial city planning. The book provides methods of achieving a form of modernized traditionalism as means of translating the IKS into design strategies for eco-cultural cities. The strategies are framework, model, and ethnographic design algorithms that are syntheses of the lived experiences of the key informants.

This book presents a road map to urban regeneration through the contemporary concept of smart cities. It investigates why the concept has gained adoption as it has but until now it has been geared towards a profit-making venture by large corporations and ignoring the economic aspirations of smaller companies and city councils. The technologies can provide enhanced liveability levels if the concept is redefined.This work will be of interest to academics and policy makers looking at exploring how to drive urban regeneration in a sustainable and inclusive fashion while supporting local economies. It presents a case study of Port Louis, Mauritius, with unique insights and data. Academics, policy makers and urban developers could potentially adopt the model and calibrate it to various cities and quantify the economic and social benefits.

This book explores how power relationships, measured through qualitative social network analysis, impact planning participation and livelihood strategies of a marginalized group of farmers cultivating the Yamuna River floodplain in Delhi, India. Through an in-depth study of 165 farming households facing land development, this book offers insights from the ground-up into how social dynamics enable and constrain agency. A novel mixed-methods approach was used to measure social networks and access to resources based on the different types of people farmers might interact with as part of their livelihoods: hired laborers, vendors, other farmers, etc. Digging deeper into social network patterns, typologies of power are illustrated as they manifest household agency through diverse pathways. More broadly, a political ecology lens is used to link together the multiple and fragmented Yamuna farmers¿ stories with broader social, ecological, infrastructural, and economic contexts to suggest future directions for inquiry and policy related to localized urban food systems and sustainable development. This monograph will be of interest to academic faculty and graduate students in critical geography, cultural anthropology, food studies, landscape architecture/urban planning, and sociology.

This book examines social innovation strategies in the collaborative development of spaces for growing food in cities. It enables readers to gain valuable insights into an innovative social and spatial practice whilst advancing knowledge in an emerging area of research. The book will also be of great relevance to social activists, urban designers, planners, and decision-makers with an interest in applying this expertise to their own neighbourhoods and cities.Urban food growing spaces have multiplied in recent times. This green and inclusive urbanism creates social value for the health, wellbeing, and welfare of local inhabitants. Therefore, there is a convincing argument to investigate innovative spatial practices that can enable cities to meet the needs of an increasing population. Despite the mounting interest in collective approaches to sustainable development, limited attention has been given to the diverse ways in which this social action has been pursued. How are urban food growing spaces produced through social innovation? What are the innovative processes that can be translated in a replicable model to other cities, yet suitable for local needs, to support the development of healthier, more socially just built environments?

This book explores how lessons from past urban planning experiences can inform current debates on urban agriculture. Productive landscapes today have been posited as instruments for the positive transformation related to territorial fragility and abandonment, promoting social cohesion, food security and wider environmental and economic benefits. The book will re-map the way in which seeming landscape limitations and challenges can be turned into potential, innovation and a new lease of urban-rural life. It does so by drawing on significant past urban agricultural experiences in planning as vectors for new critical reflections relevant to re-igniting ideas for future envisioning of urban scenarios in which productive landscapes play fundamental transformative roles. The focus is on planning ideas and the roles of key individual planners, all of which have designed agricultural strategies for the city at some point in their careers. It intends to help us today reimagine urban-rural relationships, and the transformation of under or mis-used urban open spaces, peri-urban areas, fringe conditions and in-between spaces.

urban farming) and the regeneration of urban areas. There is, thus, a compelling case to investigate integrative approaches to urban and natural systems that can help cities address the social, economic and environmental needs of a growing population.

The book analyses the relationship between ecosystem services, green and blue infrastructures (GBI) and spatial planning in Italy.

This book addresses the emergence of biophilic design, a form of design that looks at people's intrinsic connection with nature.

The book aims to capture, describe and convey the current significance, the values and potentials of urban biodiversity and ecosystem services to scientists and professionals in the context of sustainable urban development and ongoing urbanization processes.

The book aims to capture, describe and convey the current significance, the values and potentials of urban biodiversity and ecosystem services to scientists and professionals in the context of sustainable urban development and ongoing urbanization processes.

As cities are rapidly expanding and encroaching into agricultural and natural areas, a question of primary concern is how this expansion affects surrounding agriculture and natural landscapes.

As cities are rapidly expanding and encroaching into agricultural and natural areas, a question of primary concern is how this expansion affects surrounding agriculture and natural landscapes.

This book provides an interdisciplinary overview of the role of gardens in cities throughout different historical periods. It shows that, thanks to various forms of spatial and social organisation, gardens are part of the material urban landscape, biodiversity, symbolic and social shape, and assets of our cities, and are increasingly becoming valued as an ¿order¿ to follow. Gardens have long been part of the development of cities, serving different purposes through the ages: shaping neighborhoods to promote health or hygiene, introducing aesthetic or biological elements, gathering the citizens around a social purpose, and providing food and diversity in times of crisis. Highlighting examples that can serve as the basis for comparisons, the chapters offer a brief panorama of experiences and models of gardens in the city ¿ in the European context and in various periods of history ¿ while also discussing issues related to garden cities, urbanagriculture and community gardens. The contributors are university staff from various disciplines in the human and life sciences, in discourse with other academics but also with practitioners who are interested in experiences with urban gardens and in promoting an awareness of their spatial, social and ¿philosophical¿ goals throughout history. The book will appeal to urban geographers, sociologists and historians, but also to urban ecologists dealing with ecosystem services, biodiversity and sustainable development in cities. From a more operational standpoint, landscape planners and architects are sure to find many of the projects enlightening and inspirational.