Resilience Through Engaging Citizens with Urban Nature

INVITING LANDSCAPES: RESILIENCE THROUGH ENGAGING CITIZENS WITH URBAN NATURE

A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities

2014

JANICE ASTBURY

SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENT, EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENT

Table of Contents Abstract ...... 7 Declaration ...... 8 Copyright Statement ...... 8 Acknowledgements ...... 9 1 Introduction ...... 11 2 Literature Review ...... 17 2.1 Introduction ...... 17 2.2 Framing urban problems and solutions ...... 17 2.3 Resilience in Urban Social-Ecological Systems – a role for citizens and nature? ...... 21 2.4 Seeing the System through Landscape ...... 32 2.4.1 The Material Landscape ...... 34 2.4.2 The Experienced Landscape ...... 39 2.4.3 The Inviting Landscape ...... 49 2.5 Conclusions ...... 51 3 Research Methodology ...... 53 3.1 Introduction ...... 53 3.2 Research Objectives and Research Questions ...... 54 3.3 Situating the researcher ...... 55 3.3.1 Normativity ...... 55 3.3.2 Positionality ...... 56 3.4 Research Strategy ...... 57 3.4.1 Using critical realism to explore SESs ...... 57 3.4.2 A retroductive approach ...... 61 3.4.3 Examining people’s experience of landscape ...... 62 3.4.4 A fine-grained analysis of urban systems using case studies ...... 65 3.5 Research Design ...... 68 3.5.1 Defining the study area ...... 69 3.5.2 Data collection in two parts and three stages ...... 70 3.5.3 Analysis ...... 81 3.6 Conclusion ...... 89 4 The Lay of the Landscape ...... 90 4.1 Introduction ...... 90 4.2 Citizen interaction with urban landscapes in North West England ...... 91 4.2.1 Who is doing what and where? ...... 91 4.2.2 Validation of the research project with practitioners ...... 94 4.2.3 Conceptualising citizen interaction with urban landscapes ...... 99 4.2.4 People-landscape interactions: Emerging themes ...... 101 4.3 Zooming in on local landscapes in Manchester ...... 107 4.4 Conclusion ...... 115 5 Citizens at work in Manchester’s Landscapes ...... 116 5.1 Introduction ...... 116 5.2 Platt Fields Park and environs ...... 117 5.2.1 A landscape called ‘park’ is more likely to have friends ...... 118 5.2.2 Re-inhabiting wildscapes through community events ...... 120 5.2.3 Multiple generations of landscape interventions ...... 121

5.2.4 Virtual communities seeking a home and investing in place...... 125 5.2.5 Undervaluing the landscape undermines engagement ...... 126 5.2.6 The opportunity of a blank slate in the right system ...... 128 5.2.7 Recognising and working with ecosystem services ...... 130 5.2.8 Confronting the knowledge gap ...... 134 5.2.9 Seeing the system: The Platt Fields SES reaches a tipping point ...... 136 5.3 Ashton and Rochdale Canals at Ancoats, Miles Platting, Newton Heath .. 139 5.3.1 History casts a long shadow ...... 140 5.3.2 A lens of pessimism and exclusion ...... 142 5.3.3 Newcomers to a different experienced landscape ...... 144 5.3.4 The people in the landscape – perceiving engaged citizens...... 145 5.3.5 The beginnings of an invitation ...... 149 5.3.6 Early engagers lay the groundwork ...... 152 5.3.7 Starting with provisioning ecosystem services ...... 153 5.3.8 Subtle differences in local landscapes ...... 153 5.4 An Inviting Landscape continuum within a panarchy ...... 155 5.5 Conclusion ...... 159 6 An Inviting Landscape ...... 161 6.1 Introduction ...... 161 6.2 Characteristics of Inviting Landscapes ...... 163 6.2.1 Thought provoking ...... 163 6.2.2 Legibly including nature and people ...... 167 6.2.3 Safe ...... 176 6.2.4 Intriguing ...... 178 6.2.5 Social ...... 180 6.2.6 Storied ...... 182 6.2.7 Welcoming ...... 190 6.2.8 Home-like ...... 194 6.2.9 Needing your help ...... 199 6.2.10 Transformable ...... 200 6.2.11 Summary of characteristics of Inviting Landscapes ...... 206 6.3 Analysing Inviting Landscapes ...... 208 6.3.1 Inviting Landscape Types ...... 208 6.3.2 Citizen interaction with Inviting and Uninviting landscapes - A positive feedback loop ...... 210 6.3.3 The resilience of Inviting Landscapes ...... 212 6.4 Attending to the broader SES ...... 218 6.4.1 Resilience at other scales ...... 218 6.5 Conclusion ...... 220 7 Making urban landscapes more inviting ...... 222 7.1 Introduction ...... 222 7.2 The site scale ...... 222 7.2.1 Governing Inviting Landscapes ...... 223 7.2.2 Laying the groundwork to transform Uninviting Landscapes ...... 227 7.2.3 Effective Approaches to making Inviting Landscapes ...... 230 7.3 The city scale ...... 231 7.4 The enabling context ...... 234 7.5 Conclusion ...... 237 8 Conclusions ...... 239 8.1 Contributions to knowledge ...... 241 8.2 Implications for policy and practice ...... 244 8.3 Suggestions for further research ...... 247

9 Appendices ...... 250 Appendix 1 Principal sources of data ...... 250 Appendix 2 Participant Information Sheets ...... 251 Appendix 3 Consent Form ...... 254 Appendix 4 Interview Guides ...... 255 Appendix 5 List of codes and sub-codes ...... 259 References ...... 268

List of Figures

Figure 1 The 'ball-in-the-basin' representation of resilience ...... 23

Figure 2 The Adaptive Cycle ...... 24

Figure 3 A Panarchy ...... 24

Figure 4 A critical realist model of a social-ecological system (SES) ...... 58 Figure 5 Profile of SES layers showing their contents and appropriate disciplines to investigate them ...... 60

Figure 6 The Inviting Landscape at a mid-point of domination by people or nature ...... 209

Figure 7 Critical realist model of people-nature interactions in an urban SES: Inviting and Uninviting Landscape case types ...... 211

Figure 8 Resilience of Inviting and Uninviting Landscape Regimes ...... 216 List of Tables

Table 1 Key Features of a Resilient System ...... 25 Table 2 Criteria for classification of ecosystem services delivered from the National Urban Park ...... 64

Table 3 Case study stages ...... 74

Table 4 Fifteen sites in Manchester retained for further investigation ...... 77 Table 5 Locations of potentially relevant initiatives in North West England as identified by programme managers...... 93 Table 6 Examples of how programme managers described enhancement of ecosystem functions and services in urban landscapes ...... 95

Table 7 Inviting Landscape Characteristics by Stage ...... 206 List of Boxes

Box 1 Key Features of a Resilient System identifiable through rapid assessment ...... 216

Box 2 Effective approaches to making Inviting Landscapes ...... 230

List of Maps

Map 1 Cities and towns in North West England where potentially relevant examples were identified by Programme Managers ...... 94

Map 2 Manchester city limits and radius of case selection...... 108

Map 3 Platt Fields Park and surrounding area ...... 117

Map 4 Rochdale and Ashton canals at Ancoats, Miles Platting, Newton Heath .. 139 List of Plates

Plate 1 Dig the City: Before and After ...... 114

Plate 2 The Eco Garden ...... 122

Plate 3 Hand-painted signs in Platt Fields ...... 123

Plate 4 Growing food in the Shakespearean Garden ...... 124

Plate 5 Envirolution ...... 125

Plate 6 We're in the Bowling Green - What next? ...... 128

Plate 7 Water accumulation in Platt Fields ...... 130

Plate 8 Social learning in the berry patch ...... 131

Plate 9 Socially acceptable ecosystem services: fuel wood or garden border? .. 132

Plate 10 Rusholme pocket park ...... 137

Plate 11 Never go near a canal…you might die ...... 141

Plate 12 Towpath Tidy ...... 143

Plate 13 Ancoats Canal Project poster ...... 147

Plate 14 'Wildlife on your canal' by children in Miles Platting ...... 149

Plate 15 Miles Platting Summer Festival ...... 150

Plate 16 Victoria Mill Park ...... 154

Plate 17 Edible urban landscaping ...... 164

Plate 18 Beehive in meadow, Manchester city centre ...... 164

Plate 19 New uses for old resources ...... 165

Plate 20 Meanwhile Garden in Salford ...... 166

Plate 21 A reminder of the River Tib ...... 167

Plate 22 'Wax Wing Spotted' in Hulme ...... 168

Plate 23 Focusing on nature ...... 170

Plate 24 Making the herb garden legible ...... 172

Plate 25 Homemade: recycled tyre planters in Platt Fields playground ...... 175

Plate 26 Reminder to look after your canal ...... 175

Plate 27 Small signs of management turn wasteland to greenspace ...... 184

Plate 28 Nutsford Vale ...... 189

Plate 29 Inviting entrances ...... 191

Plate 30 Come into the garden ...... 193

Plate 31 Inviting Landscape Types ...... 209

Plate 32 Uninviting Landscape Types ...... 209

Plate 33 Rusholme Alleyway ...... 213

Plate 34 Instant Garden ...... 225

Plate 35 Defensible planting area on Ashton Canal ...... 227

Abstract

The University of Manchester Janice Astbury

Doctor of Philosophy

Inviting Landscapes: resilience through engaging citizens with urban nature 26 September 2014

The role of citizens working with urban nature in making cities more resilient is under-explored and under-theorised. The social-ecological system (SES) is an appropriate concept to explore these interactions but challenges in applying it to cities have been identified. It has been suggested that there is a need to strengthen the 'social' in the SES. This thesis develops a conceptual framework that splits the social component of the SES into culture and agency and operationalises it through the concept of landscape. Previous scholarship has demonstrated that landscape is a powerful force in how people think about the world and that citizens are increasingly active in transforming urban landscapes. Using a critical realist framework, the SES is approached as an underlying mechanism that can only be apprehended through the landscapes that it produces. This directs attention to people’s experience of and responses to landscape. Three ‘layers’ of landscape are elucidated: the material landscape, the cultural landscape and responses to the landscape, drawing on the disciplines of landscape ecology, cultural geography and others concerned with environmental perception and people-environment interactions. The research surveyed citizen interaction with landscapes across North West England before focusing in on two key case studies in the city of Manchester. This analysis gave rise to development of a new concept, the Inviting Landscape, to describe landscapes that invite citizens to engage with them in ways that enhance the resilience of the underlying SES. The thesis identifies characteristics of Inviting Landscapes and links them to three stages of citizen engagement with landscapes. Potential practical applications of this characterisation of landscapes are discussed. Intellectually, the SES approach is enhanced through a deeper understanding of positive feedback mechanisms whereby landscapes influence citizen-nature interactions, which in turn impact on social-ecological resilience. The thesis concludes by making the case that attending more carefully to the role of culture and agency can strengthen the applicability of the SES approach to cities.

Declaration

No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning.

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost I would like to thank the participants in this research. So many people in Manchester and across North West England have shared their wisdom and agreed to let me walk and work beside them. I have been deeply impressed by the levels of engagement that I witnessed among citizens and their supporters in the social-ecological system of Manchester and the surrounding regions. I was truly fortunate to be accompanied in the PhD process by two excellent supervisors, Dr James Evans (Geography) and Dr Joanne Tippett (Planning and Environmental Management). I owe them deep gratitude for their ceaseless support in all matters ranging from the most mundane questions to wresting comprehensible concepts out of my fuzzy ideas. They created a very stimulating intellectual environment that was further enriched by other staff and by my fellow PhD students in the School of Environment, Education and Development. I also benefitted from my participation in the Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) through its Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT). Directors Prof Colin Hughes and Dr Sally Randles provided helpful input in relation to my own research and offered me additional enriching opportunities, such as teaching on the Manchester Sustainable City course and evaluating Manchester Carbon Literacy. I undertook the latter with my fellow doctoral researcher Kelly Tate who was one of the members of my delightful multidisciplinary SCI-CDT cohort, which also included Melanie Stroebel, Paul Balcombe, Jonathan Gibson and Katerina Sevastyanova. Both our collective endeavours to complete our CDT tasks (including the gargantuan Food Footprint interactive exhibit at the Arndale shopping centre) and our informal get-togethers enriched my PhD experience. Thank you also to Graham Bowden, Senior Cartographer, Cartographic Unit, University of Manchester, for making the maps contained in this thesis. As a geographer who barely scraped through undergraduate cartography, I am very impressed by maps.

The roots of this research project stretch back further than four years and I thank my colleagues at the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation and partner organisations (particularly Tim Brodhead, Stephen Chuddar and Frances Wesley) for providing me with the opportunity to immerse myself in the emergent world of resilience. I am similarly grateful to Prof Thom Meredith of the Geography Department at McGill University for allowing me to take Geography 302 off in a resilience direction and to my co-instructors and friends Jane Barr and Karen Richardson for jumping on that bandwagon and also entering into the complex system of engaging students in urban SES case studies. Thom Meredith also deserves my thanks for his ceaseless support across the two decades that lay between not giving up on me when I was a wayward undergraduate to writing a support letter for my PhD application. Further with respect to historic academic influences, I thank the late Prof Theo Hills of McGill University for making me a cultural geographer and inspiring an obsession with landscape and Prof Robert Aiken of Concordia University for further inspiration along those lines in later years with the added element of the urban.

I had to combine my studies with some income generating work outside the university and I was extremely lucky to have the opportunity to find work in relevant areas and to collaborate with wonderful colleagues, who were also friends, most intensively with Michel Ségin on Projet nature and Jayne Engle on Cities for People. This had the added advantage of support in the PhD process from work colleagues who had respectively arrived at and was en route to the same destination. My good friend Ray Tomalty (PhD) similarly played a supporting role throughout my PhD, sharing his expertise on greening cities as he has done for years, and generally assisting with everything imaginable, including simultaneously helping me figure out a final conceptual problem and assemble a kitchen.

I received tremendous support from numerous other friends and family members throughout the PhD process. Given my nomadic lifestyle in recent years, this has included providing shelter, preparing meals, and offering reassurances, advice and various forms of assistance while I worked away on various bits of this thesis. They include my mother Lilian and my sister Linda, Sarah Jane and Viv, Claire, Anne, Sonya and Andy, Beth and Malek, Sheila, Gillian, Heather, Jane and Robert, Judith and Patrick, Melissa and Diego, Helen and Douglas (who were there at the very beginning and end!), and of course Manuel, who has been patiently supportive throughout. I thank Anna and George for welcoming us to Manchester and making it feel like home (including finding us a home) and a very special thanks to Anne Tucker, an ever-welcoming host and a one-woman case study of citizen engagement. I would also like to offer special thanks to my daughters Esmé and Chloe. It was a pleasure to be students together and a relief to have such excellent in house editors and problem solvers. Similarly, I particularly want to recognise the inspiration and support provided by my dear friend Sarah Jane with whom I have shared challenges ranging from dealing with teenage angst to completing our mid-career PhDs.

1 Introduction

Cities are now home to the majority of people on earth and contribute significantly to global environmental problems. People in cities both suffer the effects of these problems locally and are well positioned to contribute to solutions (Grimm et al., 2008). While the need for cities to become more socially and ecologically resilient is widely recognised, the energy and creativity of citizens1, along with the ecosystem services provided by nature2, are currently underutilised (and under-theorised) in meeting this challenge.

This research project views people and nature in cities as interacting in a complex system, a ‘social-ecological system’ (SES) that can tend toward greater or lesser resilience. An expanding group of scholars has contributed to developing the SES concept and applying it to a range of case studies (Berkes, Folke, & Colding, 2000). Most SES research to date has focused on natural resource management in non-urban areas but there is a growing body of work relating to urban systems (cf. Andersson, 2006; Barthel, 2006; Elmqvist et al., 2004; Ernstson et al., 2010; Evans, 2011; Grimm et al., 2008; Tidball & Krasny, 2007) to which this thesis seeks to contribute.

There are challenges to applying the SES concept to the urban context because, according to some authors, it is not well adapted to the ‘messy SESs’ that characterise cities (Alessa, Kliskey, & Altaweel, 2009). Others have pointed out that the social component of the SES concept remains weakly developed (Ernstson et al., 2010; Evans, 2011) and it has been suggested that more

1 ‘Citizen’ in this thesis refers to “an inhabitant of a city or town” (“citizen n. and adj.”, 2014). Citizen action issues from a feeling of association with a community or place over which an individual or individuals may seek 2 ‘Nature’ is a problematic term because it refers to an imprecise construct based on a people-nature dichotomy that has been strongly disputed. This is discussed further in Section 2.4.2.1. It remains difficult, however, to find an adequate substitute. Lachmund (2013, p.237) states that although “nature has to be seen as fundamentally socialized, the term is indispensable when getting to grips with a specific set of human practices and concerns.” ‘Nature’ is used in key definitions of concepts that are at the core of this thesis, such as ‘social-ecological system’ and ‘landscape’ and it is used by the people who are the key source of empirical data. Therefore, for consistency and to avoid confusion, the term ‘nature’ is used throughout this thesis to describe everything that is neither human nor clearly made by humans (even if we understand that human beings and human products are part of nature and that nature has often been subject to human intervention).

attention to the cultural aspect may help to strengthen SES as a concept (Trosper, 2005).

A more fine-grained approach to studying urban systems has also been recommended, noting that previous analyses have tended to focus more on large-scale urban metabolism (Karvonen, 2008). This finer grain can help to drill down to see the interesting things happening at the neighbourhood level, where an increasing number of citizens are getting directly involved in transforming urban environments (Borasi & Zardini, 2008).

This PhD thesis studies the workings of urban SESs, with particular emphasis on the roles of both citizens and nature, along with their contributions to enhancing resilience. As the SES cannot be directly apprehended, the concept of landscape is proposed as a window into it and as a medium through which to interact with it. Landscape is seen as a tool for operationalising SES thinking. It allows the researcher to understand the workings of the SES through observation of people, landscapes and their interactions. Landscape, which by definition incorporates nature and culture (Council of Europe, 2000), is also seen as a way to study relationships between the social and the ecological in the SES.

The thesis critically appraises citizen interaction with urban landscapes to provide the basis for characterisation of landscapes that invite citizens to transform them in resilience-enhancing ways through collaboration with urban nature. These are described as ‘Inviting Landscapes’. Through this process, the concept of the SES itself is examined, and proposals are made to strengthen it so that it becomes a better instrument for addressing practical challenges in cities.

Chapter 2 reviews the literature relevant to the role of citizens and nature in enhancing urban social-ecological resilience. A brief history of how urban problems and their solutions have been framed is offered as background to the current trend toward focusing on the resilience of cities, which are seen as complex systems with both social and ecological components. SESs and the features that determine their resilience constitute the conceptual starting point for this thesis. The middle section of this chapter examines these concepts in

detail and surveys efforts to apply them to the urban context, in particular looking at the role of citizens in enhancing resilience.

While the SES is identified as an appropriate conceptual framework for this study, its application to an empirical research project concerning citizens working with nature presents a challenge: the SES cannot be directly apprehended. The response offered by this thesis, which is one of its key theoretical contributions, is to use ‘landscape’ to analyse, and subsequently to influence, the workings of SESs. The last section of this chapter provides a rationale for taking this approach and draws on different disciplines to bring together three lenses that together reflect the complexity of the SES: the material landscape, the cultural landscape, and people’s responses to landscape. These different ‘layers’ of landscape interact in ways that may influence people’s actions, as well as ecological processes, and thus determine the resilience of the underlying SES. There is evidence of growing citizen involvement in transforming cities and this literature review leads to the proposition that certain landscapes may ‘invite’ resilience-enhancing activity, while others do not. The core goal of the thesis is to develop a conceptual and empirical understanding of this phenomenon.

Chapter 3 explains the methodology that was developed to address the following research questions (with results of each stage of enquiry presented in the chapters identified in parentheses):

1. What is the current state of citizen interaction with urban landscapes within the geographical area studied? (Chapter 4)

2. Which landscapes seem to be inviting active engagement in enhancing urban resilience? (Chapters 4 and 5)

3. How do people respond to, and interact with, ‘inviting’ and ‘uninviting’ landscapes? (Chapter 5)

4. What are the characteristics of Inviting Landscapes? (Chapter 6)

5. What are the implications of this understanding of Inviting Landscapes with respect to conceptualising urban SESs? (Chapters 4-6)

6. How can urban landscapes be made more inviting? (Chapter 7)

In the first stage of the research design, a set of ten interviews with eleven programme managers active in the field contributes to developing an overview of citizen interaction with urban landscapes and identifying potential cases. These interviews also provide initial data for a three-stage case study approach, where a decreasing number of potential cases are explored in increasing depth through site visits and interviews in situ (while walking and working with citizens engaged in transforming landscapes), followed by participatory observation over five months at two sites. The cases examined in the second and third stages are identified through analysis of data from the previous stage.

Chapter 4 presents the findings of the first stage of empirical research, beginning with an overview of citizen interaction with urban landscapes in North West England. A portrait of what is happening on the ground is followed by programme managers’ observations about the nature of the interactions between people and landscapes. Attention is also paid to how these respondents conceptualise the system in which they themselves intervene. The alignment of practitioners’ conceptual frameworks with that of the research project is briefly discussed, with the goal of validating and refining the latter. The data collected during the interviews with programme managers orients the selection of fifteen cases (sites in Manchester) for further investigation through site visits and in situ interviews. A description of these sites is provided at the end of the chapter in order to situate the findings that are described in the remaining empirical chapters.

Chapter 5 focuses on the two sites that were the subject of in-depth case studies through participatory observation. These were chosen based on preliminary analysis, which indicated that one site was exemplary of an Inviting Landscape and the other of an Uninviting Landscape. People-landscape interactions are examined at both sites and explained in terms of particular phenomena observable within the different contexts. Analysis of data led to an understanding of how processes at different scales (as understood within both landscape ecology and resilience thinking) affect people-landscape interactions

at specific sites. It also pointed to the understanding that Inviting and Uninviting Landscapes are better understood as a continuum rather than as fixed categories.

Chapter 6 builds on the data and analysis presented in the previous chapters to establish the characteristics of Inviting Landscapes. These characteristics are organised according to their contribution to three stages of engagement. These are labelled ‘rethink’, ‘connect’ and ‘act’. The first stage focuses on cultural landscapes that challenge dominant narratives about people and nature in cities. The second stage explores landscape characteristics that stimulate emotional responses that deepen as people connect to particular places, progressing from attraction to attachment, and then to concern. The third stage describes those characteristics that elicit a more active response, inviting people to engage in the transformation of a landscape. The transformed landscape in turn invites other people to engage, thus setting in motion a positive feedback mechanism.

Chapter 7 discusses practical implications of the empirical findings and explores possible ways of making urban landscapes more inviting. It emphasises that Inviting Landscapes are products of emergence within SESs. Facilitating their emergence must therefore focus on maintaining or introducing a range of elements at different scales that are likely to produce an Inviting Landscape and consequently, a resilient SES. Therefore, consideration must be given to specific features at particular sites, as well as links among the sites and with the broader context.

Chapter 8 sums up the Inviting Landscape concept developed in this thesis, and the insights it offers into the workings of urban SESs. It highlights the role of citizens collaborating with nature in enhancing the resilience of urban SESs. Recognising the role of citizens requires paying attention to their perceptions and experiences of landscape, as well as to their resulting actions within landscapes. This demonstrates that both culture and agency must be taken into account in order to understand the social component of the SES. Seeing the social aspect of the SES as including both culture and agency serves in turn to strengthen this component. It augments the usefulness of the SES in

conceptualising cities, where the social component is exerting influence through both numerous and varied cultural institutions, and the presence of many individuals with capacity for action.

This thesis provides evidence for the role of citizens and nature in making cities more resilient. It makes novel use of landscape concepts to understand how SESs function and provides directions for future enquiry and practical suggestions for using landscapes in ways that set in motion resilience-enhancing processes.

2 Literature Review

2.1 Introduction

Since urbanisation became widespread just over a century ago, urban problems and solutions have been framed in different ways. Earlier progressive urban paradigms such as the Sanitary City and the Modernist City have given way to the Green or Sustainable City, which is now increasingly being reframed as the Resilient City. The first section of the literature review briefly describes the evolution of these ideas. The second section explores in detail the concept of resilience and that of the SES, of which resilience is a state. The case is then made for the suitability of these concepts for studying cities, while also noting some weaknesses in need of remedy.

Given that the SES cannot be directly apprehended, landscape is proposed as a window into the SES. The third section of the literature review explores the concept of landscape, drawing on literature from landscape ecology, cultural geography and disciplines concerned with environmental perception and people-environment interactions. The discussion ranges from how landscapes function ecologically to the cultural constructions they communicate and how people respond to these messages. One possible response is action, and the review ends by describing some of the ways in which citizens are currently interacting with urban nature and landscapes. This review of the literature lays the groundwork for a proposition that certain landscapes may invite citizens to interact with them in ways that enhance the resilience of urban SESs. This grounds the focus of the thesis conceptually and empirically.

2.2 Framing urban problems and solutions

Starting with the recognition that cities both contribute and offer solutions to local and global environmental problems (Grimm et al., 2008), it is appropriate

to begin by exploring how these problems and solutions have been framed during processes of urbanisation over the past century.

Proposals for solving problems associated with an urbanising world were first elaborated in the late nineteenth century as a response to the health and social issues identified in cities. A series of new paradigms emerged, beginning with the Sanitary City, where new infrastructure was developed to bring in clean water and carry away unhealthy waste (Melosi, 2000; Pincetl, 2010). Subsequently, Ebenezer Howard, inspired by Frederick Law Olmstead’s work on public parks, envisioned and attempted to implement well-organised Garden Cities that would be ‘slumless and smokeless’ (Howard, 1902). The Modernist City, exemplified by Le Corbusier’s 1933 ‘Radiant City’ (Le Corbusier, 1967), sought to fully separate residential, productive and commercial uses and organise cities with machine-like efficiency.

Ironically, these early efforts to make cities healthier and improve citizens’ quality of life have created some of the key challenges that the more recent paradigms of the Green or Sustainable City seek to address. The Sanitary City, with its focus on drawing in resources and expelling wastes has been partly responsible for transferring the environmental (and social) costs of the city to the wider region and planet, creating an unsustainable ecological footprint (Rees & Wackernagel, 2008). The infrastructure of the Sanitary City has also been increasingly perceived as both environmentally damaging and too costly to maintain (Monstadt, 2009). This has elicited a variety of responses, including calls to instead “design with nature”, i.e. to recognise the city as integrated with the natural world and work with, instead of against, natural processes (Hough, 1989; McHarg, 1969; Spirn, 1984). More recently, proposals have been made for ‘biophilic cities’ that are designed fully in conjunction with nature (Beatley, 2010).

The de-centralised Modernist City has similarly created a need for expansive and expensive infrastructure, while encouraging overdependence on private automobiles with accompanying costs (Bergeron, 1999), and contributing to the erosion of communities, thus prompting Jane Jacob’s struggle for the

revitalisation of urban neighbourhoods (Jacobs, 1961). Calls to create cities on a human scale (Gehl, 2010), which are healthy for people (Hancock, 1993) and in harmony with nature (Register, 2006), continue to be key elements in sustainable cities agendas. There is also increasing emphasis on the need for people to see, interact with, and understand nature in the city in order to benefit from it, as well as value and protect it (Clayton & Myers, 2009; Miller & Hobbs, 2002). As more and more people live their entire lives in cities characterised by undervalued and largely invisible nature, there is fear of an ‘extinction of experience’ (Miller, 2005; Pyle, 1978) where people neither know nor care about the role of nature in their lives and are thus unlikely to concern themselves with its protection and enhancement.

Interest in green and sustainable cities has exploded over the past twenty years, as rapid urbanisation and growing concerns about global environmental health have combined to push the greening of cities further up the agenda. The issue was highlighted at the 1992 Earth Summit, and signatory nations committed to supporting Local Agenda 21 planning processes (Haughton & Hunter, 2003). The need for citizen participation was emphasised, which led many local authorities to implement participatory approaches (Freeman, 1996; Selman & Parker, 1997; Wild & Marshall, 1999).

This growing interest has served to stimulate a body of work seeking to identify the characteristics of sustainable cities. While emphasis varies, the sustainable city definitions generally share a number of criteria, which include: safeguarding human and environmental health; conserving biodiversity; incorporating nature and natural processes, including use of green infrastructure3 that favours closed-loop systems; promoting increasing self- reliance and minimisation of ecological footprints; compact and mixed use urban form; a high-quality urban realm; increased active and public transport; a sustainable economy; inclusive, transparent and effective governance structures and a social order that promotes fair distribution of resources and equitable access to sources of livelihood and public goods (Beatley, 2000; James & Lahti,

3 Green infrastructure is considered “to comprise all natural, semi-natural and artificial networks of multifunctional ecological systems within, around and between urban areas, at all spatial scales.” (Tzoulas et al., 2007)

2004; Kenworthy, 2006; Newman & Jennings, 2008; Register, 2006; Roseland, 1997).

Many of these elements have been integrated into visions of ‘cities as sustainable ecosystems’, which aspire to (a) reintegrate cities into their bioregional environments and (b) develop them in line with nature’s organising principles as applied to flows of energy, materials, and information, as well as interactions between human and non-human parts of the system (Newman & Jennings, 2008). Such perspectives generally view cities as large-scale systems, and some depict their functioning in terms of ‘urban metabolism’ (Girardet, 1990), analogous to that of a biological organism. This choice of scale is likely to render invisible a range of dynamics within urban systems, including the interactions of citizens with urban nature. Karvonen has recommended abandoning “macro characterisations of the urban ensemble…in favor of fine- grained investigations of hybrid interactions that bind the city into a whole” (2008, p. 59).

Descriptions of urban systems usually include both social and ecological elements, and a number of scholars specify that the city is a ‘social-ecological system’ or SES (Andersson, 2006; Elmqvist et al., 2004; Ernstson et al., 2010; Evans, 2011; Grimm et al., 2008). A SES is a complex and constantly changing system of people and nature (Berkes et al., 2000), and it has been identified as a highly suitable theoretical framework for studying cities “because it allows integration of ecosystem function with social dynamics" (Andersson, 2006, p. 2).

The SES concept is also very applicable to contemporary cities because of its assumption of complexity and change. Many cities throughout the world are growing rapidly, while others are shrinking, in parallel with economic, technological and social changes (Burdett & Sudjic, 2010). Along with these ongoing transitions, cities are more frequently confronted with sudden shocks, such as weather events (increasingly attributed to climate change), or financial crises with links to fluctuations in cost and supply of energy and other resources (Newman, Beatley, & Boyer, 2009). Given that efforts to maintain steady supplies will be thwarted by a constantly changing context, discussions about positive

futures for cities are moving away from a discourse of ‘sustainability’, where a certain level of provisioning can be sustained over the long term, to one of ‘resilience’.

There is a parallel here with the ‘maximum sustained yield’ approach common in natural resource management, which focuses on sustaining yields of certain species while paying little attention to the broader system. Resilience scholars have demonstrated how this approach ignores complexity and change within SESs, and has led to the collapse of fisheries and forestry operations (Holling, 1973). The term ‘maximum sustained yield’ is not inappropriate to describe current management of urban SESs, given that well-functioning cities are expected to supply residents (at least those with the capacity to pay) with a constant and abundant supply of water, energy, food, etc. Ebbs and flows in the availability of these resources locally are usually dealt with by accessing resources from further afield rather than attempting to reduce or adapt demand, or develop local alternatives.

A new generation of urban stakeholders is beginning to focus on ensuring that cities can adapt to continual change and withstand sudden shocks and extreme events (cf. Manchester City Council, 2009), and enhancing resilience is increasingly seen as the route forward for cities (Evans, 2011). ‘Resilience’ is the capacity of a system to continually change and adapt yet remain within critical thresholds (Holling, 1973). Resilience is also described as the capacity of systems to absorb disturbance, making it very applicable to cities, which are characterised by ecological disturbance (Gaston, Davies, & Edmondson, 2010).

This framing of current urban challenges, i.e. the need to enhance resilience in urban SESs, will guide this research, and the concepts of the SES and resilience will be discussed in greater detail in the next section.

2.3 Resilience in Urban Social-Ecological Systems – a role for citizens and nature?

Ideas about the separateness of nature and culture, and of the social and ecological realms more generally, have dominated in Western cultures for a very

long time (Glacken, 1967). However, much recent scholarship has been devoted to making the case for reintegration (cf. Latour, 1993; Whatmore, 2002). The increasing popularity of integrated social-ecological frameworks is testament to a growing discomfort with the traditional dualism. While different disciplines have interpreted SESs quite differently, variations on the concept are now in use across a range of disciplines, including anthropology, ecology, geography, economics, history, and sociology (Berkes et al., 2000; Brondizio, Ostrom, & Young, 2009; Grimm et al., 2008; Gunderson & Holling, 2002; Heynen, Kaika, & Swyngedouw, 2006; Kaika, 2005; Melosi, 2009).

Despite this common effort to view society and environment in an integrated manner, there has been a tendency to emphasise one or the other, as pointed out by Berkes, Folke, & Colding (2000, p. 4):

Many previous studies have analysed the impact of human activities on the ecosystem, but few have studied the interdependence of social systems and ecological systems. Depending on the discipline base of the author(s), either the social system or the ecological system tends of be taken as a 'given'. In many volumes on resource management and environmental studies, the human system has been treated as external to the ecosystem. By contrast, studies of institutions have mainly investigated processes within the social system, treating the ecosystem largely as a 'black box'. Berkes et al. attempt to fully integrate the social and the ecological by building on two existing strands of thought within natural resource management (Berkes, Folke, & Colding, 2000, 2):

1) systems approach and adaptive management with emphasis on linkages and feedback controls (primarily associated with C.S. Holling and Carl Walters)

2) institutions and property rights/people-oriented approach (associated with Elinor Ostom, Lance Gunderson, C.S. Holling and Stephen Light)

Ecologist C.S. Holling is credited with pioneering thinking about resilience in SESs in the 1970s. His research on the long-term ineffectiveness of pesticides to control spruce budworm outbreaks in spruce-fir forests led him to question both forest management practices and the concept of dynamic equilibrium that had dominated ecology for many years. Holling proposed instead the idea of multi- stable states, pointing out that change in natural systems is not linear and incremental. Instead, systems are configured and reconfigured by extreme

events. Therefore, environmental managers should not try to hold systems in a stable state (such as a uniformly mature forest to optimise timber yields) but rather increase the system’s ‘resilience’ or ability to adapt to change (Holling, 1973). Resilience is defined as: the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks4 (Walker et al., 2004) If the system does not have sufficient resilience, it is in danger of ‘crossing a threshold’ and moving into a different state or ‘regime’, which may be less desirable, e.g. a forest that cannot regenerate sufficiently to supply timber and remain economically viable (Folke et al., 2004). This is often illustrated using the 'ball-in-the-basin' representation of resilience.

Figure 1 The 'ball-in-the-basin' representation of resilience

“The state of this two dimensional system is the ball. Its dynamics cause it to move to the ‘attractor’ – the bottom of the basin. The system can change regimes either by the state changing or through changes in the shape of the basin (i.e. through changes in processes and system function, as shown in (b).” (Resilience Alliance, 2011) Holling subsequently refined his ideas and described how systems move through an ‘adaptive cycle’: a continuous cycle of growth, maturity, release and reorganisation. This is often illustrated using the metaphor of a forest, in which release (or creative destruction) occurs as a result of a fire or outbreak of pests (Holling, 1986). A resilient system will move through these phases without crossing the threshold into another regime.

4 This definition should not be confused with the engineering definition of resilience, which equates rate of return to equilibrium after perturbation. The application of this ‘recovery’ or ‘bouncing back’ interpretation to SESs is at odds with the non-linear, multi-state system described by Holling and more in keeping with the equilibrium model of ecology that he sought to reject (Holling, 1996). References to ‘bouncing back’ in discourses concerning resilient cities should therefore be questioned.

Figure 2 The Adaptive Cycle

(Gunderson & Holling, 2002, p. 34) (Zimmerman, Lindberg, & Plsek, 1998, p. 175)

Holling then built on the adaptive cycle to develop the concept of ‘panarchy’, which refers to: “nested sets of such cycles in hierarchies of diversity covering centimetres to hundreds of kilometres and days to millennia…and finally to the transformations that can cascade up the scales, with small, fast events affecting big, slow ones” (Holling, 2004, p. 1). Within a panarchy, the life cycles of individual organisms may affect species Figure 3 A Panarchy composition in ways that alter ecosystem functioning, which will also influence and be influenced by cycles at other scales including large and slow (and thus sometimes difficult to recognise) cycles such as climate change. The outcomes of these complex interactions are very difficult to predict. (Holling, Gunderson, & Peterson, 2002, p. 75)

Holling and colleagues went on to elaborate on how social systems had similar properties to ecological systems, and how, in resource management, the two systems were intertwined in ways that led to sometimes surprising outcomes. They concluded that a SES is a complex system where change can happen in any part of the system and affect other parts of the system in unpredictable ways. The properties of the SES are thus ‘emergent’, i.e. they cannot to be attributed to any particular part of the system but are a product of the system acting as whole (Gunderson & Holling, 2002).

The scholars mentioned above and others began to collaborate under the auspices of the Resilience Network, and later the Resilience Alliance (Folke, 2006), which has produced a number of useful tools, including the ‘key features of resilience’ (Walker & Salt, 2006, p. 146), which can be used to analyse and manage a SES.

Table 1 Key Features of a Resilient System

Key Features of Characteristics a Resilient System

Diversity Promotes and sustains biological, landscape, social, and economic diversity

Ecological Embraces ecological variability (rather than trying to control Variability natural cycles such as floods, droughts, insect outbreaks, fires, etc.)

Modularity Consists of modular components that are strongly linked internally but loosely connected to each other

Slow Variable Policies focus on the ‘slow’ controlling variables associated with thresholds so the system can absorb disturbance without shifting to an undesirable regime

Tight Feedbacks Consequences of change in one part of the system are quickly felt and strongly responded to by other parts of the system; thresholds are detected before crossed

Social Capital Stakeholders at all levels of governance are engaged in management; there is a strong level of trust in the leadership and strong penalties for cheaters

Innovation and There are local and formalised paths for sharing knowledge, which Learning are retained throughout the adaptive cycle; the system fosters experimentation (rather than focusing on process)

Overlap in There is more than one way to respond to change; redundancy is Governance built into the system’s institutions and other structures

Ecosystem The un-priced ecosystem services are recognized, valued, protected, Services and enhanced

(from Walker & Salt, 2006, p. 146)

It is notable that many of the above features indicate a potentially important role for citizens (with respect to building social capital, overlap in governance, diversity, innovation and learning) and nature (given the focus on ecosystem services, biological diversity and embracing ecological variability) in enhancing resilience. The role of people acting as citizens (and interacting with nature) within SESs has received attention from a relatively small group of scholars, given its potential significance as a contributor to resilient urban SESs (cf. Andersson, Barthel, & Ahrné, 2007; Barthel et al., 2005; Bendt, Barthel, & Colding, 2013; Elmqvist et al., 2004; Ernstson, Barthel, & Andersson, 2010; Barthel, Folke & Colding, 2010; Tidball & Krasny, 2007). As testament to the importance of this role, Barthel (2006) identified 24 local stewardship groups that were linked to the provision of ecosystem services such as recreation, air filtration, pollination and seed dispersal in Stockholm. He describes how these citizen stewards: operate under diverse property-right regimes. Local actor groups in the [National Urban] park alter biotopes and associated ecosystem services. Their specific management practices sustain diversity of culturally transformed biotopes on a landscape level and seem to be one contributing factor for the rich species diversity currently found in the park. (Barthel, 2006, p. 306)

Barthel shows that “social-ecological interactions by actors in the park deliver various and specific ecosystem services to the cityscape” and “local actor groups contribute to ecological resilience, and thereby to the flow of desirable ecosystem services” (Ibid., p. 307). These interactions, involving different groups of citizen stewards, respond to the need for ‘resilient cityscapes’, to which a diverse set of management practices are applied in order to maintain the greatest range of ecosystem services, as identified by Andersson (2006, p. 4).

The focus on safeguarding the resilience of a system assumes that the system is in a ‘desirable regime’, which is worth preserving. In cities, however, many systems have already tipped into another ‘basin of attraction’ and are in an undesirable regime, which may in itself be resilient. The desired resilience in this case is at a higher scale of the urban SES panarchy, which has pockets of resilience in desirable regimes with the potential to support the transformation of undesirable regimes. Resilience scholars have recognised that ‘making the

system resilient at a regional scale, for example, may require transformational changes at lower scales’ (Folke et al., 2010, quoted in Walker & Salt, 2012).

As the planet has a large number of systems in undesirable regimes, two additional features of resilient systems have been added to the original list shown in Table 1: ‘transformability’, which is the capacity to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic, or social structures make the existing system untenable, and ‘adaptability’, which is “the capacity of actors in the system to influence resilience (in a SES, essentially to manage it)” (Walker et al., 2004, p. 1). This again seems to signal a potential role for citizens working to steward, restore or transform urban nature.

Additionally, attempts to transform complex adaptive systems are best undertaken at a smaller scale because the complexity and unpredictability of these systems make large-scale interventions risky, as well as costly. As a result, manipulations that have been successful in complex adaptive systems have often been modest in size and have worked within the system’s grassroots capacity for adaptation and learning rather than imposing a particular planning or management goal from the top down. (Cumming et al., 2012)

This reinforces the suggestion that diverse groups of citizens working at local sites and engaged in a constant process of learning and adaptation are well placed to undertake the work of transforming the many untenable regimes that characterise most cities.

This emphasis on the importance of ‘transformability’ and ‘adaptability’ contrasts starkly with the idea of coping with the fallout of a system over which one has no influence, a situation which has come to be associated with ‘resilience’ in recent years. During the period of this research, the use of the term has expanded considerably and it has been applied to a variety of contexts. In the process, the quite different ways in which resilience is used in distinct fields seem to have become blurred. Discussions of what sometimes sounds like social- ecological resilience seem increasingly to make reference to the ‘bouncing back’ associated with resilience of materials in physics and engineering. This obliterates complex processes of learning and adaptation, along with the possibility of the emergence of something preferable to the pre-existing situation.

Similarly, descriptions of community resilience seem to draw on concepts of psychological resilience, which was originally used to explain why some people (especially children) emerged relatively unscathed from difficult life events. This is increasingly interpreted to mean that, like the ‘resilient child’ who somehow managed to survive deprivation and abuse, communities are now called upon to weather financial crises and the austerity programmes imposed upon them. Harrison (2013) for example cites various examples of how resilience is being used in the UK to shift burdens onto communities. This has led to a growing critique of resilience as a support for maintaining neoliberal political projects, as the below comment illustrates:

As an analytic framework (if it can even be called that) “resilience” studiously, perhaps even judiciously, ignores every important question about the contradictions of capital accumulation and circulation, about uneven development, about enabling political structures, about state strategies of ‘growth machine’ branding – I could go on. (Slater, 2014)

It is understandable that the meanings of resilience have become conflated because they all have something to do with the capacity to absorb disturbance. However in their details, they are often quite contradictory. Descriptions of community resilience are generally strongly associated with the presence of social bonds, which makes it odd to link community resilience to the idea of making it alone in a situation of adversity and powerlessness that psychological resilience conveys. The latter individualist perspective is firmly rooted in “late twentieth century Western if not US-American views of human agency” (Obrist, Pfeiffer, & Henley, 2010, p. 287). The multi-scale concept of resilience in SESs recognises that the resilience of an individual or a community is the result of the resilience of complex systems at multiple scales (systems that include social, political and economic structures) rather than being solely due to the internal capacity of an individual or a group of people.

Similarly, as described earlier in this chapter, resilience in SESs is all about continual change and the emergent properties of complex systems. Bouncing back to a pre-existing state is more or less impossible. Furthermore, maintaining similar structures and functions is only desirable if the social-ecological system in question is functioning well. If instead the system is stuck in a dysfunctional regime, which undermines overall social-ecological resilience, then it is in need

of transformation. From this perspective, it is the global financial system that is undermining social-ecological resilience at multiple scales and is thus in need of transformation, rather than the affected communities who must develop capacity to cope with its dysfunction. As Lang (2011, pp. 17–18) states: “Linked to questions of economic development, a system perspective helps to shift the focus to the long-term structure of macroeconomic relationships and the relevant social, economic, and political institutions conditioning these structures. Translated into economic development, studying resilience would involve studying the rise, stability, and decay of institutions conditioning long-term economic growth.” Lang goes on to conclude that “neoliberal thought as a dominant feature of current capitalism can be seen as having become maladaptive, and as being a major threat to urban and regional resilience.” (Lang, 2011, p. 21)

By applying the concepts of the adaptive cycle (Figure 2) and the features of resilience (Table 1), it could be concluded that the economic system is in a ‘rigidity trap’5. Despite its tendency toward creative destruction, its managers hold it in a stable state where the impact of its collapse looms ever more dangerous. Its all encompassing reach largely blocks experiments and development of alternatives at other scales. It is the extreme opposite of ‘modular’, which compounds its rigidity trap as it becomes seen as ‘too big to fail’.

A resilience scholar would look at the current global economic system as being an example of the approach that Holling criticised in the 1970s, i.e. the maximum sustained yield of one component of a system at the expense of overall resilience. In the case of the impact on economically marginalised communities, the relationship with the broader economic context is not one that calls on their resilience but one that undermines it. The more that people have to devote their time and energy to struggling to meet basic needs and dealing with stresses such as debt and inadequate housing, and the less they can draw on resources of good health and education, the less resilient they become. In this context, their

5 A rigidity trap occurs in a SES when institutions become highly connected, self-reinforcing, and inflexible (Carpenter & Brock, 2008). They often get stuck in the ‘maturity’ phase of the adaptive cycle.

capacity to develop creative, adaptive solutions becomes extremely limited and there is little chance that they will be able to contribute to the resilience of their community.

Current interpretations of resilience are not justification for rejection of resilience thinking, which as described above has contributions to make to the analysis of the very questions that it stands accused of ignoring. Resilience thinking can also benefit from being combined with other analytical lenses that explicitly recognise the political nature of what is taking place as resources are concentrated and controlled by a powerful minority. In response, some resilience scholars have moved towards disciplines such as critical geography and political ecology in order to analyse urban ecologies (Ernstson, 2014).

It is unfortunate that resilience like sustainability before it has been appropriated to maintain the status quo and reinforce power structures rather then challenging them in the way that SES research rejected the idea of dynamic equilibrium. More complex understandings of resilience are at a disadvantage in comparison to simple ideas about bouncing back and coping. It is however worth defending the conceptual understanding that has emerged from nearly forty years of SES research as it represents one of the few areas where there has been practical progress in integrated analysis of social-ecological systems.

An example of this progress has been the success of Berkes et al.'s project to "relate resource management practices based on ecological understanding, to the social mechanisms behind these practices, in a variety of geographical settings, cultures and ecosystems" (2000, p. 4). They and fellow members of the Resilience Alliance have documented dozens of significant case studies in ecosystems throughout the world. They have demonstrated that SESs should be understood neither as humans embedded in an ecological system nor ecosystems embedded in human systems (Westley, Carpenter, Brock, Holling, & Gunderson, 2002).

However, despite the expanding body of work, including the urban SES case studies described above, the application of the SES concept to cities still poses challenges. Alessa et al. claim that SES analyses have too often focused on “neat”

systems “involving a single type of resource, a group of users, and a governance system" and are therefore not easily applicable to "the totality of human settlements, including social organization and technologies that result in the movement of materials, energy, water, and people" (2009, p. 31). In an attempt to deal with the complexity of urban systems, these authors have proposed the “messy SES”, which recognises that different distribution systems characterising different settlements result in different types of SESs and thus require different approaches to fostering resilience (Ibid.). One of the different distribution systems present in cities may issue from the action of citizens.

Other scholars (e.g. Ernstson et al., 2010; Evans, 2011; Trosper, 2005) have suggested that challenges in applying SES concepts to cities are a result of insufficient attention to the social side of the SES equation:

Given its origins in ecology, it is not surprising that most resilience scholars have historically been interested in empirical analyses of non-urban areas and have devoted less attention to the specifically human and social elements of human-dominated systems, such as cities. (Ernstson et al., 2010, p. 533) Trosper maintains that the social aspect is treated too simplistically because "most socio-ecological studies focus on material relationships, without sufficient attention to cultural issues"(Trosper, 2005, p. 10). He proposes dealing with the complexity of the social through a focus on emergence. Like his fellow Resilience Alliance members and other complexity scholars, Trosper sees emergence as a result of change happening in a part of the system that affects other parts of the system in unpredictable ways. He sees human culture as a primary source of emergence, resulting from people monitoring and regulating ecosystems according to a variety of cultural constructs (Trosper, 2005, 1).

In order to address what he sees as inadequate attention to culture in the SES concept, Trosper turns to the work of sociologist Margaret Archer (2000), whose analysis of emergent structures yielded two very helpful ideas for understanding SESs. First, Archer distinguishes among three emergent structures in a system: material, cultural and people. This effectively splits the 'social' into 'culture' and 'people', where the former refers to institutions (in the larger sense of the word) and the latter to individual people with the capacity to act. This recognises the strength of cultural institutions while still crediting people with agency.

Secondly, Archer (2000) points out that cultural structures consist of sets of ideas that are related to each other in a variety of ways, and that it is these relationships that produce the emergent properties of the structure.

Archer's division of emergent structures into material, cultural and people (I will refer to the latter as ‘agency’ for greater clarity) and Trosper’s suggestion to apply this framework to understanding SESs, serve as a starting point for the conceptual development of this thesis. The conceptual contribution of the thesis is to link Trosper’s version of the SES concept to concepts of landscape because landscapes offer windows into SESs and analysis of them can help elucidate people-nature interactions in urban SESs. The potential for landscape thinking to shed some light on how citizens engage with SESs is underexplored, and this thesis seeks to fill this gap. It is hoped that this will contribute to the body of work described above concerning the role of citizens in urban SESs.

2.4 Seeing the System through Landscape

As described in the last section, the SES is an appropriate framework for analysing people-nature interactions and assessing resilience. However, in order to better understand these interactions, they will need to be observed. Given that the SES is an underlying mechanism that cannot be directly apprehended, a possible lens through which to study the SES is that of landscape6. Most definitions of landscape emphasise people’s perceptions of and interactions with landscape, thus allowing both direct observation and intervention in ways that are not possible in relation to the SES itself. The widely cited European Landscape Convention, for example, defines landscape as “an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and interaction of natural and/or human factors.” (Council of Europe, 2000, p. 3)

Like SES, ‘landscape’ is understood somewhat differently across disciplines. Wattchow (2013) describes it as a “classic trans-disciplinary concept”. However, it seems that in all cases it includes both natural and cultural elements, and it

6 Cumming (2011) has argued that a landscape and its constituents should be considered a SES, and Andersson (2006, p. 2) says that urban landscapes are best described as SESs.

refers to a certain scale, a unit of environment that a human being ‘can make sense of” as Gobster et al. (2007) explain:

While human and environmental phenomena occur at widely varying scales, humans engage with environmental phenomena at a particular scale: that of human experience of our landscape surroundings. That is the human ‘‘perceptible realm.” (p. 959)

Landscape is applicable to a range of scales, limited only by the view of the perceiver, and at the same time it is a bounded system (Cadenasso et al., 2003), thus facilitating its description and analysis. A landscape fits into a manageable frame: a panoramic view from a lookout; a painting of an Arcadian scene in an art gallery; a train window from which the English Landscape was defined (Hoskins, 1955); or an aerial photograph, which played a role in the development of landscape ecology (Bastian, 2001, p. 758). An observer makes sense of its elements and the connections among them, making a variety of interpretations, related for example to ecosystems, land use or ideal places. The landscape scale is also that at which citizens engage and make changes (Termorshuizen & Opdam, 2009), which in turn effects changes in humans and in ecosystems (Gobster et al., Ibid.).

Landscape is a complex but also a pragmatic concept. In the European context, landscape is increasingly understood as an important element in both rural and urban planning in order to protect natural and cultural resources (Council of Europe, 2000). A range of practitioners work with the concept of landscape, including urban planners, architects, landscape architects, landscape ecologists, and greenspace/green infrastructure managers. As described in Section 4.2.3.2, the professionals engaged in supporting citizen engagement with urban nature who were interviewed used the term ‘landscape’ when describing people-nature interactions. Landscape is therefore a lens that facilitates the application of findings as well as the study of phenomena.

It should also be noted that landscape is increasingly seen as an appropriate lens for looking at, and making, cities. Waldheim asserts that, “Across a range of disciplines, landscape has become a lens through which the contemporary city is represented and a medium through which it is constructed” (2006, p. 15). A researcher observing urban landscapes with his or her own eyes (i.e., without the aid of aerial photographs or other aids) is undertaking a fine-grained

investigation of the city, as recommended by Karvonen (2008). At this level, one can observe a range of examples of citizens interacting with urban nature and transforming urban landscapes. Such examples would be at risk of falling under the radar at another scale of analysis. This also makes landscape an appropriate lens for a study of the role of citizens in enhancing urban resilience.

While the concept of landscape is used in a range of disciplines, the next sections will focus particularly on perspectives from landscape ecology, cultural geography and environmental perception. These disciplines have the potential to reveal the three emergent structures of the SES (material, cultural and agency) that are reflected in what I will describe as the ‘material landscape’, the ‘cultural landscape’ and ‘responding to the landscape'. Different disciplinary perspectives are brought to bear on this layered exploration of landscape, where each seeks to understand the social and/or the ecological component based on a somewhat different ontology and epistemology. Analyses of what is happening in a particular landscape with respect to its material state, the experiences it produces for people, and the ways in which they respond, can be subsequently integrated in order to shed light on the working of the SES.

2.4.1 The Material Landscape

The ‘material landscape’ is understood to be the landscape that is actually there in so far as can be ascertained7, and it can be studied from different disciplinary perspectives. As landscape is being used in this research as a window into SESs, it is the ecological workings of the material landscape that are of particular interest. Therefore, landscape ecology offers the most appropriate disciplinary lens. According to the International Association of Landscape Ecology (IALE), ‘‘Landscape ecology is the study of the interactions between the temporal and spatial aspects of a landscape and its flora, fauna & cultural components’’ (IALE, 2008, cited in Fry et al., 2009, p. 934). According to Wu (2006, p. 1), it is a science of heterogeneity, which is both "cause and

7 The material landscape corresponds to the ontological domain of the ‘actual’ according to the philosophical framework of critical realism, which is discussed further in 3.4.1.

consequence of diversity and complexity in natural and social systems." This augurs well for the usefulness of landscape ecology in analysing SESs.

Biogeographer Carl Troll coined the term ‘landscape ecology’ in the 1930s, as he interpreted aerial photographs of the East African savannah (note how the photographs provided a frame, bounding a system, ‘a landscape’, that Troll could then make sense of). Troll sought to combine the vertical functional aspect of ecology with the spatial aspect of geography (Bastian, 2001; Wu, 2006), allowing him to analyse the interactions among certain elements within a certain area. Like many disciplines in the ensuing decades, landscape ecology was subject to both fragmentation and the application of reductionist perspectives. However, a focus on the spatial aspect and the heterogeneity of nature within a landscape remained (Bastian, 2001). Forman and Godron's (1981) definition of landscape as an ecological unit with structure and function based on matter and energy flows, and their structural typology of patch, corridor and matrix8 are still considered core concepts. These concepts are used to assist in the interpretation of the empirical data in Section 5.2.9.

Thus, for a landscape ecologist, landscape is the scale at which ecological structures and processes can be understood. This knowledge has practical applications in managing for resilience because, according to Wu (Ibid.), landscape is also the scale at which nature-society interactions can be meaningfully addressed. Bastian (2001, p. 761) says that landscape ecology is an applied science, which has a practical role in attending to “the metabolism between human beings and earth”. It incorporates appraisal, history, planning and management, conservation, and restoration (Naveh and Lieberman, 1994). The potential for practical application to the evaluation of resilience is growing as the discipline shifts from “plot-based and question-driven studies to place- based and solution-driven investigations, with increasing subjectivity and uncertainty in system description and prediction" (Wu, 2006, p. 3).

8 The matrix is the largest area of connected habitat within a landscape; patches are smaller areas of habitat and corridors connect them (Forman, 1995).

Is this discipline, with its roots in the savannah, an appropriate lens for understanding urban SESs? Andersson (2006) addresses the applicability of landscape ecology to cities and identifies one potential limitation: a central tenet of landscape ecology is that ecosystem function can be inferred from geographical patterns. The situation is more complex in urban landscapes due to environmental management and other interventions by humans. In effect, all urban SESs are exposed to cultural and natural selection at the same time. Andersson claims that ecological functioning in cities is poorly understood and that this needs to be remedied given that people are guiding the evolution of SESs in ways that influence their resilience (Andersson, 2006). This provides justification for studies of urban landscape ecology at scales that can be understood and applied by people involved in transforming landscapes, be they citizens, infrastructure developers or policymakers.

Bastian (2001, p. 764) after having made the case that landscape ecology’s integrated and interdisciplinary approach makes it an asset for people managing landscapes, notes that it does create a "transformation problem, i.e., the step from categories of nature to those of society (and vice versa)". He proposes that the best way to resolve this problem is through attention to "landscape function". He stresses that this is distinct from landscape functions as understood by Forman, i.e., "fluxes of energy, mineral nutrients and species between landscape elements" or "patch-matrix interactions" (Ibid.). Instead Bastian's landscape functions are equivalent to what we now usually refer to as ecosystem services, i.e. the benefits that people get from nature9 (Costanza et al., 1997; Ranganathan et al., 2008). Other authors have also argued that ecosystem services are what links landscape ecology and sustainability science (Potschin & Haines-Young, 2006), as well as physical systems (ecosystems or landscapes) and human values (Termorshuizen & Opdam, 2009). Grimm et al. (2008) sum up the connections between urban SESs, landscapes and ecosystem services as follows:

9 Ecosystem services can be roughly divided into four categories: provisioning, such as the production of food and water; regulating, such as the control of climate and disease; supporting, such as nutrient cycles and crop pollination; and cultural, such as spiritual and recreational benefits (Ranganathan et al., 2008).

Evolving conceptual frameworks for urban ecology view cities as heterogeneous, dynamic landscapes and as complex, adaptive, socioecological systems, in which the delivery of ecosystem services links society and ecosystems at multiple scales (p. 756). As an interface between people and nature, the concept of ecosystem services merits deeper consideration. Interest in ecosystem services (or ‘nature’s services’) began to be manifested in the 1990s (Costanza et al., 1997; Daily, 1997) and was rapidly and broadly taken up, becoming a key conceptual framework for the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. While most research on ecosystem services has focused on ‘natural’ areas, it is increasingly recognised that human-dominated urban ecosystems can also provide services (Lovell & Johnston, 2009). A range of ecosystem services has been identified at the urban long-term ecological research (LTER) site in Phoenix, Arizona, for example (Farber et al., 2006). Ecosystem services most likely to be supplied in urban areas include: air filtering, microclimate regulation, noise reduction, rainwater drainage, sewage treatment, and recreational and cultural values (Bolund & Hunhammar, 1999). These authors concluded that these “locally generated ecosystem services have a substantial impact on the quality-of-life in urban areas and should be addressed in land-use planning” (p. 293).

Like other processes within a SES, ecosystem services are also products of emergence. Thus efforts to maintain them should be oriented towards managing for resilient SESs rather than for individual ecosystem services. As Ernstson et al. (2010) explain:

Often disturbances and changes in slow variables are influenced by cross-scale interactions and likewise should ecosystem services be seen as emergent from interlinked processes at different scales. Ecosystem services are thus not controllable in themselves, but different regimes uphold distinct sets of ecosystem services, and some ecosystem services could be lost (and others emerge) when a new regime is established. (p. 533) Termorshuizen and Opdam (2009) make further recommendations for the practical application of knowledge about landscape ecology and ecosystem services to sustainable landscape management10. They note that landscape

10 Sustainable landscape management involves changing the landscape to improve its functioning and create additional value. Such change is usually oriented towards increasing the landscape’s multi-functionality in order to simultaneously meet economic, social and ecological needs (Termorshuizen & Opdam, 2009). It is equivalent to the process of transformation of undesirable regimes within the resilient system framework as described in Section 2.2.

management is becoming more de-centralised and collaborative and therefore local actors need relevant information. These actors need to understand the relationship between the desired landscape value and proposed changes in form and function of the physical landscape at a local scale. In order to meet this information need, Termorshuizen and Opdam suggest translating the concept of ecosystem services to ‘landscape services’ and in parallel adding ‘value’ to landscape ecology’s current focus on pattern-process. This would provide locally focused knowledge that would allow for comparison between the values of different functions (noting that landscape functions translate into services when people value them and that, therefore, one function can offer several services).

These authors conclude by clarifying that landscape services are a specification of ecosystem services rather than an alternative (Termorshuizen & Opdam, 2009). This corresponds well with the understanding of landscape as lens into the SES as described at the beginning of this section: While the SES may offer a range of ecosystem services, it is at the level of the (cultural and material) landscape that people can begin to make sense of nature’s functions and services and thus try to manage for their maintenance and enhancement.

This section has focused on trying to understand how an urban landscape functions from the perspective of landscape ecologists. This serves to lay the groundwork for understanding how citizens might interact with and possibly transform landscapes in ways that enhance ecosystem functions and provision of ecosystem services. However, as Trosper (2005) observes:

Humans monitor and regulate ecosystems based on their cultural systems. Cultural systems consist of concepts linked in complicated ways that can form consistent worldviews, can contain inconsistencies, and may or may not accurately model the properties of a social–ecological system. (p. 1). Landscape ecology is a science-based cultural system and like traditional ecological knowledge, which is gained from long-term interaction with a particular ecosystem, it is likely to be more sensitive to the workings of an ecosystem than some other cultural systems. The next section will explore some of the other cultural systems that construct the experienced landscape, which is the landscape that influences how people see and interact with the material one.

2.4.2 The Experienced Landscape

Humans are different from other species in a SES because our responses to stimuli are less biologically predetermined. We make decisions (consciously or unconsciously) based on a complex array of emotions and information, and these decisions and the actions that ensue have the potential to make a SES more or less resilient. This generally happens at the level of landscape where “Interactions within this [perceptible] realm give rise to aesthetic experiences, which can lead to changes affecting humans and the landscape, and thus ecosystems.” (Gobster et al., 2007, p. 959)

Transforming the role of humans in a landscape and hence a SES requires an understanding of how people formulate the perceptions that drive actions. In order to do this, we turn first to the cultural geography literature of cultural constructions of the environment and of the ways in which landscapes contribute to their development. Secondly, we draw on disciplines concerned with environmental perception and people-environment interactions to explore how individuals respond to these landscapes. This division between ‘construction/perception’ and ‘response’ builds on the idea that the social side of the SES should be sub-divided into ‘cultural’ and ‘agency’ as derived from the work of Trosper (2005) and Archer (1988) described at the end of Section 2.3. The following sections explore the ‘cultural landscape’ and ‘responding to the landscape’.

2.4.2.1 The Cultural Landscape

In his classic text Landscape and Power, Mitchell (1994, pp. 1-2) describes the tremendous power of landscape to construct reality and shape behaviours:

Landscape, we suggest, doesn’t merely signify or symbolize power relations; it is an instrument of cultural power, perhaps even an agent of power that is (or frequently represents itself as) independent of human intentions. Landscape as a cultural medium thus has a double role with respect to something like ideology: it naturalizes a cultural and social construction, representing an artificial world as if it were simply given and inevitable, and it also makes that representation operational by interpellating its beholder in some more or less determinate relation to its givenness as sight and site.

People act, and therefore impact, on their environments according to cultural constructs (Kirk, 1952; Relph, 1989), be they their own or those of others, to

which they adhere by choice or obligation. Landscapes are understood as being both the result and driver of these constructs (Mitchell, 1994; Nassauer, 1995; Smith, 2006), with Nassauer (Ibid., p. 229) asserting that “human landscape perception, cognition, and values affect the landscape and are affected by the landscape”.

The power of landscape to construct reality, including our ideas about the natural environment and our role in it, is a key concept in cultural geography (Cosgrove & Daniels, 1988; Duncan, 1993). The appearance of solidity and naturalness that is inherent in landscape gives it a particular power to ‘make real’, to naturalise and normalise (Cosgrove, 1984). The concepts of ‘landscape as text’ and ‘intertextuality’ (where messages from landscapes interact with those from other media) seek to explain how landscapes communicate (Ibid.). The fence around a park, for example, is integrated with regulations and cultural norms. Not only do these ‘texts’ of fence and rules reinforce one another, they often combine to create a seamless single message. The fence signifies ‘keep off’ because we are taught not to ‘trespass’, and the ubiquitous presence of fences in the landscape naturalises ideas of private property and exclusion. It is therefore clear that, in keeping with an understanding of the city as a SES, we must understand cultural landscapes as integrating physical forms and processes with social institutions.

Although cities may be SESs, the separation of people and nature is still a dominant narrative11 within the urban landscape; “the urban becomes ‘naturalized’, as if it has always been there on the one hand, and as distinct and separate from nature on the other” (Kaika & Swyngedouw, 2000, p. 123). As the city itself is often portrayed as evidence of the damage caused by humans, it seems right that the ‘countryside’ or ‘wilderness’ should exist apart and be, as much as possible, safeguarded from human activities (Cronon, 1996). Human activity is assumed to damage nature (Ibid.; Melosi, 1993) and examples of positive effects, such as urbanisation leading to increased patch fragmentation

11 ‘Narrative’ refers to “both the story that is told and the means of telling, implying both product and process, form and formation, structure and structuration. Narrative is thus a more comprehensive and inclusive term than story.” (Potteiger & Purinton, 1998, p. 3)

and diversity (Grimm et al., 2008, p. 756) are rarely signposted.12 The message that human impact on nature is intrinsically negative is likely to limit people’s engagement with nature.13

As nature is understood to be absent from the city, so the city is also seen as disconnected from natural systems (Heynen et al., 2006). This is a message that is relayed very forcefully by the urban landscape; most contemporary built environments are particularly effective at hiding the workings of the natural world underneath the pavement and belying the connections to regional and global processes (Hough, 2004; Kaika & Swyngedouw, 2000). This contrasts with preindustrial cities, where the visible infrastructure of irrigation revealed the workings of nature (Strang, 1996).

The idea that the city is somehow outside nature is reinforced by complementary texts within planning frameworks that make natural systems and processes invisible by converting them into abstract space, leading to landscapes that incorporate this message:

Land-use planning formalizes the separation between nature and abstract space through the written codes of legal statute and professional conduct which impose a site-based, rather than system-based, narrative structure on its treatment of the environment…The bio-physical processes of the natural world are thus fragmented and marginalized in the evolution of planning procedures and protocols better suited to discriminating between particular environmental features and compositions. (Whatmore & Boucher, 1993, p. 169)

Once urban landscapes successfully convey that the natural environment is not an appropriate home for humans, the uncontrolled appearance of nature and ‘natural cycles’ is seen as a threat to order. Matless describes the desire to preserve certain ‘appropriate’ landscapes “as expressing a particular modernism,

12 One exception in stories told of human dominated landscapes is provided by Barthel (2006): “The millennia- long land-use history of the area where the contemporary National Urban Park is located [in Stockholm] has resulted in a unique cultural landscape that is rich in terms of biodiversity. Few areas of the same size in Sweden show such a high species diversity.” (p. 307) 13 Krasny and Tidball (2010) describe recent challenges to the dominant narratives of city-nature separation and negative people-nature relationships. They refer to the work of Andrew Light (2003) who identified the emergence of a civic environmentalism that concerns itself with nature in cities and sees people as part of the ecosystem, as opposed to traditional environmentalism, which focuses on conserving “pristine wilderness”. Krasny and Tidball have coined the term ‘civic ecology’ in order to better reflect a resilient SES perspective. The emergence of civic environmentalism and civic ecology may suggest an evolution in people-nature interactions. Having moved from a utilitarian view of nature to an ecocentric view that sees nature as independent of people (and best kept separate from human activity), a trend has now been identified where a more interactive relationship is sought (Buijs, Elands, & Langers, 2009; Teel et al., 2007).

committed to order and design, whether in country or city, indoors or out” (1998, p. 14). This modernist commitment to order is echoed in many contemporary urban landscapes, which communicate the message that cleanliness and orderliness (where even fallen leaves or ‘weeds’ are considered undesirable) are key social goals, and areas that do not attain these goals are seen as neglected and impoverished. This has a very practical result with respect to greening infrastructure, as it may impact on the willingness of people to accept efforts to increase resilience, such as the planting of trees in their neighbourhoods or the incorporation of areas of wildflowers and habitat for natural predators (Pincetl, 2010). Similarly, efforts to ‘protect oneself from nature’ by putting up barriers to natural processes, e.g. flood control (often very visible in the landscape) may decrease resilience (Ernstson et al., 2010).

While some processes in cities are hidden or disrupted, others are created, leading to contested constructions of urban metabolism. One particularly strong narrative is transmitted by landscapes of pipes and roadways carrying things in and out of the city. This idea of ‘circulation’, where a city should function as a healthy human body with food coming in and waste going out, has a long history (Sennett, 1994) and formed the basis for ideas about the Sanitary City (Melosi, 2000).

In addition to communicating a separation of people and nature, urban landscapes tend to convey the sense that citizens can have no role in shaping them. Modern cities are seldom built on a human scale (Gehl, 2010) and appear susceptible only to institutional interventions, involving planners and technological modifications, rather than citizen action (Gandy, 2006). Most urban landscapes give the impression of being very resistant to any kind of change, i.e. they display ‘obduracy’ (Hommels, 2005).

While there are many common sense explanations for obduracy related to the cost and complexity of replacing large infrastructure, Hommels (Ibid.) claims that the real reasons are more complex. By merging urban studies and science and technology studies (STS), Hommels applies the social construction of technology (SCOT) to cities, claiming that planning is a technology and the city,

an artefact. Within the SCOT process, an artefact begins with a certain degree of ‘interpretative flexibility’ (different meanings are attributed by different social groups) and gradually stabilises so that interpretive flexibility gives way to a ‘dominant frame’, which results in obduracy, where “previous meaning attributions limit flexibility of later ones” (Ibid., p. 23). In a final stage, the artefact’s content is related to the wider socio-political milieu, and shifting meaning subsequently becomes very difficult. Obduracy is also explained by ‘embeddedness’, the artefact’s ties with other elements in a network, both human and material, and ‘persistent traditions’, which encourage the maintenance or installation of certain types of infrastructure regardless of whether they are adapted to the time or place (Ibid.).

Beyond having the capacity to make change, sometimes even the right to be in an urban space seems questionable. The perimeter of the space where most people feel they belong and can exert some control has gradually shrunk from a public/community space to a privately owned house (Harvey, 2003). The erasing of local narratives so that local residents are no longer part of the story—or so that there is no story—also contributes to the loss of a sense of place and belonging (Tuan, 1977). This is particularly true where the landscape signals corporate or commercial space (Hou, 2010).

In summary, many urban landscapes convey some key messages that are of relevance to this research project, as outlined below.

(a) Empowerment to change the city:

 The city and its infrastructure are not susceptible to change (obduracy)  Ordinary citizens do not have the power to make change; it is the domain of politicians, planners and the private sector (exclusion, disempowerment)  The city does not belong to citizens (one’s place/home is limited to one’s house at most), and therefore citizens have no right to change it

(b) Nature in the city

 There is no nature in the city  Nature does not belong in the city  The functioning of the city is not dependent on natural processes  Nature must be controlled  Humans impact negatively on nature

While the above are the dominant narratives inscribed in contemporary urban landscapes, there are examples of landscapes that have conveyed different messages about nature in the landscape, as well as the route to a resilient city. Barthel, Sörlin, & Ljungkvist (2010) describe the presence of gardens within the walls of Constantinople as an important reminder of the city’s dependence on nature for food, a fact that only otherwise became obvious to urban dwellers when the city was under siege. Furthermore, cultural geographers have frequently asserted that landscapes are not static and that people’s relationship with them are not passive. Rather, “the landscape is a terrain of struggle where various agents continually attempt to impose and/or resist differing representational constructs” (Rose, 2002, p. 459). The next section will explore this individual and collective resistance, and, more generally, how individuals respond to the messages described above.

2.4.2.2 Responding to the Landscape

As with any form of communication or ‘text’, the landscape conveys messages. These messages are not, however, uniformly received or responded to. This is evident in a comparison that Raymond Williams makes between his own response to an urban landscape and that of H.G. Wells:

H. G. Wells once said, coming out of a political meeting where they had been discussing social change, that this great towering city was a measure of the obstacle, of how much must be moved if there was to be any change. I have known this feeling, looking up at great buildings that are the centres of power, but I find I do not say ‘There is your city, your great bourgeois monument, your towering structure of this still precarious civilisation’ or I do not only say that; I say also ‘This is what men have built, so often magnificently, and is not everything then possible?’ (Williams, 1975, p. 15)

Just as Archer (2000) made the case for greater emphasis on human agency within the social sciences, other authors have argued against a prevailing image of the passive urban dweller. While urban landscapes may ‘tell’ people that they have no active role to play, the relationship is not a simple or passive one; individuals experience and interact with urban landscapes in a range of complex ways (de Certeau, 1984; Thwaites & Simkins, 2007). It has been asserted that the landscape itself “is sustained not through something inherent within it but

through the everyday practices and activities that surround it” (Rose, 2002, p. 457).

Take for example the power of the obduracy of the city (Hommels, 2005) and its effect on the tendency of individuals to try to change urban landscapes, which was described in the last section. As the above quote indicates, individuals vary in their sensitivity to obduracy. What made Raymond Williams feel less overpowered by it than H.G. Wells? It may have been an inherent tendency toward optimism or a better night’s sleep, and there may have been other elements of their life experiences or surrounding contexts that exerted influence. How these observers talk about what they see, or whether they decide to actually intervene in the landscape, will in turn have an effect on how other people experience it. The experiences of these other people will be a product of both the result of the intervention and the act of intervening by certain actors.

Thwaites (2001, p. 246) summarises the work of David Canter (1997), crediting him with “developing place theory suggesting that an individual’s perception of place has three constituents: the physical components; the activities that occur there; and the individual’s thoughts, meanings and understandings”. Thwaites adds, citing Tuan, that it is not just the understanding that a single individual brings which is important, but also communication among individuals: “places can become stabilized by groups through shared activities and common language”. Therefore, the ideas, actions and experiences of individuals and groups within a particular place will greatly influence individual responses to place—or landscape. Just as we bring our identity and memories to bear on a book we are reading, so we interpret the text of the landscape.

How might this be manifested in responses to landscape messages that are likely to affect engagement with urban landscapes? These would include responses to the evidence of nature and natural processes, to obduracy, and to what I will call ‘an invitation to act’ (related to empowerment and engagement with place). The remainder of this section provides a summary of how social scientists have described the interactive layers of innate characteristics,

experience and context that are likely to affect how an individual responds to relevant messages in the landscape.

Jacobs (2011, p. 41) describes three widely accepted assumptions about how people perceive landscapes: (1) perceptions are “influenced but not determined by physical landscape attributes, (2) a complex mental process of information reception and processing mediates between the physical landscape and the psychological landscape, and (3) various factors can exercise influence on this mental process, to be divided into biological, cultural and individual factors.”

Biological factors include the innate tendencies common to the human species. A number of landscape preferences have been noted that appear to be linked to a ‘genetic memory’ of the type of environments that would have augured well for human survival in the past. People are consistently drawn to park-like or wooded savanna-like scenes with traversable foregrounds, open vistas, clumps of trees and a water source (Ulrich, 1986). A number of hypotheses have been advanced to explain these preferences. The ‘savannah hypothesis’ claims that we are drawn to our ancestral habitat (Orians, 1986). ‘Prospect-refuge theory’ asserts that such landscapes satisfy a human need for safety, comfort and a good vantage point (Appleton, 1975). The idea of ‘affordances’ maintains that humans seek a range of elements that indicate good potential for survival and livelihood (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989). ‘Biophilia’ theories claim that we are drawn to nature in general and have a need for interaction with other species (Kellert & Wilson, 1995). While humans share the same genetic history, it should be noted that relatively recent events, including family and community narratives associated with places of origin, as well as personal memory might also play a role. These preferences influence whether people will be attracted to certain urban spaces, whether they will feel safe and at home in them, and how they might want to alter them.

Our biological heritage can also make us sensitive to obduracy. It has been argued that we have a natural tendency to resist change because this was once a biological advantage. Throughout most of human evolution, the environment did not change very much in the short term, and, once communities developed a

successful adaptation to that environment, they were best served by maintaining it. As a result, the more primitive part of the brain programmes humans for behavioural conservatism (Rees, 2002).

Social identity also has an impact on response to obduracy, which, as noted in the last section, can be explained by the existence of a ‘dominant frame’. This dominant frame limits our capacity to imagine something other than what is already there. Hommels (2005, pp. 23–24) has identified ‘closed in’ and ‘closed out’ obduracy. In the first instance, people are too inside the existing framework to see other possibilities, and in the second, they are too outside of it to think beyond ‘take it or leave it’. People who occupy an intermediate ground (like civil society organisations who may fall between bureaucrats and more passive citizens, for example) would thus presumably be less sensitive to obduracy, as would people who had been exposed to other alternatives (like newcomers and people who have had cross-cultural experiences).

Not only do our identities influence our perceptions of landscape but our perceptions of landscape influence our identities. Bender (1993, p. 3) says that landscape is “part of the way that identities are created and disputed”. Whether we are part of an insider or an outsider group as well as our status within that group or the wider society will affect both our confidence and our ability to be and act in particular spaces, and our experiences in those spaces will influence our identities. Whether or not we feel at home or that somewhere is ‘our place’ will greatly affect our tendency to engage in community action (Barton, 2000), and engaging with a place is likely to make it feel more like home.

Individual traits also play a role; people can be more or less curious, adventurous, fearful, shy, domineering, empathetic, etc. There are leaders and followers, problem solvers and passive spectators. This will affect capacity to overcome resistance to change and to take initiative. Perception of obduracy is likely to be stronger in individuals of a conservative nature (which, as mentioned above, may mean most people) and can be reinforced by uniformity of experience. During human development, experiences shape the brain’s synaptic circuitry so that we expect and seek out similar experiences (Wexler, 2008).

Different types and levels of knowledge may affect our capacity to notice certain things, our analysis of the situation, and the content of our proposals for change. This refers to both the knowledge that we bring with us and our capacity to access information on-site (which could be limited by language, social networks and other attributes). One might presume that nature is either present or absent in an urban landscape. However, the degree to which any individual sees nature can vary considerably depending on interest and knowledge of what to look for, as well as when, where and how to look. Urban nature is particularly sensitive to this factor because even nature specialists have been taught not to see it, and an entirely new knowledge framework may be required to do so (Harrison, 2002).

Memories associated with a particular place are important, whether they are good or bad, whether they inspire a sense of belonging or not. Memories of similar places are also significant; childhood experiences of nature impact adult preferences (Bixler, Floyd, & Hammitt, 2002). Adult preferences are also influenced by the people with whom certain types of places were experienced (Kals, Schumacher, & Montada, 1999). Memories of having acted to make positive change or seeing others like us act are empowering (Hamdi, 2010) and lessen the strength of both obduracy and the ‘declensionist narrative’ (which asserts that all human impact on nature is negative).

Someone visiting an area for the first time may be either more or less attentive to details; a regular visitor will notice something different, especially if it’s surprising (Thwaites, 2001). The company of other people features largely in how one experiences place, as does time, energy and mobility. The latter three elements will, for example, affect children and the elderly considerably. For a range of reasons, children and young people experience nature and cities quite differently from adults (Chawla, 2002; Lynch & Banerjee, 1977), as do people of different abilities (Thompson & Travlou, 2007). Means of transport has a significant impact: a motorist speeding through will notice very little relative to a pedestrian or cyclist (Newman, 2008). Activities going on in a place might make one feel welcome or the opposite (Mean & Tims, 2005), and particular situations

tend to call upon people to act (as is the case in emergencies or other situations where help is required).

2.4.3 The Inviting Landscape

Some of the conditions described above (e.g. greater awareness and sensitivity to surroundings, including the presence of nature; making an emotional connection to place; feeling called upon to act because we have the capacity, because we are needed or because we feel it is our responsibility) seem to invite engagement. The place, and the people who we find in it, combined with what we bring with us can make it an Inviting Landscape for some of us. The Inviting Landscape is a particular type of cultural landscape, one with the potential to stimulate a response that falls on the more active end of the spectrum of agency, an engaged response that leads to transformative acts.

It appears that an increasing number of citizens are inspired to act in ways that transform urban landscapes (Borasi & Zardini, 2008), including through a variety of forms of citizen-led urbanism, where actors engage in ‘unintended’ use of public space (Hou, 2010). This has been described as ‘everyday urbanism’ (Chase, Crawford, & Kaliski, 2008), ‘DIY urbanism’, ‘pop-up urbanism’ and ‘tactical urbanism’ (Lydon et al., 2010) as well as ‘insurgent urbanism’ or ‘guerrilla urbanism’ (Hou, Ibid.). Hou labels the various types of intervention as: appropriating, reclaiming, pluralising, transgressing, uncovering and contesting. The effect of these unintended uses is the creation of what Franck and Stevens (2007) have called ‘loose space’, where the dominant meanings of sites are ‘loosened’, allowing the text of the cultural landscape to be re-scripted and therefore potentially inviting further intervention.

Another emerging movement, ‘civic ecology’, is a practice that reflects: the linked social and ecological systems implications of participatory environmental restoration and management initiatives in cities and elsewhere. Civic ecology emerges from the actions of local residents wanting to make a difference in the social and natural environment of their community and is recognizable when both people and the environment benefit measurably and memorably from these actions. (Krasny & Tidball, 2010, p. 1)

Civic ecology practices include citizen-led community forestry, community gardening and ecosystem restoration practices in places where people live

(principally cities). The citizens contribute to a more resilient SES by enhancing the functions of (often degraded) ecosystems and building social capital (Ibid.).

Within this framework, citizens are seen as part of a dynamic system, a SES, and civic ecology is thus an important source of inspiration for the current research. Quite a lot of attention has been devoted to thinking about how to empower individuals or groups, and to provide them with knowledge and skills to work with nature, but relatively little effort has gone into thinking about how the landscape is inviting their engagement or disengagement, their action or inaction (and this despite evidence of the tremendous power of landscape, which was described earlier in this chapter). In effect, a lot has been said about landscape and citizen engagement but not about the interactions between the two, about how landscape is affecting human agency. This is a gap in knowledge that merits filling because of its potential to contribute to identifying an additional strategy for engaging citizens and creating more resilient cities.

In summary: 1. We know that landscape is a powerful force in how people think about the world. 2. We know citizens are increasingly active in transforming landscapes. 3. We do not know about the impact of landscape on human agency.

It can be hypothesised that a landscape is an agent acting on people, specifically provoking human agency so that people in turn act on landscape, which has the power to set in motion a positive feedback loop. An Inviting Landscape is one that invites people to enhance its resilience and their own, in effect to enhance the resilience of the SES.

The Inviting Landscape is developed in this thesis as both a concept and a practical approach. It constructs a bridge between landscape and engagement. From another perspective, landscape serves to operationalise the SES and the Inviting Landscape serves to operationalise a process of engagement.

2.5 Conclusions

In a rapidly urbanising world, there is widespread interest in making cities better places for people and nature. Increased recognition that cities are complex systems characterised by constant change has made ‘resilience’ a stated goal for many contemporary cities. The SES is a useful and popular concept for understanding how people and nature interact and contribute to enhancing resilience.

The SES concept is rooted in the discipline of ecology, and, while efforts have been made to ensure that equal attention is paid to both the social and the ecological aspects, the former still remains inadequately developed. This is a particular problem in cities, where the social aspect is playing a very significant role in determining the functioning of the SES. There is thus an opportunity to contribute to the development of the social side of the SES concept. One promising approach is to take up Trosper’s (2005) suggestion to split the ‘social’ in a SES in the way proposed by Archer (1996), i.e. into ‘culture’ and ‘people’ (‘agency’) in order to recognise both the strength of cultural frameworks and the agency of individual people or groups of people.

The study of SESs is complicated by the fact that they are complex systems that cannot be directly apprehended or manipulated. The concept of landscape is thus usefully brought to bear as a window into the SES, or a proxy for the SES that can be empirically observed. Landscape is a unit of environment that a human being, including a researcher, ‘can make sense of’. Landscapes influence people’s ideas about nature in the city and their own roles in stewarding it. The landscape is also the scale at which people intervene in the city.

The landscape ecology literature assists in understanding the functioning of the material landscape and in determining its level of resilience. It also allows investigation of how people interact with ecosystems via ecosystem services (or ‘landscape services’) and the green infrastructure that delivers them. The cultural geography literature describes landscape as text and shows how many urban landscapes transmit messages that are likely to deter citizen engagement

with them. Literatures concerned with environmental perception and people- environment interactions explain the diverse ways in which people respond to these messages psychologically and in their actions.

Emerging social movements that involve citizens transforming urban landscapes have been identified and can serve as examples of the sort of interaction that an Inviting Landscape (landscapes that invite citizens to transform them in resilience-enhancing ways) might encourage. The links between the landscape (both material and cultural) and people’s interactions with it remain poorly understood. While we know that landscapes send messages and that people respond to them, and that people act in different ways, there is a gap in the literature with respect to (a) what sort of cultural landscapes are encouraging or deterring particular actions and (b) whether these people- landscape interactions are contributing to enhancing resilience. Empirical research is thus required to investigate the relationships between certain kinds of landscapes and the ways in which people interact with them. The next chapter develops an appropriate methodology to undertake this research.

3 Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

In order to address the gap in the literature identified in the last chapter, this empirical study sought to understand how urban landscapes influence citizens’ interactions with them and how the resulting interactions impact on resilience of urban SESs. The methodology employed facilitated close examination of landscapes; people’s perceptions of them; interactions between people and landscapes; and the resulting impact in terms of social-ecological resilience.

This methodology drew on previous approaches to studying landscapes, including the establishment of landscape ‘types’ with constituent characteristics. It acknowledged the importance of the visual in transmitting messages and made use of photography to capture landscape types, but it emphasised citizens’ perceptions of these landscapes from within them. For this reason, interviews and exchanges with citizens were the primary source of data about messages conveyed by landscapes, rather than direct analysis of landscapes. Many of these interviews and exchanges took place in situ, within the landscape studied, so that the experience of the landscape was immediate and embodied.

In parallel, the material landscape, its ecological processes, and its transformations through citizen-nature interactions, also had to be considered. Indicators of social-ecological resilience, and of the presence of ecosystem services and the ecosystem functions that underpin them, were sought. Consequently, perspectives from landscape ecology, cultural geography and other disciplines concerned with people-environment interactions were brought to bear and integrated. Application of a critical realist framework facilitated this integration.

In order to understand how individual citizens respond to and interact with particular landscapes, a fine-grained investigation was required. At the same

time, these local landscapes were understood to be part of a broader landscape and a larger SES. Therefore, the perspectives of people with an aerial view of the landscape were also sought. Initially it was difficult to determine which landscapes were of most significance, so a wide net was cast. This was achieved by asking eleven experienced programme managers, who had observed and supported a wide range of citizen initiatives, to identify which activities in which landscapes struck them as interesting. From this collection of examples (52 were provided), a range of site types and activities, and potentially interesting landscape characteristics, were identified. Fifteen indicative cases were selected for further investigation through site visits, followed by walking and working interviews.

This was an iterative process (and one of ‘retroduction’ in critical realist terminology) where the potential characteristics of Inviting Landscapes (and Uninviting Landscapes) gradually emerged and oriented the next stage of the empirical study. This led to a final stage of in-depth case studies, involving participant observation over five months undertaken at the two sites that appeared to represent the most ‘inviting’ and ‘uninviting’ landscapes. The deepening analysis of this gradually narrowing set of cases yielded a portrait of citizen interaction with urban landscapes in North West England; the identification of Inviting Landscape characteristics; practical implications of these findings; and suggestions for refining the SES concept in ways that strengthen its applicability to cities.

3.2 Research Objectives and Research Questions

The aim of the empirical research was to understand how urban landscapes influence citizens’ interactions with them and how the resulting interactions impact on the resilience of urban SESs. This aim can be broken down into the following research objectives:

1. To capture citizen interaction with urban landscapes

2. To characterise Inviting Landscapes (landscapes that invite citizens to transform them in resilience-enhancing ways)

3. To use this new perspective on citizen-landscape interactions to propose a conceptual model of people-nature interactions in urban SESs and their contributions to reducing or enhancing resilience

4. To explore potential practical applications of the Inviting Landscape concept

These objectives required responses to the following research questions (the primary chapters in which responses to these questions are found are shown in parentheses):

1. What is the current state of citizen interaction with urban landscapes within the geographical area studied? (Chapter 4)

2. Which landscapes seem to be inviting active engagement in enhancing urban resilience? (Chapters 4 and 5)

3. How do people respond to, and interact with, ‘inviting’ and ‘uninviting’ landscapes? (Chapter 5)

4. What are the characteristics of Inviting Landscapes? (Chapter 6)

5. What are the implications of this understanding of Inviting Landscapes with respect to conceptualising urban SESs? (Chapters 4-6)

6. How can urban landscapes be made more inviting? (Chapter 7)

3.3 Situating the researcher

3.3.1 Normativity

This research project issued from a belief that enhancing social-ecological resilience is important and necessary, and that citizens have a right and a responsibility to participate in this effort. The project had a normative axiology, as it had an explicit goal of identifying ways to encourage citizen participation in enhancing urban resilience.

This normative stance required the researcher to pay particular attention to potential biases. Researcher biases are always present and can be managed

through recognition, transparency, selection of methods, triangulation, verification, and review by ‘critical friends’ (Stake, 2010). Attention was paid to all of these aspects, beginning with the selection of cases. In order to avoid choosing cases on the basis of what was attractive to the researcher, the cases were selected through interviews with experts in the field who provided a range of examples from which indicative cases could be identified.

As recommended by Yin (2009), who describes opportunities for triangulation as a particular advantage of case study approaches, multiple sources of evidence (programme manager interviews, participant interviews, site visits documented with photographs, and participant observation) were gathered and triangulated. In the analysis of the data collected, extensive use was made of coding and, when ‘assertions’ (Stake, 2010) were formed about the characteristics of Inviting and Uninviting Landscapes and citizens’ responses to them, reference was made back to the coding to verify that the assertions were supported by data. Throughout the research process, critical feedback was sought from supervisors, review panel members and peers.

3.3.2 Positionality

The position of the researcher vis-à-vis the research subjects also required particular consideration, with respect to both researcher biases and possible effects on research subjects that might influence events observed. The researcher is an experienced practitioner in the field and an obvious outsider (distinguishable by accent). These characteristics had both positive and negative effects. Extensive experience in the field created risks of drawing too heavily on previous experience in interpreting the phenomena observed. This was partially mitigated by the outsider perspective, which limited the researcher’s tendency to assume similarities or full understanding of the situation.

Having practical experience did cause the researcher to offer more advice or suggestions than might be appropriate in the role of the participant observer. On the other hand, this capacity apparently made the researcher a more helpful member of the group and encouraged others to discuss various aspects of their work. Having practical experience may also be advantageous to the research

process. Yin (2009, p. 161) identifies using one's own “prior, expert knowledge”, i.e. knowledge of the field through prior investigations and/or relevant practical experience, as one of four principles for good social science research.

Being an outsider tends to create both distrust and trust. More time and effort were sometimes required to establish a rapport and be accepted as a member of the group. At the same time, an outsider may be considered more neutral and/or trustworthy when there is conflict among local actors, as is the case in many citizen initiatives where people feel let down or unsupported by institutional actors, or when there is disagreement among community members. All aspects of this positionality were considered throughout the research project, and possible effects were recorded in field notes and considered during the analysis, as suggested by Yin (Ibid.).

3.4 Research Strategy

3.4.1 Using critical realism to explore SESs

A philosophical framework of critical realism was adopted. It claims that there exists both an external world independent of human consciousness and a dimension that includes our socially determined knowledge about reality. Critical realism separates reality into different ontological domains: the ‘empirical’, i.e. that which we experience, directly or indirectly; the ‘actual’, where events happen whether we experience them or not; and the ‘real’, where the underlying generative mechanisms that can produce events are located (Bhaskar, 2008; Bunge, 2008).

Critical realism is widely applied in the social sciences and particularly well suited to the study of complex changing systems like SESs. As Danermark (2002, p. 5) states: “The point of departure in critical realism is that the world is structured, differentiated, stratified and changing.” A similar statement could be made about the SES concept, which was described in Section 2.3. Both critical realism and the SES incorporate the idea of emergence within their conceptualisation of reality arranged in domains or levels where something qualitatively new can emerge at any level (Danermark, 2002; Trosper, 2005).

The ontological domains described above align well with the experienced (‘empirical’) landscape and the material (‘actual’) landscape produced by the (‘real’) SES, which can be understood as the ‘underlying generative mechanism’ that cannot be directly apprehended. This conception of the SES can be illustrated using the earth as a metaphor (see Figure 4 below). Its hidden core is the SES, its surface is the material landscape and human experience of that landscape is in the atmosphere.

Figure 4 A critical realist model of a social-ecological system (SES)

The material landscape is situated in the actual ontological domain, while the empirical (experienced) domain contains the cultural landscape and people’s responses to it, both psychological responses and actions.

The functioning of the material landscape is described in this thesis via the empirical landscape of landscape ecologists because this informed perspective is the closest approximation of the ‘actual’ currently available. It is important to bear in mind that, like the idea of ecological equilibrium that gave way to the multi-stable states of resilience science (Holling, 2004) as described in Section 2.3, this view of landscape is contingent and may continue to evolve.

The empirical domain was split in accordance with the suggestion by Archer (1988), and subsequently Trosper (2005), to divide what is experienced into ‘cultural’ and ‘people’ (the latter term was replaced by ‘agency’ in this thesis in recognition of the significance of both cultural constructs and individual and collective agency, as explained in Section 2.3). The SES cannot be directly apprehended but is manifested in the actual domain through ‘events’, or ‘landscape’ in the case of the SES within the framework proposed. People experience these events or this landscape in the empirical domain where they receive ‘messages’ and respond according to their personal conditions or situations, as described in Section 2.4.2.

These critical realist domains can help manage the particular challenges associated with trying to simultaneously investigate the social and ecological components of a SES. As described in Section 2.3, SES research has often been criticised for insufficient attention to either one of the components, but most often the social component. For this reason, one of goals of this thesis was to explore ways to better incorporate the social and more fully integrate the social and the ecological. One of the reasons why this integration has been difficult is that it involves bringing together disciplines that do not share the same ontologies and epistemologies. This bringing different disciplines into dialogue is something that critical realism can facilitate.

In attempting to study how people and landscapes interact, and how these interactions affect resilience, the disciplines that must be bridged include: resilience science, landscape ecology, cultural geography and several other disciplines concerned with environmental perception and people-environment interaction. These disciplines view and study the world in quite different ways. Critical realism, with its different levels of reality making up a complex system, allows for study of each of the levels from the perspective of the relevant discipline followed by examination of the relationships among them and the resulting emergent properties. In this way, it permits the researcher to explore the workings of the SES as a whole, leading to understanding of the underlying generative mechanisms that produce the material reality.

Therefore, the broad research strategy of this thesis involved trying to fill in the layers14 of the metaphorical earth pictured in Figure 4 using the concepts and methods relevant to the particular disciplines. The contents of the layers are illustrated by the below slice or ‘profile’ of the metaphoric earth. Within each layer, particular phenomena are explored through the appropriate disciplinary lens. Once these phenomena are identified and described, linkages among them are analysed.

Figure 5 Profile of SES layers showing their contents and appropriate disciplines to investigate them

Critical Splitting Equivalent SES Layers Realist empirical Layers layer Empirical Response (drawing on disciplines concerned with (experienced) (‘agency’) environmental perception and people- environment interaction) individual and collective responses to cultural landscapes Message Cultural Landscape - (drawing on (‘cultural’) cultural geography) landscape as ‘text’ that communicates either dominant or subversive narratives Actual Material Landscape - (drawing on (‘events’) landscape ecology) ecological unit (which includes human beings) with structure and function based on matter and energy flows; ecosystem functions as basis for ecosystem services Real SES – (drawing on resilience science) Underlying presence or absence of resilience Mechanism features; phase of adaptive cycle; cross-scale interactions (panarchy effects)

By describing what is occurring (or in the language of ‘retroduction’, ‘identifying and describing effects’ as described in Section 3.4.2 below) within the layers of the empirical and the actual, it is possible to postulate the presence and the workings of the underlying mechanisms that are determining the resilience of the SES.

14 Critical realists adopted the term ‘ontological domains’ (Bhaskar, 2008), and Trosper (2005) refers to ‘levels’, but use of the earth metaphor makes ‘layers’ seem more appropriate.

3.4.2 A retroductive approach

A study of how the ‘underlying generative mechanisms’ work over time and space can be undertaken using a process often associated with critical realism, that of retroduction (Danermark, 2002). Retroduction involves identifying and describing effects; postulating hypotheses on the types of mechanisms that explain them; trying to demonstrate/refute the existence of the mechanism identified; and, over time, eliminating alternative plausible explanations (Sayer, 2010, p. 72). The objective is to achieve a correspondence between the ‘transitive’ objects of science (how we describe and explain things) and the ‘intransitive’ objects of reality (Archer & Bhaskar, 1998).

In the context of this study, the effects (i.e. characteristics of landscapes and people’s interactions with them) were identified through fieldwork using several methods including interviews, site visits (documented by photographs and field notes) and participant observation. The data gathering and analysis were oriented by the different disciplines through which the ‘SES layers’ were examined as illustrated in Figure 5. Downward and Mearman (2006, p. 78) argue that “retroduction requires the ‘triangulation’ of research methods”. This offers a way to break down disciplinary boundaries “and thus act as a precursor to interdisciplinary social science.” (Ibid.)

The researcher’s observations, along with information provided by some of the respondents, allowed for description of material landscapes. Interviews and other exchanges with a range of people about their perceptions of a particular landscape revealed the cultural landscapes that they experienced and their personal responses to them. Their active responses were identified and described through participant observation, as well as through observation of visible effects in the landscape. Resilience characteristics were also sometimes visible in the landscape (see Table 2 reproduced from Barthel, 2006) or described by participants.

Analysis of the relationships among the effects described above allowed for postulation about the types of mechanisms that might explain them. A three- stage examination of examples/cases (see detailed description in 3.5.2.2) provided an opportunity to test and refine, or refute, these propositions. The retroductive approach is in keeping with how Stake (2010) describes qualitative research in general: “during research, analysis and synthesis are ongoing, interactive, habituated inquiry processes… Analysis and synthesis continue from the beginning of the interest in the topic and continue still into the hours at the keyboard writing up the final report.” (p. 137)

3.4.3 Examining people’s experience of landscape

Triangulation of research methods drawn from different disciplines is, as mentioned above, encouraged within retroduction. Within this research project, some of the relevant methods pertain specifically to landscape and people’s experience of it. Studies of landscape perception have a long history within human geography and have traditionally emphasised the visual aspect of landscape (Morin, 2009). This is not surprising given that in western societies knowledge of the world is constructed primarily through visual senses (Knowles & Sweetman, 2004, p. 1).

A number of methods have been used to analyse visual landscapes. There is increasing use of technologies such as eye-tracking (Van Lammeren, 2011) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), including specific adaptations such as GLAM, a GIS based Landscape Appreciation Model (Lankhorst, de Vries, & Buijs, 2011). However, it has been noted that such technologies fail to fully capture landscape perceptions, and therefore survey techniques such as questionnaires and interviews have an important role to play (Moya Pellitero, 2011, p. 66). Photographs have also been used extensively to gauge reactions to landscapes, but limits to this approach have similarly been identified. Research showing differing responses to static and dynamic images suggests that people may respond quite differently to photographs versus moving through a landscape (Heft & Nasar, 2000). There is also evidence that sensory experiences beyond the

visual may contribute significantly to the experience of landscape (Kroh & Gimblett, 1992).

This has caused some scholars to argue that a more multisensory in situ approach is required (Berleant, 1992; Macpherson, 2006). Such an approach has the potential to facilitate a fuller understanding of the landscape experience, in keeping with the increasing focus on embodied experience that phenomenology has provoked across the social sciences (Seamon, 2000). The embodied multisensory in situ experience is particularly important in the present research, where the focus is on the characteristics of a landscape that cause people to spend time in the landscape and interact with it. For example, the fear provoked in some people by ‘urban wildscapes’15 (Jorgensen, 2011), which may actually drive them from a place, would not be fully experienced as a result of viewing a photo. Similarly, important contributors to the experience of a landscape, such as the smell of rubbish or flowers, or the sun warming the back of the volunteer at work, would be absent. These sensations or emotions may significantly affect how people engage with the landscape.

Emphasis must thus be placed on observing people in landscapes and conducting interviews wherever feasible in the landscape of interest. In situ interviews that are fed by multisensory experiences by diverse research subjects have been the subject of experimentation (cf. Scott, Carter, Brown, & White, 2009). In recognition of the value of both place and activity-inspired reflection, the current research project employed walking and working interviews and these are described in more detail in 3.5.2.2.

Photography was used in this project primarily as a ‘mnemonic support’ (Colding & Barthel, 2013, p. 21) to the field notes and interview transcripts that described how the researcher and research participants perceived the landscape. The photographs taken were particularly important as a means to go back and

15 Jorgensen (2011, p. 1) defines ‘urban wildscapes’ as “urban spaces where natural as opposed to human agency appears to be shaping the land, especially where there is spontaneous growth of vegetation through natural succession. Such wildscapes can exist at different scales, from cracks in the pavement, to much more extensive urban landscapes, including woodland, unused allotments, river corridors and derelict or brownfield sites”. She also cites Dougal Sheridan’s (2007, p. 98) definition: “any area, space, or building where the city’s normal forces of control have not shaped how we perceive, use and occupy them”. Such uncontrolled urban environments make some people uncomfortable (Jorgenson, Ibid.).

verify the presence of certain landscape elements that emerged as significant in the course of the research. Photographs are also used to document and illustrate the findings in this thesis, recognising the capacity of the visual image to communicate the ‘text’ of the landscape more vividly to the reader than might the written description alone (Grady, 2004).

With respect to analysis, an approach was used that is common to both cultural and ecological landscape study, i.e. the development of landscape typologies (Ahern, 1995; Antrop, 2001; de Groot & van den Born, 2003; Jacobs, 2011; Moya Pellitero, 2011; Nassauer, 1995; Thwaites, 2001) based on the identification of constituent indicators (Swanwick, 2002; Wascher, 2004). Such indicators can include those that relate to perceived landscapes (cf. Ode, Tveit, & Fry, 2008) like the identification in the current project of a set of indicators (described as ‘landscape characteristics’) that constitute Inviting and Uninviting Landscape types.

Some scholars (cf. Fry et al., 2009; Llausàs & Nogué, 2012; Nassauer, 1995) have attempted to make links between ecological and visual/perceptual indicators. Barthel’s (2006) approach to qualitative assessment of ecosystem services (see Table 2) could be considered one example of this. The work of Barthel (Ibid.) and Andersson et al. (2007) linking ecosystem services with citizen management practices provided guidance with respect to making links between landscape features and ecosystem functions and services.

Table 2 Criteria for classification of ecosystem services delivered from the National Urban Park

Criteria Ecosystem service Green space open to and enjoyed by the public Recreation/cultural values

Important feeding areas and habitats for mobile Seed dispersal links, such as birds

Important feeding areas for pollinators Pollination

Street trees, lawns or urban forests close to noisy Noise reduction areas

Areas described as important habitats for red- Genetic library maintenance listed species

Habitat for predators of pests, such as Insect-pest regulation insectivorous birds

Permeable surfaces like lawns, etc. Surface-water drainage

In-city vegetation/street trees, vegetation close to Regulation of microclimate buildings, water bodies

Street trees, lawns or urban forests close to Air filtration sources of pollution

Wetlands Nutrient retention

(from Barthel, 2006, p. 310)

3.4.4 A fine-grained analysis of urban systems using case studies

Given that the goal of this research project was to better understand the workings of urban SESs, existing approaches to studying urban systems were considered. Attempts to model their functioning have been going on for about a century (Batty, 2008), and in Section 2.2 it was noted that many analyses of cities as systems have focused on the meta-system; the city as flow of materials, energy and capital, often described as an ‘urban metabolism’ (cf. Girardet, 1990, 1996; Newman, 1999). However, Karvonen (2008, p.59) has argued for a more ‘fine- grained’ approach:

With respect to the study of cities, this means that macro characterizations of the urban ensemble as an economic engine, a massive hub of human activity, or a complex cultural repository, should be abandoned in favor of fine-grained investigations of hybrid interactions that bind the city into a whole. Urban research then becomes a process of describing connections or relations through multiple narratives or transects across the city.

This approach to studying the city, combined with the use of landscape as a window into the workings of an urban SES (as described in Section 2.4), suggested a research design involving multiple cases of local landscapes and people’s interactions with them. A case study approach was also indicated by the fact that the research questions are primarily ‘how’ questions (Yin, 2009, pp. 8– 9): How do people and nature interact in cities? How do landscapes influence these interactions? How can landscapes contribute to making these interactions more resilience enhancing? Case studies are well suited to seeking answers to these questions because of the opportunities they provide for in-depth description of social phenomena (Yin, 2009). Their use is also appropriate given that the researcher has little control over events and the focus is on contemporary phenomena within a real life context (Ibid., p. 18). An ‘explanatory case study’ (Ibid., p. 6) is called for because the research questions

are focused on explaining citizen-landscape interactions. A ‘proposition’16 was made that landscapes are affecting the ways that citizens interact with them and that citizens are in turn affecting the functioning of landscapes.

Development of the case study component of the research design surfaced a common challenge, that of defining the boundaries of the ‘case’, or, in other terms, the ‘unit of study’ or ‘unit of analysis’ (Miles & Huberman, 1994). According to Creswell (2007, p. 73), “Case study research involves the study of an issue explored through one or more cases within a bounded system.”17 Stake (1995) suggests that a key requirement for case studies (to some extent, the definition of a ‘case study’) is that the case be a clearly bounded entity, whereas Yin (2009, p.18), while confirming the importance of bounding the case, emphasises that an advantage of the case study approach is its applicability to studying real life phenomena within their context where the boundaries between the two often blur. The case study approach used in this research begins by defining clear boundaries of a “specific, complex and functioning thing” (Stake, 1995, pp. 1–2), while remaining open to adjusting these boundaries as advised by Yin (2009, p. 30).

With respect to defining an appropriate unit of analysis for this research project, there were a number of possibilities. These include the citizens themselves, their activities, the landscapes with which they engage (as defined according to their own perception or that of someone else), and the sites (ranging from a small plot to a neighbourhood). Given that the concept of landscape is used to frame this research and that, as previously mentioned, landscape itself is a bounded system (Cadenasso et al., 2003), particular landscapes might provide natural units of analysis. However, given that the boundaries of a landscape are in the eyes of the perceiver and that this might vary among research subjects as well as between a research subject and the researcher, this creates a challenge. Similarly, the boundaries of sites turned out

16 Yin's (2009) 'proposition' in the context of explanatory case studies is similar to Stake's (2010) ‘assertions’ that are developed during case studies and Sayer's (2010) ‘hypotheses' formed in the process of retroduction. 17 Creswell (2007) describes debates about whether the case study is a choice of what should be studied, a strategy or a methodology (cf. Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Merriam, 1997; Stake, 2005; Yin, 2003). Creswell (2007, p. 73) himself concludes that it should be viewed as “a methodology, a type of design in qualitative research, or as an object of study, as well as product of the inquiry”.

to be unstable during the course of the empirical research. As the focus of this research is on interactions between people and landscape, a particular ‘activity’ taking place at a particular time, which Stake (Ibid.) suggests as one appropriate unit of analysis, seemed to represent the most logical starting point.

Yin (Ibid.) proposes breaking down the case into a main unit of analysis, an embedded unit of analysis, and the context. If the activity is considered the main unit of analysis, the landscape and the experience of the individuals involved can be considered as embedded units. The main and embedded units of analysis can each be viewed through a particular lens that highlights specific questions for consideration during data collection and analysis as described below. In this research project, one question to be addressed in relation to all units of analysis concerns the degree of social-ecological resilience.

For the main unit of analysis, i.e. the activity, the questions included: What is the nature of the activity? What are the characteristics of the site where the activity takes place? Who is involved? What resources are invested in it? When did the activity begin? When is it expected to end?

With regard to the embedded unit of the landscape, it was asked: What were the characteristics of the landscape when the activity began? What are they now? What should they be when the objectives of the activity are achieved? Does it/did it/will it have Inviting and/or Uninviting Landscapes characteristics? Which landscape (ecosystem) functions and services are affected by the activity?

Relevant resilience features to be assessed for these units included: diversity (social and ecological), embracing of ecological variability, valuing ecosystem services, and attention to slow variables (e.g. climate change). Depending on the stage of the activity, a rapid appraisal was carried out at the beginning of the participatory observation stage, or information was sought about the original state from participants and/or from documentation. Note was taken of particular ecosystem services that were being supported/delivered by the activities of citizens, specifying whether these were mentioned by the participants or perceived by the researcher according to Barthel’s (2006) approach to qualitative assessment of ecosystem services (see Table 2).

With regard to the embedded unit of analysis of the individuals involved in the activity, the questions were: What are the relationships among the people involved? What is motivating each individual to be there? How are they making decisions about what they are doing in the landscape? How do they perceive the landscape? Is the activity or the evolving landscape changing their perceptions of nature in the city and/or their capacities as stewards? The relevant resilience features to be assessed were social and cultural diversity, social capital, innovation and learning.

The context was defined as the broader initiative of which the selected activity was part (this can refer to both other activities past and present at the same site, and to larger initiatives, such as supporting programmes) and the historical-social-cultural-political-economic context of the initiative and the site; the landscape of the neighbourhood; and the city in which the site is located. The relevant resilience features at this level were modularity and tight feedbacks, and overlap in governance.

3.5 Research Design

This empirical study sought to examine citizens’ interactions with landscapes and their effects. This required an in-depth investigation of the activities of particular people in particular landscapes but it also required that these individual cases be situated within a bigger picture. This helped to determine if the cases were indicative of what was happening more broadly with respect to the sort of citizen-involved transformation of urban landscapes described in 2.4.3. Equally importantly, it analysed them as part of a larger SES. The study began therefore by seeking the perspectives of people with an aerial view of the broader landscape and asking them to both share their reflections on citizen interaction with landscapes18 and identify examples of citizen engagement in transforming landscapes across the region in which they were worked. These examples served to define the criteria for indicative cases, and provided a pool from which cases could be selected for further investigation, along with initial

18 The respondents themselves generally described the relevant activities as ‘citizen engagement’ or ‘citizen involvement’ or ‘volunteering’ related to ‘green infrastructure’, ‘urban nature or ‘greening initiatives’.

data about the selected cases. A narrowing set of cases was then studied in three stages.

3.5.1 Defining the study area

A scoping exercise (involving consultation with colleagues and a desk study of print and electronic resources) indicated that there were a number of examples of citizen engagement in transforming landscapes in the City of Manchester. As this area appeared to provide an adequate pool of potential cases and also had the practical advantage of proximity to the University of Manchester, it was decided that the fieldwork should be focused here. As described in 3.5.2.1, the area of study was expanded to North West England for the first stage of empirical research (to align with the purview of respondents) and then refocused on the City of Manchester for the second and third stages.

North West England was an appropriate area for this study because it has a lengthy history of citizen involvement in making better places, along with considerable organisational infrastructure to support these efforts. Groundwork UK had its beginnings in St Helens on Merseyside in the early 1980s and remains very active in the region. Two Community Forest initiatives (Red Rose and Mersey Forest) have been engaging citizens for over twenty years. Many other national conservation and volunteering organisations have a strong presence in the North West. These organisations offered a pool of people with an aerial view and many years of experience to draw upon. They were able to offer both thoughtful reflections on the themes targeted by the research questions and identify potential cases.

Selecting a geographic cluster of cases within the City of Manchester allowed the researcher to move easily among the sites and make return visits. It also allowed for better understanding of the contexts in which the sites were located. As all of the sites fell under the administration of one local authority, they were subject to the same set of regulations and generally had access to the same sources of funding and other supports. At the same time, the diversity of communities and landscapes within the boundaries of the City of Manchester ensured that a broad range of case types was present.

3.5.2 Data collection in two parts and three stages

3.5.2.1 Generating an overview of citizen interaction with urban landscapes in North West England

The literature review indicated that citizens were interacting with urban landscapes in potentially resilience-enhancing ways in various parts of the world. The first component of the empirical research was aimed at exploring the scope of this sort of interaction in the study area. It also sought to find out how expert practitioners (programme managers having many years of experience and a bird’s eye view of a range of examples of citizen engagement) described people’s interactions with urban landscapes. Speaking with these practitioners helped to assess whether the appropriate literature had been used to frame the research and whether the concepts chosen to guide it aligned with the ‘hermeneutic concepts’ that the social actors concerned used to talk about what they did (Blaikie, 2000, p. 138). Finally, it was expected that the programme managers would be able to point the way to specific cases that merited consideration in the context of this research.

A desk study was carried out to identify the key organisations active in the study area with respect to supporting citizen engagement with urban landscapes. People active in the field were also asked to identify key actors, and those who received frequent mention were targeted. Ten organisations were approached and eleven programme managers from nine of the organisations (listed in Appendix 1) agreed to participate. While Manchester specifically had been identified as a field site that would likely offer sufficient examples of citizen engagement with urban landscapes, many of the supporting organisations operated at a regional or national scale. Beginning at the scale of North West England was advantageous because the programme managers had a broader overview of citizen engagement with urban landscapes and this helped to situate the Manchester examples within a larger context.

Ten semi-structured interviews were carried out with the eleven programme managers (one interview involved two interviewees). Interviewing this group of managers who were involved in the delivery of multiple programmes allowed for

coverage of the activities of the larger organisations active in this field in North West England. The programme managers, who had on average 25 years of experience in the sector and broad experience of working with communities at sites across the region, were able to offer insights into the relationships between citizens and the landscapes with which they engaged, and to suggest possible cases for further study.

Semi-structured interviews involve questions that are pre-determined by the researcher but remain open-ended (see Appendix 4 for the questions posed to the programme managers). This allows participants to respond in their own ways and emphasise the things they feel to be important. The interviewer also maintains the flexibility to pose some additional or different questions in order to pursue lines of inquiry opened up by the respondent (Longhurst, 2009). Prior to the interviews, the programme managers were sent a participant information sheet (see Appendix 2) and a consent form (see Appendix 3). At the beginning of the interview, they were asked to describe the work of their organisation and/or programme, and their own role in order to provide context.

These one-hour interviews attempted to elicit the respondents’ perspectives on the concepts and hypothesised mechanisms derived from the literature review, as well as examples of how these may or may not be present in their own work. Respondents were also asked to identify examples of sites where citizens were involved or had been involved in making changes to the landscape (including sites where the hypothesised mechanism might be at work). The questions posed in these interviews were somewhat complex and theoretical, but it was assumed that the respondents were experts immersed in these issues. The questions were phrased and voiced so as to avoid any discomfort if the respondent had no answer for a particular question. (A pilot interview was carried out to test and refine the interview structure.) These interviews were recorded (with written permission from the respondents). The researcher also took notes and transcribed the interviews soon after they took place.

3.5.2.2 Case studies of people-landscape interactions in Manchester

A case study approach was adopted to investigate people-landscape interactions more deeply. As described in 3.4.4, the main unit of analysis or ‘case’ was defined as ‘the activity’. More specifically, this meant: an activity where volunteers engage in collective efforts that physically change their local urban landscapes in ways that (implicity or explicity) seek to enhance resilience. Specific criteria and the justifications for them are outlined below:

 The activity must involve physical changes to the landscape because the focus of the research is on tangible changes that seek to contribute directly to enhancing resilience and transforming landscapes in ways which may in turn impact on other citizens.

 The activity must have potential to enhance resilience19 within the bounded system that is the case and possibly at other levels within the broader ‘panarchy’ (defined in Section 2.3).

 The focus should be on specific current activities in order for the researcher to observe people-landscape interactions.

 The key actors in the activity must be participating as unpaid volunteers. One of the practical goals of this research is to investigate the potential for voluntary contributions by citizens to enhance urban resilience. Furthermore, a key research objective is to explore how the urban landscape itself might inspire such action (rather than people getting involved because they are mandated to do so or receiving compensation for their efforts). Note that activities initiated by paid staff and/or receiving external funding can be included in the sample; the important criteria is that volunteers are involved in decision-making and hands-on

19 Resilience is assessed based on the ‘Key Features of a Resilience System’ (Walker & Salt, 2006), which include diversity; embracing ecological variability; modularity; attention to slow variables; tight feedbacks; building social capital; fostering innovation and learning; overlap in governance and valuing/protecting/enhancing ecosystem services with attention to the additional features of ‘adaptability’ and ‘transformability’. (See Section 2.3 for further explanation.)

work, and that they are motivated primarily by their desire to be involved in the project.

 As building social capital is a key feature of resilience, the activities must involve more than one individual and at least some of the individuals involved must have formed relationships as a result of the activity.

 The activity should be collective, but the site in which it occurs can be under any form of land ownership.

 For ethical reasons, activities taking place at the sites to be studied should not be illegal.

In the course of the in-depth case studies, the unit of analysis was expanded from one particular activity at a specific site to an area encompassing a larger number of activities and sites. This allowed the links among activities and sites, and the role of networks of places and people to be taken into consideration. Choosing this larger area also allowed for inclusion of the range of types of sites that are relevant to the project, such as parks, alleyways, vacant lots and water bodies, rather than having to limit each of the two in-depth case studies to a focus on only one type of site.

Various methods were used to collect data related to the selected cases. This is appropriate in qualitative case studies where the richness of the phenomena calls for exploration through different lenses, thus requiring multiple sources of data, which can then be triangulated (Yin, 2009). The data collected was both interpretive (interpretations that come directly from the data source, such as participant interviews) and aggregative (interpretations that surface from the aggregation of observations) (Stake, 2010, p. 81). People’s descriptions of the effects of certain landscapes on themselves and others are an example of interpretive data whereas features of certain landscapes that are noted in several cases to be associated with certain activities is an example of aggregative data. The data were collected in three stages, which are summarised in Table 3 below and subsequently described in detail.

Table 3 Case study stages

Case study Number Methods Sources Role data of collection examples stages /cases 1. 52 Ten semi- Programme Establish the range of 6 October examples structured managers from key site types, landscape 2011 - 21 interviews organisations characteristics and February where eleven supporting citizen activities associated 2012 respondents engagement with with citizen were asked to urban transformation of identify and nature/landscapes landscapes in the describe in North West region examples England 2. 15 cases Fifteen site Landscapes at Identify and describe 5 November visits, ten Manchester sites Inviting and 2011 – 8 walking mentioned by Uninviting May 2012 interviews programme Landscapes in order and ten managers; to elucidate their working participants characteristics and interviews engaged with select sites for in- selected sites depth case studies 3 2 cases Participatory Landscapes, Further development 16 May – 13 observation activities and of Inviting Landscape October at two sites participants at characteristics and 2012 for five selected sites analysis of people- months landscape interactions to develop conceptual model

Case Study Stage 1 - Semi-structured interviews

The first stage of data collection pertaining to specific cases drew on the same semi-structured interviews described above in Section 3.5.2.1. During these interviews, the programme managers mentioned 52 potentially relevant sites in varying degrees of detail. Information about these 52 examples of places where citizens engaged with urban landscapes was coded for type of site, type of activity, and characteristics of the landscape that might be inviting stewardship or discouraging it (see 3.5.3 for details about the coding process). Other potentially relevant information was also noted, including characteristics of the people involved and any indication of increased or decreased social or ecological resilience.

A distinction is made between ‘examples’ and ‘cases’ because insufficient information was obtained about the 52 ‘examples’ for them to be treated as ‘cases’. However, information obtained at this first stage about some of the examples was used to develop cases in the smaller set of fifteen and in the two in-depth case studies. Additionally, information provided by programme managers about the broader range of examples was used to support the process of identifying Inviting and Uninviting Landscape characteristics, as well as approaches to facilitating the emergence of the former.

It had originally been hoped that enough information could be obtained from the programme manager interviews to permit the selection of ten to fifteen cases for further exploration. This was however rendered difficult by the fact that the descriptions of many of the 52 sites were incomplete and not necessarily comparable. For example, a programme manager might mention that one site was an alleyway, that another involved food growing and a third engaged a diverse group of citizens. It was thus impossible to characterise each of the 52 sites based on the programme managers’ descriptions. These descriptions did, however, permit the generation of lists of the range of characteristics present across sites (see Section 4.2.1). Thereafter, additional data were required (and obtained through site visits) in order to construct a subset of sites with a range of characteristics similar to the larger group, which could be subjected to further study.

Case Study Stage 2 - site visits and in situ interviews

The second case study stage brought the researcher into direct contact with sites and people involved with them in order to supplement the data collected in the first stage. In addition to accumulating more detailed data to address the research questions, this stage allowed initial characterisation of Inviting and Uninviting Landscape types, which permitted identification of two sites for the in-depth case studies in the third stage. It was decided that ten to fifteen sites, or ‘cases’ as they could now be called, would be sufficient to reflect the characteristics of the set of 52 examples for which eleven types of sites were coded, along with approximately sixteen (depending on which code levels are

included) types of activities. With respect to the activities, several were variations of each other and often more than one activity took place at a site (see list of codes in Appendix 5 for examples).

The original plan was to identify the ten to fifteen cases based on information provided by the programme managers but, as mentioned in the description of the first stage, this was not possible. As a result, preliminary site visits were undertaken to gather more information. The approach to this was opportunistic: It had already been determined that undertaking relevant fieldwork in Manchester was both feasible and practical. Therefore, if programme managers mentioned sites in the Manchester area (including the City of Manchester and other parts of Greater Manchester located nearby), these sites were visited as soon as possible thereafter. Similarly, any opportunity to meet with people at sites (generally through programme managers providing an introduction) was seized. Through this process, a larger number of sites were visited from which fifteen were eventually selected as cases as described below.

During the site visits, the researcher observed and described the site with respect to landscape elements and possible citizen activity (if any was taking place at the time of the visit). An hour or more was spent moving around the site on foot or bicycle and stopping to make field notes and take photographs. When the opportunity presented itself, informal exchanges took place with people at the site. The site visits provided sufficient information to characterise the fifteen sites according to site type (e.g. park, alleyway, vacant lot, natural corridor, water body), activities (e.g. tree planting, food growing, enhancing biodiversity, decontaminating, increasing surface permeability) and sometimes the people involved (according to demographic and/or organisational characteristics), potential Inviting Landscape characteristics, and signs of social-ecological resilience.

Over time, the sites visited outside a specified radius were dropped from the set. A specific radius (see Map 2) was defined because connections among sites and the advantages of looking at sites with similar governance contexts became clearer as the research progressed. Fifteen sites within this area that

were indicative of the activities and sites in the 52 examples were retained and are listed in Table 4 below.

Table 4 Fifteen sites in Manchester retained for further investigation

Location Site type Activity

1. City centre - planters, Streets, car park, Edible landscapes, Dig the City installations pedestrian area temporary presence of nature in the city

2. Ancoats Canals (Rochdale & Ashton) Naturalisation and in area undergoing restoration regeneration

3. Miles Platting Canal (Rochdale) – Naturalisation and traditional neighbourhood restoration

4. Newton Heath Canal (Rochdale) – Naturalisation and traditional neighbourhood restoration

5. Moston, Moston Brook, Streets, riverside, post- Street trees, Moston Vale industrial site naturalisation and restoration

6. Clayton Vale Post-industrial site Naturalisation and restoration

7. Nutsford Vale Post-industrial site and Naturalisation and former tip restoration

8. Broom Avenue, Former drying area beside Collective Levenshulme private houses and recreational spaces adjoining open area where (with both limited footpath was constructed access and wider access)

9. Birchfields Park Forest Park Experimental Garden management approaches

10. Shared allotments Allotments Food growing and sharing

11. Platt Fields Park Park Restoration, gardening, fruit growing, decontamination of lake

12. Fallowfield Secret Former vacant land within Food growing, wild Garden housing estate play area

13. Rusholme - St. Ives Alleyway, various spaces Naturalisation and Road alleyway, street trees

and pocket gardens on the sides of roads restoration

14. Moss Side - Moss Cider, Alleyways, back yards, Gathering and Open Yardens, Moss Side vacant space transformation of Community Allotment available food; food cultivation

15. Whitworth Park Park Naturalisation and restoration

Ten of the fifteen cases were subjected to further investigation through in situ interviews. The identification of these ten sites was also opportunistic; they were included based on the willingness of people involved (met on site or introduced by a third person) to participate in interviews. If willing participants had been easily identified at all fifteen sites, in situ interviews would have taken place at all of them. However, as the original idea was to study ten to fifteen cases at this stage, it was decided that site visits to fifteen, supplemented by in situ interviews at ten, provided sufficient coverage. The in situ interviews involved a mix of walking and working interviews with key actors (see Appendix 1 for specifics) and these are described below.

Ten people participated in walking interviews, which are an ideal method for exploring people’s relationship with space and place. Interviews can be semi- structured or unstructured, and routes can be pre-determined or not. Recording of the interview should attempt to connect what people say to where they say it (Jones et al., 2008). In this project, the routes were determined by the respondents (within the parameters of ‘show me the place where you are engaged’), and the interviews were semi-structured (see Appendix 4 for interview guide – walking interviews).

Prior to the walking interview, participants were given an information sheet (see Appendix 2 for participant information sheet – walking interviews) and asked to sign a consent form (see Appendix 3). At the beginning of the one- hour interview, respondents were asked to describe the initiative in which they were involved and their own specific role in it. Then researcher and respondent(s) walked around the site and sometimes the surrounding neighbourhood. The researcher asked the respondent(s) to describe the

landscape through which they were walking from his or her own perspective and mention any particular feelings or memories they had about particular elements of that landscape. With the respondent’s permission, the researcher took photographs of elements identified as important by the respondent. At the end of the walk, the researcher asked the respondent about his or her motivation to get involved, stay involved or cease to be involved in the initiative. Recordings were made when possible, and the researcher took notes and photographs during the walking interview.

Initially the intent was to carry out walking interviews across at least ten sites. However, the proposed walking interviews were replaced with ‘working interviews’ at some sites because more natural opportunities arose for the researcher to participate in activities at the site and interview participants in this context. They were less demanding of the research participants, who did not have to make time for an extra activity. Generally, the researcher was able to actually save them time by contributing labour to their efforts.

Working interviews are a variation on the walking interview described above with similar uses and advantages. Researcher and respondent(s) work together at a task, which stimulates the respondent(s) to reflect on the nature of the activity and the place where it occurs. The working interview is not the same as participant observation because the researcher is not so much focused on generally observing what is happening but is rather addressing specific questions to respondents (about the nature of the activity and the participant’s involvement in it) and engaging in dialogue with respondents in order to seek specific information. Working interviews have many of the advantages of walking interviews with respect to taking cues from place and creating a more relaxed interaction where one does not feel compelled to speak all the time. While there may be fewer place cues because less ground is covered, the activity undertaken offers additional cues for reflection.

A similar process and questions to those used in walking interviews were used. Respondents were asked about the initiative in which they were involved and their own specific role in it. They were asked for details about their

perspectives on the work they did and the place where they were working. They were also asked about their motivation to get involved and stay involved in the initiative.

Following analysis of the data from the first two stages (see 3.5.3 for more details) two sites that appeared to represent the ‘inviting’ and ‘uninviting’ ends of the landscape spectrum were selected for deeper analysis through in-depth case studies. These two cases seemed to be ‘exemplary’ (Yin, 2009, p. 185) of a particular type of landscape. The boundaries of the cases evolved over time and did not exactly correspond to the sites as defined in the second stage. This is discussed in greater detail in the next section.

Case Study Stage 3 – participant observation

Participant observation was carried out at the two selected sites over a period of approximately five months (with a few additional activities occurring later) and the resulting data were combined with data about these sites collected during the previous stages. Work at two sites allowed for comparison, while still permitting deep engagement with each site. Similarly, a focus on approximately five participants at each site (some of whom had already been involved in walking or working interviews) allowed for reflection on the process from different perspectives while still remaining feasible within the time available for the study. With respect to recruiting the individuals, people involved in the previous stage who were active at the chosen sites were consulted about which other key actors to approach, and introductions or referrals were sought. If potential participants expressed interest, they were sent or given a participant information sheet (see Appendix 2 for participant information sheet – participant observation) and consent form, and invited to meet to discuss the parameters of the research.

Participant observation entails the researcher observing events at a site while actually taking part in them. It requires that the researcher become part of the group that is the subject of research. He or she should spend extended periods with fellow participants, engage in their activities and be immersed as much as possible in their experiences and meaning systems. Observations are

generally recorded through field notes (Walsh, 2009). Photography was also used in this project. The focus of the observations was on how characteristics of the landscape were inviting or discouraging interventions in that landscape, both before the change-focused activity took place and as it evolved. Other factors affecting these interventions were also noted. Outcomes of the interventions, particularly with respect to enhancing resilience, were similarly recorded. While the focus was on people’s interaction with different landscapes, in keeping with the participatory research approach, the researcher participated in a broad range of activities with citizen volunteers and noted anything that seemed to be of interest.

The researcher generally assisted with activities of the digging, carrying, planting, note-taking, tea-making variety, but tried to avoid suggesting ways of doing things. As the research progressed, the researcher sometimes took on a more directive role and proposed approaches to carrying out the work. The latter was appropriate in cases where the key actors wanted to undertake something for which time or particular skills were currently lacking amongst the existing group. For example, the researcher organised a set of activities to facilitate participation in designing a community garden, and undertook research and made suggestions about management approaches for a contaminated lake.

The exact timing of the researcher’s visits varied depending on the project and the season, but in general the researcher visited the sites once or twice a week for two to four hours for a period of five months. In addition to the times when the actual physical work was taking place, the researcher visited during group meetings and community gatherings.

3.5.3 Analysis

As described in 3.4.2, a retroductive approach was taken, which involves identifying and describing effects; postulating hypotheses on the types of mechanisms that explain them; trying to demonstrate/refute the existence of the mechanism identified; and, over time, eliminating alternative plausible explanations (Sayer, 2010, p. 72). An important tool in this process was the use of explanatory case studies, which involves using the analytic technique of

‘explanation building’. According to Yin (2009, p. 141), “to ‘explain’ a phenomenon is to stipulate a presumed set of causal links about it, or ‘how’ or ‘why’ something happened. The causal links may be complex and difficult to measure in any precise manner”. In this case, the question was firstly ‘why’ are citizens engaging with urban landscapes. The second was ‘how’ do people and landscape interact, and the third was ‘how’ do these interactions affect resilience.

Yin maintains that case study inquiry “benefits from the prior development of theoretical propositions to guide data collection and analysis.” (2009, p. 18) The theoretical framework does not have to be a full one because the case study is an iterative process: “the final explanation may not have been fully stipulated at the beginning of a study and therefore differs from pattern-matching approaches. Rather, the case study evidence is examined, theoretical positions are revised, and the evidence is examined once again from a new perspective in this iterative mode.” (Yin, 2009, p. 143)

The development, based on the literature review and early empirical research, of theoretical propositions concerning the causes and effects of people- landscape interactions facilitated the undertaking of explanatory case studies by orienting the identification of relevant data. At the same time, openness and flexibility were maintained throughout the empirical research through the choices of both data collection and analysis methods. Unstructured and semi- structured interviews and other interactions with diverse actors kept the space open for alternative explanations. The coding of the data, as described below, permitted continual additions and modifications to the codes applied. Each stage of data collection was oriented and re-oriented based on findings from the previous stage.

The development of the explanatory case studies was also supported by a preliminary conceptual model, the critical realist model of a SES (Figure 4) which permitted integration of conceptual lenses and research methods drawn from the disciplines identified as relevant in the literature review. Building on the preliminary model, the case studies contributed to developing a fuller conceptual model of people-nature interactions in urban SESs and the contribution of these

interactions to reducing or enhancing resilience, thus offering an explanation of the underlying mechanisms. A conceptual model can be developed based on case studies because “case studies, like experiments, are generalizable to theoretical propositions” (Yin, 2009, p. 15). They are not samples and are therefore not generalisable to “populations or universes” (Ibid.). The goal is “to expand and generalize theories (analytic generalization) and not to enumerate frequencies (statistical generalization).” (Ibid.) Yin (Ibid., p. 142) describes the process of explanation building through multiple case studies, where “one goal is to build a general explanation that fits each individual case, even though the cases will vary in their details”. In this study, it was not only a question of looking across cases but also of looking more deeply into some of the cases to see if the explanation held.

Explanatory case studies also serve to ‘address rival explanations’ (Yin, 2009, p. 143) which parallels Sayer’s (2010) step of ‘elimination of alternative plausible explanations’ in the process of retroduction. Two examples of alternative explanations that came up frequently in this research were the presence of local leaders and the demographics of local communities. While these were often factors (and there are many factors in a complex system), they did not explain the choices leaders made about where to intervene or why changes to the landscape could engage ‘difficult to engage’ communities, as adequately as did the Inviting Landscapes explanation.

As described in 3.5.2 the data collection took place over several stages using several methods. The data collected included recordings and transcripts from ten programme manager interviews (one involving two programme managers); transcripts (and recordings in some cases) from ten walking interviews (two involving two participants); notes from ten working interviews; field notes from fifteen site visits; and field notes from participatory observation at two sites over five months. Respondents were anonymised, and, when cited, they were divided into three groups: programme managers, site-based staff and citizens. Within these sub-groups there is a lot of variation with respect to levels of responsibility or engagement, but the distinction is among staff people who were involved in management of work at various sites (programme managers) versus those who

were focused on one or two sites (site-based staff). Some particularly engaged citizens were doing very similar work to site-based staff but the distinction is between those who were paid and not paid, which is of significance for this research because of its focus on understanding motivations for action.

The data was managed using Dedoose software, which is similar to NVIVO and, as such, is an appropriate tool for storing and organising data from a variety of sources, and for identifying relationships among data (Bazeley, 2007). Dedoose has easy-to-use analytical tools that allow for rapid generation of quantitative measures from qualitative data, making it simple to view the frequency of occurrence and co-occurrence of coded text in the form of tables and graphs. A key advantage of Dedoose is that it is available online and therefore the data could be accessed and analysed from anywhere, rather than being limited to work at computers in the University, where NVIVO software was available. The transcripts and notes were uploaded to Dedoose for analysis as they became available.

The first round of analysis began after the semi-structured interviews with programme managers. The approximately one hour long recorded interviews were transcribed. Relevant data or ‘patches’ (Stake, 2010) were identified in the interview recordings/transcripts and highlighted. The recordings of each interview were listened to and the transcripts read multiple times to ensure that nothing was missed. It is worth noting the advantage conveyed by the availability of personal mp3 players with respect to making it practical to listen repeatedly to the interviews. Listening to the recordings multiple times at different stages of the research process contributed to greater attention being paid to elements that took on new importance as a result of later data collection, thus allowing for more effective use of both aggregative and interpretive data (see Section 3.5.2.2). The fact that the interviews were also transcribed and coded made it easy to locate existing sections and add new relationships and interpretations to those previously noted. In parallel, having largely memorised the spoken interviews through multiple playbacks, I was able to hear the speaker’s voice complete with intonation when reading the transcripts, which aided interpretation. The level of recall derived from a combination of reading

and listening also made it easier to make links among related data throughout the research process.

The highlighted data ‘patches’ in the transcripts were coded. The coding was oriented by the research questions (see 3.2) and seven root codes were defined:

1. Perspectives on citizen engagement with urban landscapes (or with urban nature/in greening activities, depending on how respondents described it) – this data contributed to laying the groundwork with respect to the state of citizen interaction with urban landscapes and also served to explore ideas about what motivated citizen engagement (which could be used to either support or question ideas about the role of Inviting Landscapes) 2. Understanding of Inviting Landscapes – this data contributed to developing the concept of Inviting Landscapes; references or links to concepts that were explored in the literature review were sought and perspectives noted that both strengthened or undermined the Inviting Landscapes concept 3. Characteristics of Inviting Landscapes 4. Characteristics of Uninviting Landscapes 5. Institutional supports and governance – this data concerned structures and processes/policies that were supporting the emergence of Inviting Landscapes or possibly providing a better explanation of why citizens engaged with urban landscapes 6. Other considerations – issues frequently mentioned that did not fit into the above categories 7. Projects – data concerning the location, landscape types and activities related to projects that were mentioned (and in some cases visited) 8. Interventions – things that paid staff and community leaders did to render landscapes more inviting

These root codes served primarily as categories to organise more detailed information, which was coded and later organised as child and grandchild codes to the root codes. However, the root codes were also used extensively in the early stages to identify data that seemed relevant but could not be more specifically classified at the time. The process was iterative and codes continued to be created throughout the data analysis, which was necessary in order to detect and elucidate phenomena that were not clearly defined at the outset. This resulted in the creation of a large number of codes (see list in Appendix 5) and these were regrouped and more clearly defined over time. This made for a complex process of analysis that was greatly facilitated by the use of data management and analysis software. The chosen software Dedoose proved very flexible with respect to reorganising the codes. Its capacity to rapidly arrange

selected sets of the coded data in a variety of tables and graphs was also tremendously helpful in exploring relationships among the data.

In the first stage of analysis, based on the programme manager interviews, the coded ‘effects’ facilitated the development or validation of some emerging concepts and hypotheses. Their identification, coding and categorisation also represented the first step in organising data about cases that might subsequently be examined in greater depth. The first product was the generation of the overview of citizen interaction with landscapes in North West England (see Section 4.2). This was not however the only product of this first stage as both data and analysis were retained and combined with those from subsequent stages to produce the overall findings that are detailed in the remainder of the thesis. The first stage of analysis also guided the subsequent stage of data collection. Data derived from the interviews with the programme managers who were asked, among other things, to talk about examples of citizen interaction with urban landscapes, served to identify potential cases for further examination. Specifically, data grouped within the ‘projects’ root code were used to identify sites to visit and undertake further follow up, and helped to ensure that these sites included the types of activities and site types that were reflective of how and at what type of sites citizens were engaged across the region.

The nature of the information about the sites provided by the programme managers varied greatly and was sometimes very sparse. It did not allow for characterisation or comparison of the sites mentioned. It did, however, serve to identify sites that merited further consideration, and it provided the first set of data that could later be combined with data from other sources to construct cases. It also provided a list of types of sites where citizens were active across the region and the sorts of activities in which they were engaged. This meant that the researcher could ensure that the fifteen sites (see Table 4) that were eventually identified for further investigation reflected the range of site types and activities present in the region.

In the analysis of the interviews with programme managers (and of later transcripts and field notes), information about potential landscape

characteristics that were inviting or discouraging engagement was also noted. Notes were also made, when possible, about other characteristics (e.g. scale, ownership, current and previous use, pre-existing infrastructure and visible nature); the surrounding neighbourhood (e.g. urban/peri-urban, residential/commercial, new/old development, socioeconomic characteristics); the participants (e.g. number of people involved, socio-demographic characteristics, citizen-led/institution-led) and indications of social-ecological resilience.

Investigation at the fifteen sites during the second stage of research both served as an additional source of data (which augmented and refined data collected in the first stage) and was used to identify sites that appeared to have a higher concentration of Inviting and Uninviting Landscape characteristics (as elucidated during the first two stages of empirical research). Visits were made to all fifteen sites, and walking and/or working interviews were carried out at ten of the sites. Once each site visit or interview was completed, transcripts and field notes (often with references to photographs) were entered into Dedoose. This data, combined with that from the programme manager interviews, allowed for the description of fifteen relevant cases, which are briefly presented in Section 4.3 in the form of a ‘tour’ among sites. From these cases, two sites (that were in fact a composite of sites as defined in the second stage) which appeared to represent the most and least inviting landscapes were selected for in-depth explanatory case studies. These were the sites that were expected to be most useful for confirming or falsifying the hypothesis (Flyvbjerg, 2006), i.e. that the landscape was playing a role in stimulating citizen action. In other words, this represented the part of the retroductive process concerned with trying to demonstrate/refute the existence of the mechanism identified; and, over time, eliminating alternative plausible explanations. (Sayer, 2010, p. 72)

The third stage of the empirical research involving participatory observation during five months at two sites both augmented and refined the data collected during the first two stages. It also elucidated dynamic processes taking place at the sites and the contexts in which they were situated. The latter part of the analysis moved beyond the coding of data and identification of relationships

among them to develop case study narratives. These were analysed using an evolving conceptual model that drew on the concepts explored in the literature review, which were integrated using the critical realist model described in 3.4.1. This model aided in depicting possible underlying generative mechanisms, which are presented in 6.3.

The findings were verified through several means. One was to triangulate using multiple methods, which according to Stake (2010, pp. 123–125) should be seen not so much as serving to ‘validate’ but rather to better understand what is going on. Given that multiple perspectives on particular landscapes were part of the complex system under investigation, triangulation was essential in this analysis.

Stake (Ibid., p. 127) points out that the ‘multiple eyes’ approach is one of the most important triangulations and so full advantage was taken of supervisions and feedback from other colleagues when the data was in a relatively raw form in order to discover different interpretations. Emerging concepts and examples used to support them were presented at a number of conferences, and a particular effort was made to present at conferences linked to the fields that framed this study, and where people familiar with the city and region, as well as other comparable cities, were present. Finally, transcripts (and where applicable, recordings) were reviewed again toward the end of the research process to see if emerging ideas affected how things had been coded and analysed.

The next three chapters describe and analyse the empirical research findings. The compositional structure is one of theory building (Yin, 2009, p. 176). For the most part, the data and analysis are presented chronologically in accordance with the stages of fieldwork, which logically align with the theory building process. An initial broad overview leads to identification of cases and then development of case studies. The products of the analysis include the characteristics of Inviting Landscapes, a conceptual model and suggestions for potential application of findings.

3.6 Conclusion

This chapter developed a qualitative research methodology built on a process of retroduction. Retroduction incorporates both an iterative approach and triangulation of research methods, which supports integration of different disciplinary perspectives. This aligns with the use of case studies and of different approaches to studying landscapes. Data were collected through a variety of methods including semi-structured interviews, site visits documented with photographs and field notes, in situ (walking/working) interviews and participant observation. The research design sought to generate: (a) an overview of citizen interaction with urban landscapes in North West England and (b) more detailed analyses of specific cases of local landscapes in Manchester (including the ways in which citizens interacted with them, and the results of these interactions).

The next three chapters present the results of the empirical research. Chapter 4 captures the aerial view, presenting the range of activities in the region and some emergent themes with respect to people-landscape interaction. It then zooms in on fifteen sites to examine the details and begin to identify landscape characteristics that might be inviting or repelling citizens. Chapter 5 undertakes a detailed investigation of citizen-landscape interactions at two sites, and detects and describes certain phenomena. Chapter 6 draws on all of the data and previous analyses to identify Inviting Landscape characteristics. It then brings together all of the analysis in the development of a conceptual model of people- nature interactions in urban SESs and the contribution of these interactions to reducing or enhancing resilience.

4 The Lay of the Landscape 4.1 Introduction

The literature review provided examples of a growing trend of citizens engaging with nature to transform urban landscapes. Is this pattern evident in Manchester and other areas of North West England? This was the first question that the empirical research sought to address. Drawing on ten interviews with eleven programme managers, a portrait emerged of what citizens were doing in different types of urban landscapes and how people were interacting with urban nature and contributing to making cities more resilient. Programme managers were also asked about their broader perspectives on the question of citizen engagement and greening cities, as well as whether the concepts framing this research (SES, resilience, ecosystem services, landscape) resonated with how they viewed their work and the context in which they carried it out.

The goal of this stage of empirical research was first to make sure that this research project was relevant and potentially useful to practitioners and to adapt and refine the initial conceptual framework to better correspond to realities in the region. Secondly, this stage of the research sought to cast a wide net by drawing on the decades of experience across the region seen from multiple perspectives that these very knowledgeable people were able to share. Their experiences and reflections laid a foundation, in the form of ‘emerging themes’, for further development of the thesis and also served as a rich source of data that could be referred back to at later stages in order to validate or elucidate findings. The content of the programme manager interviews also oriented further enquiry and pointed the researcher toward specific sites.

Fifteen of the sites that the programme managers helped to identify were selected as cases as described in Section 3.5.2.2. In the second stage of the empirical research, site visits and in situ interviews with people active at these sites furnished further data about both specific initiatives and broader phenomena. Once again, this oriented the next stage of empirical research, i.e. in- depth case studies, and contributed to development of the thesis. A brief

overview of these sites is provided in the final section of this chapter and data collected at these sites is analysed in the subsequent chapters.

4.2 Citizen interaction with urban landscapes in North West England

Interviews with eleven programme managers within organisations that support citizen engagement with urban landscapes20 in North West England yielded an overview of the current state of citizen interaction with urban landscapes in North West England and some initial data about 52 examples. This section begins with a brief summary of the data provided about the sites of potential interest identified by programme managers. It then validates the broad goals of the research project and its emerging concepts and hypotheses through a description of the perspectives of the eleven programme managers concerning (a) the importance of citizen engagement in greening cities and (b) people’s relationships with urban landscapes. Finally it explores some emergent themes regarding the state and the evolution of urban landscapes and people’s interactions with them, which helps to guide the next stages of empirical research.

4.2.1 Who is doing what and where?

The eleven programme managers were asked to draw upon their extensive experience to speak about specific initiatives and broader reflections that they thought might be relevant to this research project (see Appendix 4 for details of how the project was described and the questions posed). They referred to a total of 52 specific sites and also made general statements drawing on their experiences at a range of sites and at the regional or programme level. Coding of interview transcripts permitted extraction of basic data concerning site types and locations, as well as characteristics of engaged citizens and the activities they undertook. This is summarised below.

With respect to the characteristics of the engaged citizens, programme managers spoke of a diverse volunteer population (with respect to age, gender, class and ethnicity). At least one organisation had undertaken a study of the

20 Most of the programme managers spoke in terms of engaging citizens with green infrastructure or in greening initiatives.

diversity of its volunteers and found out that “the cross-section of people that were volunteering for us actually matched the census data in terms of the different ethnic categories.” (Programme Manager 9) At the same time, several programme managers spoke of the need for different kinds of support in different kinds of communities and this will be addressed in greater detail later in this chapter and in 7.2.2.

The programme managers described volunteers engaging in a range of activities including: increasing permeability of surfaces; de-culverting and other efforts to naturalise water bodies; alleyway naturalisation; regeneration of post- industrial sites; tree planting and maintenance (stewarding woodlands; street tree planting and maintenance; woodland/orchard creation in parks); naturalisation of existing green spaces; connecting natural corridors; constructing green roofs; installing meanwhile projects (temporary uses of land slated for different uses in the longer term); creating edible landscapes/growing food; urban foraging; making wild play spaces; improving footpaths and cycleways. Changes had been made to a variety of sites, including vacant lots, gardens, parks, schoolyards, streets, alleyways, former railways, borders of existing railways, canals, rivers and lakes.

The programme managers described these activities as taking place at 52 ‘sites’ around the North West listed in the below table. It should be noted that there is overlap among the listed sites, i.e. some locations fall within others. When this is the case, it is because they refer to different examples, which were labelled in accordance with how programme managers described the location of the initiative. If only the name of the city or town was mentioned in relation to a particular example, its name is mentioned in the ‘sites’ column along with the other sites that fall within it. Similarly, if a particular area of a neighbourhood was the site of a specific example and the overall neighbourhood was described as the site of another example, its name may appear twice if the smaller site is otherwise difficult to locate.

Table 5 Locations of potentially relevant initiatives in North West England as identified by programme managers

County City/Town Sites Greater Manchester (30) Ancoats; Ashton Canal; Birchfields Park; Manchester Broom Avenue, Levenshulme; Chorlton Water Park; Clayton; Clayton Vale; East Manchester; Fallowfield; Greville Street, Longsight; Hulme; Harpurhey; Harpurhey Ponds; Irk Valley; Kenworthy Woods; Manchester; Medlock Valley; Miles Platting; Moss Side; Moston; Moston Brook; Moston Vale; Newton Heath; North Manchester; Northern Quarter; Nutsford Vale; Platt Fields Park; Rochdale Canal; Rusholme; Whitworth Park Bolton (1) Bolton Bury (2) Chesham Woods, Bury; Bury Wigan (2) Wigan; Wigan Flashes Rochdale (1) Rochdale Salford (2) Little Broughton; Weaste Trafford (5) Kingsway Park, Trafford; Partington; Walkden Gardens, Sale; Seymour Park, Old Trafford; Trafford Ecology Park West Yorkshire Todmorden Todmorden (Calderdale) (1) Merseyside Liverpool (2) Liverpool; Northwood Estate, Kirkby Knowsley (2) Knowsley; National Wildflower Centre, Knowsley Saint Helens (1) Saint Helens Birkenhead Bidston Moss (Wirral) (1) Lancashire Preston (2) Preston; Brockholes

Map 1 Cities and towns in North West England where potentially relevant examples were identified by Programme Managers

The next section summarises how the programme managers perceived citizen interaction with these urban landscapes and the importance that they placed on these activities. Their perspectives contributed to confirming the relevance of this research project to practitioners in the region.

4.2.2 Validation of the research project with practitioners

The recording of the basic data described above confirmed that citizens were indeed engaged in potentially resilience-enhancing activities at a range of sites throughout the North West. This established that there was in effect a phenomenon to be studied. As described below, the programme manager

interviews also supported the rationale for the research project with respect to the need to enhance social-ecological resilience of cities and the role of citizens in this effort. Additionally the interviews further validated the perspective of city as system and the potential of landscape to shed some light on its workings.

4.2.2.1 The need for resilient urban landscapes

Transformation of urban landscapes in ways that incorporate the value of ecosystem services (often expressed in terms of development of green infrastructure), and therefore enhance resilience, was a key goal for the programme managers interviewed and the organisations for which they worked. One programme manager identified it as a priority for environmental action in the UK:

The most important initiatives are within the green infrastructure movement; third sector organisations supported by local authorities who are trying to get this issue of green infrastructure embedded in the planning process…it’s so obvious that it’s a good thing. Everybody knows it and feels it. (Programme Manager 8)

The programme managers described a range of benefits related to ecosystem functions and services that such transformations would provide, as summarised below:

Table 6 Examples of how programme managers described enhancement of ecosystem functions and services in urban landscapes

Ecosystem functions and Resulting ecosystem Programme managers opportunities services talked about: Carbon reduction, sequestration, Mitigation of, and adaptation “flood-control based” urban cooling, flood control to, climate change “sustainable urban drainage systems” “We want less polluting landscapes so there’s less CO2…more adaptive landscapes, so some of those might be wetland springs, to help with climate change” Habitat provision Enhanced biodiversity “providing patches of natural (recognising that non-urban vegetation” areas can no longer “making sure that there is as adequately meet this need) much habitat for the bugs as for the birds” “we want biodiversity”

Provision of multifunctional and more Efficient use of space and “We need to keep the green resilient infrastructure natural resources, effective infrastructure that we’ve got.” mechanisms and lower “you get multiple resource maintenance costs use” “paying mind to the multi- purpose functions of the green space”

Increased opportunities for contact Provides a range of benefits “[Citizens] enjoy the access with nature for health and well-being, as to that country in the city. It’s well as offering opportunities terribly important.” for environmental education “providing playgrounds” and promotion of “we’re looking to create an environmental concerns attractive green space, changing the green desert” “We want learning landscapes that can be used for education, where people can be involved and can actually use these.” Increased opportunities to dwell in Cultural service that allows “If it’s attractive, it creates a attractive environments for development of positive sense of hope, positive identity, optimism and skills; thinking. It’s less polluting opportunities for building and it looks good; there’s social capital and cohesion essentially a sense of pride in the place. We think they have a calming effect, and there’s a sort of interaction, and talking points for intergenerational mixing. Hopefully they can develop new life skills--and there’s still real scope to develop those sorts of skills because there’s an expanding area of work that involves habitat creation, and it creates a sort of ownership and ‘feel good’ factor. So those are the sorts of social responses that we see in these sorts of landscapes.”

4.2.2.2 The role of citizens

Many of the programme managers believed that having citizens involved in processes of transformation of urban landscapes and stewardship of urban nature benefitted both people and urban nature—thus enhancing resilience. They reported that citizens in North West England were very willing to engage with greening efforts. A range of claims were made to this effect, including the desire to engage with urban nature:

We’ve got the body of evidence that says people value [urban nature], people want to do something about it…I think that there’s a spirit and a willingness for people to get on board with it. (Programme Manager 7)

And to have a positive impact on their environments:

Our experience is that when asked, people invariably want to do something positive. (Programme Manager 2)

They noted that this engagement both cut costs and allowed the needs and desires of citizens (including the need to be involved in transforming their

environments) to be directly addressed. Respondents described a win-win situation where citizens could enjoy autonomy in pursuing their interests:

People don’t expect to get large amounts of money for things and a lot of people do want to do it themselves. (Programme Manager 11)

And authorities could save money while permitting the development and maintenance of green infrastructure at a scale beyond that which paid staff had capacity to provide:

Getting people to do things that they want to do, because they are interested, and they want to do it for nothing, helps cuts the cost of doing the things that they want done. (Programme Manager 3)

The capacity to expand the scale of intervention was not only related to the increased availability of human resources but also to access to a larger area where change could potentially take place, beyond the fairly limited areas of land controlled by public agencies. One programme manager described the link between citizen engagement and significantly expanding areas of intervention as follows:

So how do we make the urban ecosystem work better, I think, would be one of the really interesting areas; not least because so much of it will require community, private engagement to make it happen, because…We’ve got big areas of publicly owned woodland and stuff, the public sector element, but in many places you must be looking at seventy, eighty, ninety percent of greenness is private, and certainly a huge amount of the potential for this is going to be private. It’s only by people putting up nest boxes in the backs of their houses, isn’t it? (Programme Manager 5)

Important links between action in collective and private spaces (i.e. people taking home what they learned) were noted later in the empirical research process. In addition to the potential of citizen engagement to increase the area of the city covered by more resilient landscapes, programme managers also spoke of the potential to increase the longevity of these landscapes. They provided examples, such as the following, of the oft-mentioned advantage that initiatives involving citizens are likely to be more sustainable:

I always remember [a former manager] saying that one of the best community gardens in North Manchester was where they didn’t have a large amount of funding, they had to do it themselves all the time, and because of that it was just so sustainable, it was like little bits at a time, and they really wanted it, you know. (Programme Manager 11)

Trees planted under the Green Streets programme, which emphasised citizen engagement were more likely to survive than other street trees, being more at risk from too much attention than neglect:

It’s interesting that of the 2000 or so trees that we’ve planted, more have been lost to overwatering than vandalism, because people really love them. (Programme Manager 5)

Programme managers also saw the advantage of efforts that would not only persist but would potentially be more creative, providing the sort of diversity of approaches that is likely to enhance resilience.

A key thread running through all [the organisation’s] strategies was an objective about involving people creatively in biodiversity, trees and woodlands, in green space. (Programme Manager 7)

This engagement by citizens not only led to more interesting things happening at more sites with potential for being sustained but also to the development and maintenance of public support for broader greening efforts:

There was opportunity for so much buy in, not just from the local authorities but from the private sector, third sector, getting people involved to do their bit. And that involving people creatively aspect is a really fundamental and interesting part of our work. We can only carry on doing the things we want to do if we’ve got public support, a mandate for it, if it’s of interest to people. (Programme Manager 7)

Programme managers did mention some challenges related to citizen engagement, particularly with respect to the inability to carry out some of the more physically and technically demanding work, as well as lack of knowledge on the part of citizens about what constitutes a resilient urban landscape. However they also suggested ways to mitigate potential negative effects of this knowledge gap, which is discussed further in Section 5.2.8. Overall they were unanimous in asserting that urban landscapes are in need of transformation and that there is an important role for citizens in this enterprise and much to be gained by greater attention to what urban nature has to offer. The ways in which they saw the relationships among the components of this system are described in the next section.

4.2.3 Conceptualising citizen interaction with urban landscapes

4.2.3.1 Seeing the city as an urban ecosystem

The programme managers frequently spoke in terms of urban ecosystems. While the SES concept was not an explicit lens, there was clear evidence of a systems perspective and a very strong link was made among social and ecological components. Funding programmes frequently combined social and environmental objectives where, for example, enhancement of green infrastructure by citizens should also result in new skills, self-esteem and health benefits for individuals, along with increased community cohesion and social capital, while possibly contributing to urban regeneration and economic development—in sum, an implicit strategy to enhance social-ecological- economic resilience. Programme managers were also able to be very explicit when asked about whether they considered social and ecological resilience in their work, as the following quotation indicates:

What we’re doing is helping to increase those two things: social resilience by community cohesion, more people talking to each other, groups gaining more skills and therefore being more self-reliant; and definitely ecologically, by increasing connectivity of habitat, strengthening edge effects or reducing risk generally by using green infrastructure, we would say tapping the pinch points. (Programme Manager 2)

This tendency to integrate social and ecological aspects and to view work at individual sites and the collective impact at a city level through a systems lens permeated the descriptions that these experienced programme managers gave of their work. Their constant references to examples on the ground seemed to indicate that this perspective was a result of long reflection on real world examples.

4.2.3.2 Landscape as a lens

While the systems perspective was very much in evidence, none of the programme managers had explicitly considered landscape as a window into this system. They did however all think about landscape a lot, in a variety of different ways, and the idea that cultural landscapes might play a role in facilitating people-nature interactions resonated with them. The programme managers provided a number of examples of situations where certain characteristics of

landscapes were drawing people into a place and encouraging attachment to it and caring for it or where conversely people were repelled by the landscape.

Three of the programme managers spoke of sites having an ‘identity’ or a ‘sense of place’, which affected how people perceived and responded to them. One of these and two others mentioned how a nice entranceway or a path would give people a positive sense of the place and draw them in. Most programme managers noted interesting natural elements such as specific trees or wildflowers or water or birds that would attract people. Others talked about the attraction of edible landscapes where the presence of food growing inspired people to get involved. Four mentioned landscapes to which people had particular long-standing attachments and would thus strive to maintain. Three talked about the importance of feeling ownership in order to develop a sense of responsibility and how proximity of the place to where citizens lived was important in this respect. At the other end of the spectrum, all of the programme managers mentioned landscapes where rubbish and signs of vandalism dominated and how this tended to drive people away and make them pessimistic about the potential for positive change. Several programme managers talked about the fear and hopelessness associated with particular landscapes but also about how that could be turned around with some quite simple interventions (as is discussed in Section 7.2.2). They talked about how people were enticed by some sign that something was ‘going on’ and also how provided with the right sort of space (some benches facing each other, a dog run, something unusual to talk about) people would begin to congregate and talk about the place and possibly what it might become.

Out of this discussion, a picture began to emerge regarding how certain landscapes invite certain sorts of citizen interaction. The role of landscapes in maintaining and challenging narratives about urban nature and people’s relationship with it was thus explored further with the programme managers. The results of this line of inquiry are presented in the next section.

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4.2.4 People-landscape interactions: Emerging themes

The programme managers made a number of observations with potential to shed light on people-landscape interactions that could in turn help to develop the concept of Inviting Landscapes. This section summarises some themes that emerged from these statements.

While programme managers were unanimous in confirming that there were sufficient interested people and potential benefits to make citizen engagement with urban nature a key goal for their organisations, they also acknowledged that the obstacles to mainstreaming this engagement remained significant. The dominant cultural narratives concerning urban nature and the role of citizens as described in Section 2.4.2.1 are still much in evidence in North West England. There are however also indications of competing narratives. Both the current state of affairs and its gradual evolution are described in this section.

4.2.4.1 Challenges to seeing and liking urban nature

One of the cultural narratives described in 2.4.2.1 is that which maintains that ‘there is no nature in the city’. It was therefore useful to note how the respondents described the capacity of people in the region to see and like urban nature. One programme manager described how some people still consider nature to be absent from the city:

There are still people who will just go, “right, that’s where the nature finishes.” (Programme Manager 5)

This despite the fact that cities have in some cases become a refuge for species for which agrochemicals and monocultures have rendered non-urban areas inhospitable, as another programme manager noted:

There is really good nature in urban areas, there’s more biodiversity in urban areas than there is in many rural areas. (Programme Manager 6)

The accumulating knowledge about the value of urban nature has led an increasing number of professionals to see city and nature as fully integrated as the first programme manager attested:

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I think there are lots of people in our field who think of urban ecosystems. (Programme Manager 5)

Another programme manager described an explicit effort to make urban nature legible and communicate its existence to others, thus implying that the presence of nature was not broadly recognised but, at the same time, its presence and its importance were keenly recognised by some actors who had made it a priority to enlighten others.

We said that this [nature-focused initiative] is going to operate within this Rochdale urban district. It’s not going to go out to the countryside; it’s going to stay here and it’s going to find this countryside. And it did, there are rivers running through Rochdale. Some of the time they’re underground but they do make it above ground, you know, with habitats along…there are bits of derelict land which become wild, abundant with different types of habitat. (Programme Manager 9)

While the presence of nature in the city is beginning to be acknowledged, its value is not always appreciated, particularly when it is found in areas that are considered ‘derelict’.

We did work actually trying to safeguard sites which were considered derelict, and under the definition of derelict land, it was land so damaged that it didn’t have any functional use, or in fact a beneficial after- use. The beneficial after-use was actually nature conservation, and many of those sites were saved, and became local nature reserves and were managed as such, and they do tend to sort of survive over time. But there are still problems with those areas, you go to some of those little nature reserves, and most people in the community would consider them derelict, because of the aesthetics. (Programme Manager 6)

The above references to the importance of the aesthetic of urban nature highlighted a potentially important consideration in exploring how landscapes invite citizens to engage with them and it was therefore noted as an aspect requiring specific attention in later stages of data collection.

4.2.4.2 Lack of understanding of ecosystem processes and services

Even when urban nature is both visible and appreciated, all of the programme managers felt that its role as provider of ecosystem services was not adequately recognised, as one respondent expressed:

Frustrating thing for me with green spaces is that it’s not recognised for its economic value and social value. (Programme Manager 7)

This lack of recognition of ecosystem services was linked by several programme managers to a general lack of understanding of ecosystem processes. One respondent blamed the fact that education about pro-environmental practices such as recycling had replaced learning about natural processes:

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How do you get much greater understanding of that infrastructure, of those ecosystem services? The amount of stuff [schoolchildren] learn about proper ecosystems is terrible. It’s minimal, if not less than minimal, if that’s possible. I think the understanding of systems is not there. It’s not taught. (Programme Manager 2)

The strength of this statement was another indication of how important a systems perspective was to this respondent, who was not alone in voicing concern about the absence of such a perspective among the broader population. Particular mention was made respecting the lack of awareness of ecosystem processes that is manifested in the idea of unchanging nature. This is of concern in relation to reducing resilience though trying to artificially maintain the SES in one phase (as was discussed in Section 2.3). The manicured urban green space has played a key role in sustaining this cultural construction:

…in the 1970s with the landscapes as they were then, which was largely just mown grass…we called it the white box syndrome, and it was a bit like putting communities in white boxes because the landscape never changed, so you never actually got any seasonal change. (Programme Manager 6)

The ubiquitous mown grass succeeded in persuading a whole generation that ‘good nature’ was represented by an unhealthy ecosystem, thus demonstrating the power of landscape to undermine other possible ways of knowing about the characteristics of a functioning ecosystem and preferences for healthy places.

Additionally, the ‘white box’ landscape sits comfortably with the inherent behavioural conservatism of human beings that was discussed in Section 2.4.2.2. It also reinforces the cultural constructions of obduracy described in Section 2.4.2.1. Much managed nature encourages the perception that nature does not and should not change.21 This lack of understanding of change processes becomes even more of an issue in a context of climate change. As a result, there is now a need to manage landscapes for change, both seasonally and over time, and to make people see that this change is normal and inevitable, as one programme manager explained:

It’s all about change. There’s a great Darwinian sort of quote, I don’t think it’s actually his: It’s not the strongest nor the most intelligent that will survive, but those most adapted to change, and you know, I think we need a sort of situation where people get more used to this change, it’s all been forgotten, people have been used to things being very static…I think it’s about looking at these landscapes changing. (Programme Manager 3)

21 Even when landscapes are deliberately designed for change, resistance can mount—as in the example of Bostonions refusing to cut down trees in woods within the ‘Emerald Necklace’, which were designed by Olmsted to be cut in order to maintain the resilience of that ecosystem. (Spirn, 1996)

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This programme manager pointed out that in order for these change processes to be accepted and reflected in landscapes, policy frameworks must also recognise them. Organisations dedicated to protecting nature can become somewhat rigid as a result of their tendency to institutionalise correct forms and processes, thus potentially undermining resilience and adaptability, as is described here. 22

Natural England is trying to characterise landscapes and have masses of, pages and pages of landscape character types. And you look at those and you think: Well okay, they’re alright, but…they’re not future-driven. Those are fine for now, those are what the landscapes are; the landscape character types that we have got, or that Natural England have put together…They don’t say anything about whether those characters are under threat…from climate change—or anything to do with that. I think we have to get more used to the concept that landscape will change. (Programme Manager 3)

With respect to the mown grass, regardless of policy preferences, the days of the public lawn are numbered for economic reasons.

We’ve been groomed to expect a sort of utility mown grass but now local authorities have got huge cuts in budget, and they’re looking at a lot of these parks and saying, “Oh, we can’t afford this.” (Programme Manager 9)

Therefore people will have to get used to both seasonal and long-term change and perhaps this will open up some opportunities to understand ecological processes and appreciate different kinds of landscapes:

A hay meadow, a beautiful floral hay meadow, is so much cheaper than mown grass. It can make huge savings, but it’s a different way of looking at landscape, isn’t it? You get all the beauty of the flowers and stuff like that, but what you don’t get is a lawn. You can have a lawn later in the year, but you can’t have a lawn in the beginning of the year when all the flowers are out. (Programme Manager 9)

In this way, the message conveyed by the landscape begins to evolve.

People have got so used to being told that’s what a park looks like, that they forget that parks can be lots of different things and still serve a lot of the purposes, whether you’re going to start food-growing, whether you’re going to have fantastic meadows. (Programme Manager 9)

The above discussion indicates that making natural changes in ecosystems more legible in landscapes is potentially an important component of Inviting Landscapes because it will change perspectives of what constitutes appropriate urban nature and increase understanding of ecosystem processes. An increased prevalence of landscapes that are allowed to change also opens up interesting potential for citizen engagement. For example, citizens do not generally engage

22 This example aligns with literature cited in 2.4.2.1 regarding how planning frameworks can obscure natural systems and processes (Whatmore & Boucher, 1993, p. 169).

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in large-scale mowing and once this regime no longer holds sway, more options for citizens to take care of urban green spaces become available.

4.2.4.3 Barriers to interaction with nature

Alongside the cultural constructions of urban nature described above, there are narratives about how citizens should relate to it and, as is evident in the last example of opportunities for citizens in a post-lawn era, one can affect the other. Landscape influences social practice and social practices can in turn determine landscape and both can outlive their relevance. Programme managers frequently mentioned the persistence of a passive relationship with nature, a sort of remnant of the ‘stay off the grass’ culture. Most of them were involved in some way in facilitating a more interactive relationship with urban nature because it was apparent to them that there were barriers to overcome. One programme manager from an organisation that supports volunteers in hands on work with nature spoke of the experience of designing a garden for a large exhibition and suddenly realising that they were alone in having “instinctively created a garden people could walk into”.

While some contemporary green space users may be comfortable enough with straying onto the grass, they are not so sure about getting their hands dirty—or letting their children get their hands dirty, as this programme manager explained:

You can be working with a group of children in a school and you say to them, “right, you need to get down and dig your hands in and plant this tree, this is how you do it”; and they’re frightened of getting dirty because they’ve been told so many times not to get dirty. And you end up hearing yourself say, “But, you can get dirty, you can get your hands dirty, your skin is waterproof, we’ll wash it off before your mum sees you.” And some of them still won’t, some of them hold back. (Programme Manager 8)

This programme manager went on to describe similar barriers concerning food.23 Rather than being able to consume food directly from its sources, the below example indicates that some sort of intermediate infrastructure is usually required, such as the washing of fruit and the bowl described here:

It’s a cliché about children not knowing where there food comes from. It’s not that straightforward. They will recognise the food that’s coming out of the ground but they won’t eat it until somebody else has intervened. They need to have it prepared and packaged.

(Interviewer: But they would eat berries say, but not carrots?)

23 Eating food has been described as our most intimate contact with nature (Fernandez-Armesto, 2002).

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No, they would need to have the berries washed and put into a bowl and all that kind of thing. You do see that that connection needs intervention somehow, it needs interpretation. (Programme Manager 8)

If people can overcome the barriers to actually interacting with nature, they face another challenge related to the perception of human beings as destroyers, rather than stewards, of nature. The same programme manager spoke about how any sort of work in the woods, including beneficial woodland management, could be perceived by observers as destructive:

People see us out [working in the woods]. Very often people will complain about what we’re doing. They’ll say, “Oh, there’s somebody in the woods chopping trees down!” and the police will arrive... “We’re actually managing the woodland, please don’t wrap your arms around that tree, it’s a sycamore, it’s coming out, it’s ruining the woods.” (Programme Manager 8)

There is clearly a need to show evidence of the positive impact of people on urban nature in order to encourage more people to see themselves as potential stewards. This raises the question of how to make this positive impact visible in urban landscapes in order to make them more inviting to citizen engagement.

4.2.4.4 The role of landscape in maintaining and changing cultural narratives

Several programme managers described how the dominant cultural narratives mentioned above were reflected in the persistence of landscapes where nature, and people, were heavily controlled, including: lawns and parks with high maintenance artificial gardens; playgrounds with commercially manufactured equipment perceived as the only type of places where children can safely play, and only in limited prescribed ways; and ideas of safe places as not being at all wild and containing nothing that anyone could hide behind.

Individual programme managers had thought about the effect of landscapes on cultural narratives to different degrees, but when asked about this, they all acknowledged the possibility that the landscape itself was contributing to maintaining some of these cultural narratives about urban nature and human interaction with it. Most agreed that landscapes would have to change and perceptions would change with them.

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4.3 Zooming in on local landscapes in Manchester

Given the benefits of citizen engagement with urban nature described by the programme managers, the characteristics of landscapes that invite such engagement clearly merit further consideration. The second stage of empirical research looked more deeply at some of the landscapes with which citizens were engaging. Fifteen cases in Manchester were selected from the 52 examples mentioned by programme managers and explored through site visits and in situ interviews. The particular focus was on investigating the characteristics that make them ‘inviting’ or ‘uninviting’. The analysis of these cases assisted in the selection of sites for the two in-depth case studies described in the next chapter and also contributed to the findings that are detailed in subsequent chapters. This last section of the current chapter provides an overview of the Manchester context and individual sites in order to ground the findings that are presented later in the thesis.

Citizens of Manchester are engaged with a range of landscapes. Some of these are in places that previously served other purposes, often related to the city’s industrial past. Others are within green spaces that have been accessible to local people for a long time but have perhaps been neglected or threatened or are ill adapted to current needs, thus provoking a wave of citizen activity. Both contexts, and particularly the latter, spurred the widespread emergence of ‘Friends of’ groups in the 1990s, which have contributed significantly to carving out a role for citizens in the development and maintenance of public green space. While many ‘Friends’ were initially focused on preserving the managed and manicured urban nature ideal (and some still are), they served to normalise the presence of volunteers getting their hands dirty in public spaces. In parallel, a transition over recent decades to a society less willing to obey all the rules has produced not only destructive behaviours, but also creative interventions like guerrilla gardening. These activities put citizens interacting with nature into the picture of the urban landscape, thus inviting in other citizens who might be interested in doing the same.

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In this context, new urban landscapes are emerging. They are both wilder and more welcoming, and rather than insisting that everyone stay off the grass, or stay out of ‘bad places’, they invite citizens to perhaps replace the grass or cracked pavement with something more socially and ecologically resilient. These emerging landscapes have the potential for enhancing the sort of features of social and ecological resilience that were described by programme managers and summarised in section 4.2.2.1.

A diverse range of landscapes Map 2 Manchester city limits and radius of case selection stewarded by citizens can be observed as one cuts a loosely oval path within the City of Manchester: First taking in the city centre, followed by a portion of post- industrial North and East Manchester, then passing through traditionally more residential areas toward the south, then westward through areas with histories of crime and failed experiments in urban regeneration, and finally returning to the centre through the Oxford Road corridor of universities and research hospitals that represent the centre of Manchester’s knowledge economy. In each of these places citizens are engaged in changing their landscapes in ways that may make them more resilient.

These initiatives were investigated through a mix of site visits and site-based interviews (walking interviews and/or working interviews). The remainder of this section provides an overview of the fifteen sites that constituted the sample for the second stage of investigation of the cases and the context in which they are situated. Some potential Inviting and Uninviting Landscape characteristics are noted and these will be the subject of deeper analysis in Chapter 6.

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Manchester’s city centre, located on the western edge of the oval case study area (see Map 2), is an appropriate starting point. It is both the least likely place for citizens to engage “because of land value and a [relative] lack of residential population” (Programme Manager 2) and the place with the most potential to inspire citizens to transform cities. More people visit the city centre than other parts of the city and it is generally the area where nature is the least visible. As a result, a sudden encounter with Brussels sprouts trees in a car park is likely to attract attention and possibly stimulate reflection about the potential for growing food in urban centres. Local residents organised within the Northern Quarter Greening group helped to plant and now tend these grow boxes with the support of the organisation cityco under its Manchester Garden City scheme.

The grow-boxes in Piccadilly Basin complement efforts to revitalise the canals and the next stage of the journey takes us along the Ashton and Rochdale canals moving east from the city centre through the neighbourhoods of Ancoats, Miles Platting and Newton Heath. Ancoats, located on the edge of the city centre, is a landscape that has been largely transformed in the past decade through a large-scale regeneration initiative that has seen many former industrial buildings converted to residential use. The influx of new residents has led to an increased level of citizen engagement in taking care of the canals, which are now their backyard. As one resident explained:

No one used to live in Manchester city centre so there were no voluntary groups, so now that we live here (as a result of regeneration) we had to start a group. (Citizen 20)

The new residents are drawn to the water and some of the wildlife, particularly birds, that it attracts. They note the variety of vegetation along the towpaths. They see the canal as having recreational value for walking and running; some see it as a more attractive transport corridor than the neighbouring roads. As users of the canal, they are driven to improve it and many of them enjoy the effort.

Moving east along the Rochdale canal, away from the new residential areas, the canal begins to look less cared for. We enter into the more traditional neighbourhoods where there is less spontaneous citizen engagement. There are however signs of activity. In Miles Platting, a mural painted by local

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schoolchildren illustrates the range of wildlife present in and around the canal. A new community garden is in development. A nature sculpture overlooks the canal next to the Newton Heath library, a collaboration between professional artists and community members. Regular ‘Towpath Tidy’ events are organised. Several organisations are actively trying to facilitate citizen engagement with the canal and surrounding area. They are trying to uncover the natural and cultural value of a place that is regarded with a degree of negativity and sometimes a sense of hopelessness by the people who live in it:

The East was more solidly industrial with a coal mine, a power station and every kind of manufacturing. People thus had different attitudes to it due to its history and also it was just not accessible because of the kinds of land use and it was just seen as revolting—there used to be tanneries with the filthy water and the smell, etc. It is seen as the badlands and backlands. Even if there are no longer people with individual living memories of this, it is part of the community memory. (Site-based staff 12)

The post-industrial landscapes of the canal also characterise many areas of North Manchester and East Manchester that extend out from it. From Newton Heath, we can go north to Moston. Moston Vale, which was formerly a landfill, was a Newlands project24, as was the Green Streets initiative (where residents care for street trees) in the area around it. Friends of Moston Brook has recently formed; a group of local citizens have come together with some support from local government staff to clean up a neglected 70 hectare corridor along a polluted waterway.

Moving South from Newton Heath takes us through Clayton Vale in the Medlock valley. For many years an industrial area and landfill, it was converted to a naturalised green space in the mid-1980s. Now, the beautiful gates proclaim that you are entering a special space. Clayton Vale is evidence of how an industrial landscape can be transformed to something resembling a wilderness in the city. It is also an example of the challenges of keeping urban wildscapes attractive and accessible to all. Like Moston Brook, its reputation as an unpleasant and dangerous place persists.

[Clayton Vale] was an old pulverised fuel ash pit that had always had a bad reputation for ASB (anti- social behaviours). It was a good place to do bad things. (Programme Manager 7)

24 Several of the initiatives mentioned by Programme Managers (i.e. Green Streets, Moston Vale, Northwood and Nutsford Vale) had benefitted from Newlands investment. Newlands is a partnership of the Forestry Commission and the Northwest Regional Development Agency. Started in 2003, it was endowed with £59 million to invest over 20 years in “reclaiming large areas of derelict, underused and neglected land across England’s Northwest, and transforming it into thriving, durable, community woodlands.” (http://www.newlandsproject.co.uk)

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Even today and even in daylight, to be alone in the woods can be intimidating, especially if one is unfamiliar with the paths. It can be a comfort to see dog walkers although some of the dogs (and walkers) can look a bit dangerous to a newcomer. One is reminded of how often participants in this research mentioned that you have to make people feel safe in an area before they can begin to engage with it. The organised walking groups run by Friends of Clayton Vale are tremendously important to allow people to enjoy the space, and to become familiar enough with it to be comfortable returning alone. Walking with Friends can lead to opportunities to join them in stewarding it.

It is also easy to feel on edge when travelling along some parts of the cycleway/footpath that leads south. Similar to a number of areas along the canal, I was struck by the high walls and fences that contain this natural corridor, giving a sense that surrounding property owners are protecting themselves from the bad things that they expect to occur in this wildscape. There are limited escape routes and it is comforting to know how far I am from the next one when I occasionally encounter groups of young men wielding beer cans or hear the sound of a motorbike speeding along the narrow path toward me. It is a relief to pass through parts where residential streets overlook the path or move among families walking to the Debdale Outdoor Centre on the Gorton reservoir. It is also comforting to arrive at areas where paths have been developed and maintained by local residents, such as in the section of Highfield Country Park near Broom Lane in Levenshulme.

Work on the public path accompanied conversion of a former clothes drying area to a collective green space for the use of residents of the houses that back onto it. These residents turned down opportunities of additional funding rather than make the space publicly accessible. It seems a capacity to ‘defend’ the space to a certain degree is sometimes a condition of citizens investing in its transformation. Among the defined community, the area clearly creates social cohesion as children play together and adults gather round a table to chat in this shared space.

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Not far away in the adjacent neighbourhood of Gorton South bordering Longsight, another area associated in recent decades with bad behaviour, the former Matthew’s Lane Tip has been transformed into Nutsford Vale—and its renaming has made a difference. It is now a place of pleasant meadows and a site for Nature Fun Days and Forest Schools.

A little further to the west, Birchfields Park is home to a Forest Garden project. This initiative is a testament to the capacity of citizens to innovate. Several participants have each taken responsibility for a different section of a circular area and are carrying out their own experiments within a broader experiment of a garden that mimics the ecological structure of a forest while being cultivated to contain a high number of species of value to humans. Coming out on the other side of Birchfields Park, one arrives at Rusholme and Fallowfield, socio-economically and culturally mixed neighbourhoods where long-time residents cohabit (not without challenges) with transient students. Exiting Birchfields along the cycleway/footpath in the Fallowfield direction takes one past a large and well-established grouping of allotments nestled among the houses. Some participants in a park-based project also share an allotment here. The park in question, nearby Platt Fields, is the site of multiple interesting landscapes and various forms of citizen engagement, which will be discussed in detail in the next section.

Exiting Platt Fields to the South will bring you (if you have received instructions about which passage between houses to follow) to the Secret Garden. Here, a former ‘problem site’ within a housing estate has been transformed into a magnet of engagement and experimentation. The initiative was an offshoot of a small garden that one of the group members created beside his house thus demonstrating the potential of resident-led transformations. The volunteers who continue to co-create the Secret Garden bring a range of ideas and skills, which they share with others when they regularly invite the community at large to learn-by-making everything from the children’s wild play space to the ‘ladies loo’.

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If you exit Platt Fields to the north and walk through the back lanes, you may happen upon one of Manchester’s rare ungated alleyway greening efforts and the very beautiful results. On warmer days you will likely come across a group of neighbours sharing a cup of tea, a glass of wine or an evening meal (and you will probably be asked to join in) among their plant boxes, composters and rain barrels. If you stop to chat, you will soon find out everything you need to know about recycling systems, community events and a whole range of activities in which you might like to engage. You might also hear about things like how this transformation of space expands out of the alleyway into the road in front, which is sometimes converted into a Play Street ensuring that children’s play and their safety are given priority over rapid movement of cars.

Moving northwest (you may pass a pocket park created by the Urban Gardening Project on the way) to Moss Side, you can visit other alleyways, including a green one that got help in its development from friends and mentors who came over from the Rushholme initiative described above. Or you might, at the right time of year, encounter collective apple pressing for the increasingly successful Moss Cider. If your timing is particularly good, you could visit the ‘Open Yardens’, which rival annual Open Gardens events in the more affluent neighbourhoods further south. At almost any time of the year, you should find something happening at the thriving growing and community building space that is the Moss Side Community Allotment. Beyond Moss Side, Hulme is now the site of some promising regeneration efforts (following some famous earlier failures), which include Hulme Park where attention has been paid to making legible the nature and the culture of the place. Hulme is also the home of the Hulme Community Garden Centre, a source of inspiration and learning, along with plants and gardening supplies, for the whole city.

Coming back towards the centre, you can walk through Whitworth Park, another one-time no-go zone that was under threat of being converted to a car park for hospitals on the other side of the Oxford Road. It has been rescued thanks to the efforts of a small group of very dedicated citizens who have partnered with the university community and other local associations on diverse projects including tree plantings, an archaeological dig and a bioblitz. The latter

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revealed an impressive amount of biodiversity in a park once dominated by lawn, particularly in a beautiful wilder area of the park where the mower no longer ventures. Some of the many students who pass through the park daily have remarked on its beauty to the volunteers and asked questions about the effect of these new forms of land management on biodiversity. Having people see and reflect on these new sorts of urban landscapes opens up possibilities for multiplication, and it has been exciting to see over the past few years similarly interesting landscapes sprout up along the Oxford Road on the university campuses.

Moving North along the Oxford Road corridor brings us back to the city centre. In the summer of 2012, the first edition of Dig the City, a multi-partner event involving some of the people and organisations that contributed to this research, transformed the city centre and left a legacy of a reimagined urban landscape.

Plate 1 Dig the City: Before and After

Credit: Groundwork MSSTT

This section has provided an overview of the Manchester context and sites explored during the second stage of empirical research. Analysis of fifteen of the cases described here determined the focus of the in-depth case studies and contributed to overall findings that are discussed in subsequent chapters.

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4.4 Conclusion

This chapter has drawn on the first and second stages of empirical research, i.e. the interviews with programme managers, followed by site visits and in situ interviews. The data from the first stage served to validate the overall research project and was used to construct an overview of citizen interaction with landscapes in North West England. It also provided 51 examples capturing the range of initiatives taking place in the region, which in turn guided selection of fifteen indicative cases in Manchester that could be subjected to deeper analysis.

Analysis of data from the first stage indicated that citizens were engaging with urban landscapes in North West England in ways that valued and enhanced urban nature. The programme managers interviewed maintained that the activities of these engaged citizens were contributing to better functioning of urban ecosystems and provision of ecosystem services that benefitted all citizens. They also concurred that landscapes contributed to the development and maintenance of cultural narratives and that there existed in North West England landscapes that conveyed ideas about urban nature that were not consistent with functioning ecosystems and citizen stewardship. They described how some evolving landscapes were challenging these narratives and sending different messages, i.e. urban nature is valuable, ecosystems function best in a context of diversity and constant change, and citizens can play a valuable role in the transformation of urban landscapes. They provided a number of examples of characteristics of landscapes that appeared to ‘invite’ people to engage with them, while others had a tendency to repel.

The indicative cases that were briefly described at the end of this chapter (and are drawn on in subsequent chapters) permitted characterisation of landscapes that seemed to be inviting active engagement in enhancing urban resilience. These findings contributed significantly to the description of Inviting Landscape characterisics in Chapter 6. The characterisation of landscapes also allowed for the selection of two cases that seemed to best approximate the more and less inviting ends of the Inviting Landscape spectrum and these are discussed in the next chapter.

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5 Citizens at work in Manchester’s Landscapes

5.1 Introduction

The first and second stages of empirical research took the initial steps towards identifying the types of landscapes that invite active engagement in enhancing urban resilience, as was described in the last chapter. This chapter continues this endeavour by looking more thoroughly at two particular cases in Manchester, which were chosen because they seemed to be the most and the least inviting of the fifteen cases examined through site visits and in situ interviews. These case studies also analyse how people respond to and interact with Inviting and Uninviting Landscapes. Where possible, effects on social- ecological resilience are noted.

Data for this third stage of empirical research was gathered during five months of participant observation at two sites. The boundaries of the two case studies presented below are somewhat different from those of the cases listed in Table 4. These boundaries were adjusted to incorporate potentially important elements, as is explained in relation to each case study. The cases chosen were: Platt Fields Park and the surrounding area within the neighbourhoods of Fallowfield and Rusholme; and the Ashton and Rochdale Canals at Ancoats, Miles Platting and Newton Heath.

In the course of the case studies, phenomena were observed that contributed to the development of the Inviting Landscapes concept and to understanding the workings of urban SESs. The importance of considering the landscapes with which citizens engage as part of a broader urban landscape, and as a site-level SES within a panarchy of SESs, is discussed in Section 5.2.9. The final section of the chapter (5.4) explains how Inviting and Uninviting Landscapes should not be seen so much as distinct types but rather as a continuum. Furthermore, the state of the landscape at any one time is subject to change in the same way as the SES.

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These changes are often a result of forces at other levels of the panarchy of which the site-level SES is part.

This chapter provides a level of detail about citizen interaction with specific landscapes that serves to lay the groundwork for elucidating the characteristics of Inviting Landscapes in the next chapter. The analysis of these cases also contributes to refining conceptions of urban SESs, a process that will continue in the latter part of Chapter 6.

5.2 Platt Fields Park and environs

Platt Fields Park emerged as a potential example of a particularly inviting landscape during the second stage of empirical research and was thus selected for an in-depth case study. The case studies were originally designed to focus on a specific activity in order to closely observe how citizens interacted with the landscape. In the case of Platt Fields, the focus was on enhancement of the Eco Garden. However, as described in 3.4.4 the unit of analysis was later expanded to include other activities at the site, as well as connected sites in the area. The boundaries of this case were expanded to include all of Platt Fields Park and some related initiatives in the surrounding neighbourhoods of Fallowfield and Rusholme. The area of interest is shown in the satellite map below.

Map 3 Platt Fields Park and surrounding area

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5.2.1 A landscape called ‘park’ is more likely to have friends

Platt Fields was the first park in Manchester to be bought with public money25 following demands by citizens (Friends of Platt Fields Park, 2010). Opened in 1910, its evolution parallels that of other green spaces in Manchester and many UK cities. For decades it was a carefully controlled and managed space staffed by a park warden with a team of gardeners and other maintenance staff. It was a manicured landscape in which citizen intervention was clearly unwelcome. Speaking of the park in the 1970s, one long-time neighbour described how:

There were signs saying, ‘Please don’t walk on the grass’ all over the place…The lake was surrounded by grass everywhere. The biggest thing I remember is just that there were flowerbeds everywhere; loads and loads of flowerbeds full of flowers and the lake was really lovely and masses of boats out on the lake all the time and it wasn’t overgrown, none of the park was overgrown. It was just very well tended everywhere…I did feel that it was a lovely place to be proud of and you could take the children in and it was a lovely place to walk and play games and run around and it was safe. (Citizen 14)

Things were soon to change however and initially the people who cared about the park did not think to take matters into their own hands:

When it started falling to pieces, which was after Mrs Thatcher came to power basically, it just got sadder and sadder, and for the first ten years or even fifteen years of its demise, nobody really knew how to do anything about it. Nobody could quite believe that it was really being left in such a terrible state and so people would go in and moan but there was not the sense of ‘hang on a sec, we’ve got to stop this, we’ve got to actually do something about it; the Council’s not going to, so who is?’ It was very much the Council’s business to look after the parks and the public’s to enjoy them but then that’s what we paid our taxes for. (Citizen 14)

In time, some citizens began to realise that they had an important role to play and this sense has continued to grow through the ups and downs of the last thirty years. This same long-time park user, who is now an active volunteer, describes how the roles of citizens has changed:

[People didn’t realise that] it’s got to be us who use this park who turn round and make it come back into its own because basically the Council was just floundering [in the 1980s]. When they were asked, they just shrugged, they couldn’t do anything about it, there were cuts. A bit like what’s happening now again. So I think it’s very sad now. The difference is however that there’s a really different sense. While there’s a mixture of people, some being really whingy and moaning about it, there are also many more people who feel they have a complete right to have a role in their park, which certainly was never there in the seventies at all. (Citizen 14)

25 Purchased by the Manchester Corporation in 1907 in response to demands by citizens. Earlier parks were bestowed by landowners or purchased by public subscription. This was the first example in Manchester of parkland being purchased by a local authority.

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Many witnesses to the evolution of Platt Fields describe the closure of Pets Corner in 1993 as a turning point. Local children had enjoyed interacting with animals at Pets Corner for thirty years and it was viewed by many citizens as one of the few remaining assets in the park. Its threatened closure galvanised citizens and led to the formation of the Pets Corner Action Group. Despite their efforts, Pets Corner was not saved; the story is still told of how an underhanded City Council carried the animals away in the night. However, the social capital and expressions of commitment to the park that emerged during the campaign provided a basis for on-going citizen action, including the formation of the Friends of Platt Fields.

Friends of Platt Fields was one of the earlier ‘Friends’ groups, which began to spring up in parks and other green spaces around the country in the 1990s. These Friends groups were a response to the neglect of parks and other areas of local interest and a growing acceptance of the inability of public agencies to control and maintain urban green spaces (both formal green spaces and emerging wildscapes). Some of these Friends groups, like Friends of Platt Fields, now play an important role in park management: voluntarily maintaining and improving the area, fundraising, problem solving and liaising with the broader community. They have accepted the invitation to ‘save’ Platt Fields, providing an example of what emerged as a key characteristic of Inviting Landscapes, i.e. a place that ‘needs defending’.

This call for help that is communicated by the landscape is sufficient to incite some citizens to action. However, in order to engage a larger group, the active citizens must begin to change a landscape that is still uninviting for many people, as was the case for Platt Fields: “It had a very bad reputation for drugs and damage and being mugged and syringes everywhere, all of that stuff.” (Citizen 14) Such a reputation caused many people to avoid the park altogether. ‘Feels safe’ turned out to be a very important characteristic of Inviting Landscapes in the Manchester context where many people regarded green spaces as potentially dangerous. Given the choice, most people will not spend a lot of time in places where they feel unsafe and they are therefore less likely to develop an attachment and to actively engage in looking after the place. During

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the 1990s, the Friends of Platt Fields began to add amenities, such as playgrounds, that would attract people back to the park, and to experiment with new uses for urban green space, including a community orchard, which would change the face of the park.

5.2.2 Re-inhabiting wildscapes through community events

Friends of Platt Fields also hosted events, which made an important contribution to transforming the cultural landscape of Platt Fields. Fears that no one would come to this park of ill repute were dispelled by the success of festivals like Streets Ahead, the Garden of Delights and Feast. They opened up new social spaces and created a feeling of ‘something going on’, another apparent characteristic of Inviting Landscapes. Many citizens active in the park today identify participation in these arts/nature/food-focused events as the first step in their engagement with the park. As one volunteer described:

The first time I ever came, it was for the Feast festival and it was just seeing that bit beyond the Eco Garden where everyone was having picnics all up the hill… it was just like an open picnic, bring your own food…. (Citizen 15)

What is particular about the festivals in Platt Fields is that they are so clearly homemade; the components are creative, inspired by the local context and integrated with the natural elements—and they give the impression of being made with enthusiasm and love. The message that this sends about how fellow citizens care about the park and participate actively in its enhancement is a very strong invitation. It tells a newcomer that they too can contribute and be part of a creative and compelling enterprise alongside other people.

The temporary artistic interventions also stretch the public’s imagination of what the landscape could look like and what people can do in a park. This highlights both the importance of temporary changes where more permanent ones might not be permitted and the capacity of art to disrupt the ‘normal’ and challenge people’s assumptions of what is possible.

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5.2.3 Multiple generations of landscape interventions

The festivals opened the way for further appropriation of the park by citizens, and the area that had housed Pets Corner was an empty space that invited intervention. A young artist, Ailsa Holmes, who had been impressed with the Garden of Delights festival, responded to this invitation in 2004 by establishing an Eco Garden on the former Pets Corner site. She hoped to enhance it each year so that it could be showcased at the Garden of Delights festival (and in return many participating artists left their creations as a legacy in the Eco Garden). Ailsa worked with PoWWow Eco Arts http://www.powwow- ecoarts.org.uk to involve young people in the project, in the hopes of channelling their energies (previously directed to anti-social behaviours) towards engagement with art and nature. In 2005, Ailsa told the Manchester Evening News, "I work on the garden every day because I love it - I love speaking to people when they get interested and getting kids involved.” (MEN, 12 September 2005)

Despite her own level of initiative and commitment, Ailsa feared that the Eco Garden would not survive based on volunteer efforts alone. In the same interview, she told the reporter, “Long term, I would like to see someone paid to look after it full time. Unless it is constantly cared for, it will be vandalised." (Ibid.) No one was paid to look after the Eco Garden, but it was not vandalised. During periods when volunteers lacked the necessary interest or skills it became rather neglected, but this only seemed to encourage new creative initiatives to emerge in this space. Ailsa and the young people with whom she worked had inscribed a message of care into the landscape, which reduced the need for policing and invited positive engagement with nature rather than vandalism. New generations of engaged citizens have continued to look after and change the Eco Garden, including other artists, a herbalist and the Platt Fields Gardening Group. Ailsa’s approach of enhancing the Eco Garden so that it could be showcased at a festival has been picked up by a newer organisation, Envirolution, whose role will be discussed in more detail later in this chapter.

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Plate 2 The Eco Garden

Previous stewards often return to see how the garden is evolving. The herbalist came to assist the new herb gardeners in identifying the herbs, and was very excited to see that virtually everything he had planted two years before had survived (Field notes 17.07.12). The following week while volunteers were working in the garden, a former volunteer passed by to look at how some trees she had planted were doing (Field notes, 25.07.12). On another occasion, the volunteers arrived to find that a new willow structure had appeared and they speculated on the identity of the creator; possibly someone who had helped make willow sculptures in previous years? It seemed to me like a message to the new gardeners, an acknowledgement and possibly a show of approval for the new efforts that had produced changes in the Eco Garden landscape once more (Field notes 20.06.12).

The sense of ownership in relation to the Eco Garden and its constituent parts (e.g. the herb garden) displayed by the original creators as well as newer gardeners was notable. Each generation appropriated and modified the landscape, making the space their own, as one current volunteer described during a walking interview:

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This is our herb garden! (said enthusiastically and proudly) There was an older one, it was smaller; it was started a few years ago and gradually made bigger. (Citizen 16)

The Eco Garden has other characteristics that seem to make it an Inviting Landscape, including the power to elicit feelings of being ‘at home’; the appearance of being cared for; the visible changes resulting from citizen action; and the apparent potential for further improvements. These were described by another volunteer during a walking interview:

I really like the Eco Garden because it’s enclosed. I feel more comfortable here. I like to see how things have grown. I really like the herb garden, especially as it is now being well looked after and has the little hand-painted signs. I see this area as having a lot of potential and it feels more personal, cosy. I would like to look after the Eco Garden most. (Citizen 17)

Plate 3 Hand-painted signs in Platt Fields

Hand-painted signs were much in evidence throughout the park and clearly indicated the role of citizens. This helped to shift the dominant narrative away from that of citizens as a destructive force to one of citizens as stewards of urban landscapes:

I was struck again by how the signs in Platt Fields, hand-painted, colourful, artistic and obviously done by people like oneself give such a different impression than the professional signs produced by ‘the authorities’ They send a clear message to passersby that citizens are active here and ‘you can be as well!’ (Field notes 20.06.12).

The Eco Garden was a cultural landscape in transition where former narratives of citizen intervention were being replaced by new ones that built positively on the previous ones. The new narratives unfolding in the Eco Garden had the advantage of not having to compete with or stand in opposition to older more favoured narratives. This was not the case in another area of the park, the Shakespearean Garden, where volunteers were also active during the same period. Part of this neglected formal flower garden was being used to grow food and the resulting changes in the landscape sometimes drew negative feedback,

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whereas the Eco Garden tended to elicit uniformly positive comments from passersby (Field notes 16.05.12).

Plate 4 Growing food in the Shakespearean Garden

The Shakespearean Garden is an iconic Platt Fields feature and the Eco Garden occupies the former site of another icon, Pets Corner. However unlike the Shakespearean Garden, there is no longer any visible evidence of Pets Corner. The fact that there are no indications that the Eco Garden should be anything other than what it is may make a difference. It could also be hypothesised that the change occurred sufficiently long ago that Pets Corner has been forgotten. But in fact, the closing of Pets Corner, as the event that initially galvanised citizen engagement, is a key element in the Platt Fields narrative. Interestingly though, it has become detached from its specific location. Newer volunteers in the park generally know the story of Pets Corner but they don’t know where it was. Members of Envirolution and other volunteers have been attracted to an Eco Garden that appears to be in need of renovation but which seems so evidently, as communicated by the landscape, the only thing that should logically be on this site.

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5.2.4 Virtual communities seeking a home and investing in place

Plate 5 Envirolution

Envirolution currently plays a key role in the Eco Garden. It is a young organisation with generally young members who are very comfortable engaging with virtual communities. Interestingly however, they felt an increasing need to root themselves in a real place and it is a testament to the extent to which Platt Fields is an Inviting Landscape that Envirolution members chose it as their earthly home. A member of Envirolution described how Platt Fields offered: the advantage of having a physical place that didn’t get lost in cyberspace like an abandoned website; that people could still find it and someone connected might pass by or people could gather and start something else, like the evolution of the Eco Garden, first PoWWow and then PoWWow Eco Arts and now Envirolution… …Using Platt Fields as a start, as a zone that brings people together initially—and then keeps them. (Field notes 30.05.12)

Individual members, as well as the organisation as a whole, have made a ‘home’ in the park as this same member later described:

I think it’s the same relationship that I have with my house in that I know if I go home tonight I’ve got some digestives in the cupboard and I can have a nice cup of tea. And I know that if I get home early enough I can go and sink into the big corner sofa and have the cup of tea and the digestives all on my own, and just have a moment to myself there… It’s the bits that you learn that you like in your house. It’s like when I was cycling over to the park today, I was thinking, “I can go and get some lemon balm from that plant and we can have some of that tea.” You learn what the park is and where it is and what there is in there and I think that it is that side of things that I like learning, that there are these plants in there that I can go and make use of, especially things like the lemon balm, which is a weed, which are kind of an annoyance to someone that’s trying to make things perfect. But to me they’re there and it is perfect. (Citizen 15)

This is a clear indication of recognition and valuing of ecosystem services by an engaged citizen. The same volunteer was also aware of the potential of social connections and was ready to participate in building social capital. He had mentioned on an earlier occasion that in his new house near the park, he would perhaps plant a variety of plants for tea and would then invite neighbours to

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taste them as a way of meeting and developing community. However on this particular day, he spoke about how he had thought about growing a herb garden at home and then concluded: why not in the park instead so that other people could share it? (Field notes 20.06.12)

In keeping with the historic role of community events in reinvigorating Platt Fields, a key focus of Envirolution’s voluntary work in the park was preparation for the very successful annual Envirolution festival that has been held in Platt Fields since 2011. This is a free event that attracts a very diverse audience. It is very creative, involves multiple partners and dozens of volunteers, and sustainable practices are embedded at every level. It also leaves the park in a better state than it found it. This is very different from another festival that takes place annually at Platt Fields: Parklife. The following notes illustrate the contrast:

During a discussion in the Eco Garden concerning providing public information about using the herbs, attention turned to an existing panel mounted on a post in the herb garden. Interestingly, the frame contained a Public Notice about work to reinstate the park after the Parklife Festival, which had happened more than a month earlier in another part of the park where the damage was still very evident. The Envirolution Festival, which took place in and around the herb garden only four days earlier, had left no sign of damage. On the contrary, the area had been improved in preparation for the festival (planting and other activities had led to an increase of biodiversity and citizen knowledge and use) and the following week the volunteers were back and continuing to look after things. A local resident passed by and commented that it was so nice to come into the park and see it was “not damaged everywhere”. “It’s beautiful with the herb garden and willow arcade,” she said. (Field notes 25.07.12)

5.2.5 Undervaluing the landscape undermines engagement

The Parklife Festival, a commercial annual weekend music festival, was anticipated with trepidation by the Friends of Platt Fields and other citizens involved in looking after the park. During the years that it was held in Platt Fields, they fought against it, argued for mitigation measures, complained when these were not implemented and felt generally defeated afterwards. The 2012 experience was no different, as was described in the Friends of Platt Fields newsletter:

The huge Parklife music festival has come and gone ... and left devastation in its wake. The park is in a terrible state with whole areas just a sea of churned up mud, mud-strewn pathways, potholes and cracked tarmac. Everywhere smells of urine. It is soul-destroying and we apologise to all of you who go into the park at the moment that you have to be confronted with such a mess. People have described it variously as "like a war-zone" "like a ploughed field waiting for the crops to be sown" "like a building site"... our beautiful park, what have they done? (http://www.plattfields.org/news.htm -16 June 2012 LIFE AFTER PARKLIFE)

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The poor state of the park post-Parklife resulted in the cancellation of a subsequent free community event, the Mela. Soon afterwards, at a meeting of local organisations, citizens involved with Platt Fields and other parks discussed their frustration with the large-scale commercial events. Someone mentioned being told by Council representatives that these events were being held in parks because no one was using them, as they were considered unsafe. However, the big commercial events seemed to alienate the local community rather than attract them, while the small community-led events (like Platt Field’s much- celebrated Garden of Delights) which did attract people back to the park, did not get the small amount of support they needed. (Notes from Community Resilience meeting 12.07.12)

The contrast between the local community festivals mentioned earlier in this chapter and Parklife was stark. The organisers of the latter seemed to treat the place and its nature as if they had no inherent value; the event did not reflect and celebrate the context in any way. It left damage in its wake and did nothing to develop community connections. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Parklife was experienced as a form of aggression by people who engaged with Platt Fields. It was seen as disrespecting the park and undermining the efforts of citizens to look after it. It also sapped the energies of key actors, which would have been better employed elsewhere.

The Manchester City Council members who were making decisions regarding use of parks seemed to view commercial events like Parklife as income generators, with little regard for the greater cost incurred through the loss of ecosystem services and volunteer energy. Urban green spaces were seen as ‘venues’ rather than places with particular assets both valuable and vulnerable. One of the Platt Fields volunteers suggested how this value and vulnerability could be made visible in the landscape by fencing off a heart-shaped area in the middle of the site where the Parklife Festival would be held. This cherished place with all its vegetation would remain intact while all of the surrounding area was churned into mud by the passage of thousands of festivalgoers.

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5.2.6 The opportunity of a blank slate in the right system

While Parklife organisers treated Platt Fields as a blank slate in terms of a space that had no attributes that should be valued, protected and, ideally, incorporated into the event, the former bowling green represented another kind of blank slate or empty canvas. It is sufficiently embedded in the place and the community to be shaped by what is happening there, while also being a space in transition (as it no longer serves its previous use), inviting tremendous creativity. Platt Fields features at least two kinds of particularly inviting landscape, the Eco Garden where one builds on the work of previous generations in a fluid space, and the bowling green, clearly framed, protected (‘defensible’)26 and open to almost any possibility, as long as it is in keeping with the culture of Platt Fields.

Plate 6 We're in the Bowling Green - What next?

What to do with the bowling green was the subject of lengthy discussion as the different generations of engaged citizens (particularly represented by members of Friends of Platt Fields and Envirolution) sought to agree on a proposal that integrated the evolving visions of the park. They settled on a plan that would provide a space where local green enterprises could be fostered,

26 The term ‘defensible space’ was coined by architect Oscar Newman (1972) as an approach to crime prevention. Building on ideas developed by Jane Jacobs, it refers to spaces that people can control e.g. areas around dwellings where a limited number of people live. Newman proposed that in such situations, feelings of territoriality and ownership would encourage citizens to voluntarily police the area. In the Inviting Landscape context, it is applied to places where the sense of ownership and control will motivate citizens to engage in enhancing the landscape.

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particularly those involving food production, while incorporating landscape elements that conserved the historical narrative, such as a living sculpture of a bowler.

The blank slate of the bowling green only represents an Inviting Landscape in a context where citizens are already engaged with the landscape. The level of ownership and responsibility that the citizens felt for the park meant that City Council staff were ready to grant them access and the authority to make decisions about the space. The basic governance structure that provided a forum for discussion (and the particular combination of experienced volunteer trustees within the Friends and the energy and entrepreneurial spirit of Envirolution members) allowed for the co-construction of an inclusive vision (in part based on previous thinking and negotiation about other spaces in the park). Such an undefined space in another situation could have become a space of neglect or conflict and therefore a particularly uninviting landscape.

Viewed in the context of the SES concepts introduced in Chapter 2, this is an example of ‘cross-scale effects’. Looking at the Platt Fields SES as a ‘panarchy’ (see Figure 3 and accompanying explanation), the states of constituent SESs at other scales were affecting the bowling green. While the bowling green was in a ‘creative destruction’ phase of its adaptive cycle, the trust and capacity resulting from various ‘mature’ efforts by the Friends along with the growth phase that characterised the Eco Garden (largely due to its appropriation by Envirolution) facilitated the bowling green’s progress toward a rebirth phase (see Figure 2). Viewed through a different conceptual lens, that of landscape ecology, Platt Fields Park could be described as having a functional social-ecological ‘matrix’ that influences its ‘patches’. The bowling green is a landscape patch, which is able to seed its regeneration from resources offered by the landscape matrix.

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5.2.7 Recognising and working with ecosystem services

Plate 7 Water accumulation in Platt Fields

Photo taken by local resident to show that the ground was struggling to absorb the large quantities of rain that had fallen in Spring 2012 and should be protected from the soil compaction resulting from large scale events. The above discussions about Parklife and plans for the bowling green give rise to reflection about the extent to which ecosystem services are recognised and valued. Many people concerned about the park were very conscious of the cultural and recreational services that it provided. Some also saw the value of regulating services with respect to the water retention/flood prevention capacities of the park. The financial calculations of the Council however in renting the ‘site’ or ‘venue’ to Parklife did not in any way acknowledge the value of these services.

Similarly the provisioning services available in the expanding areas of edible landscape in the park often went unrecognised unless they were pointed out or labelled—or made into tea. This seemed to confirm the observation of the programme manager described in Section 4.2.4.3 that the obtaining of food directly from nature has become an unfamiliar practice.

Some of this reluctance may not be unfounded as became apparent when volunteers discussed their experiences of eating produce straight from the garden or field:

One of the volunteers picked peas in their pods and offered them to the others. Another volunteer talked about pleasant childhood memories of eating peas this way and about how groups of children at play would try out raw produce from neighbourhood gardens, preparing ‘meals’ with the available ingredients. A younger volunteer said this was the first time he had ever eaten peas from the pod. The others expressed surprise as he was the one who had grown up in the least urban area. “I ate raw corn from a field once and was very sick”, he said. (Field notes 22.08.12)

Uncertainty about what things can be safely eaten is also a barrier, even for people who are involved in food growing. As we walked past the berry patch in Platt Fields Park one evening, one volunteer said, “I really don’t know what a lot

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of the berries are.” (Field notes, 30.07.12) Fortunately, the social learning27 that went on as another group of volunteers worked together helped to overcome some of the ignorance and uncertainty for those who participated:

Plate 8 Social learning in the berry patch

A diverse group of volunteers worked their way through the canes lining the fence, weeding and tidying up the ground around them. An equal amount of energy was devoted to eating the berries as they went. There were many different kinds and people compared the taste and talked about how they might be used and what they were called in English and in other languages spoken by some of the volunteers. (In a similar setting on another day, a lengthy conversation was had about the different between brambles and blackberries.) A number of people expressed surprise that there were so many berries still available and that the numerous passersby did not eat them, particularly when similar fruit was so expensive in the supermarket. (Field notes 15.07.12)

Similar interpretation was provided by the hand-painted signs in the herb garden, which produced an immediate effect on passersby. Creating an event like the Envirolution Festival around it (literally as the herb garden served as a centrepiece) probably also helped to draw attention.

After the people who were knowledgeable about herbs had identified all the plants, some of the volunteers made hand-painted signs to identify them and it was amazing how at Envirolution, people were so interested in a garden which had largely been ignored before it had been made legible. (Field notes 20.06.12)

While stressing the importance of this act of making legible so that the public would value and use the shared resources, volunteers also discussed the dangers of making the provisioning services too legible when a broad commitment to maintaining those services was lacking in the wider community. The volunteers wanted to label the herbs so that people would know how to use them but wondered about how to invite people to take a few leaves for their immediate needs without risking having the whole plant disappear. Their discussion revealed that they felt that the conventions governing the Platt Field ‘commons’ (an issue that has been addressed in analyses of resilient SESs) remained underdeveloped:

27 Social learning is the collective learning through action and reflection that results in enhancing a group’s ability to change its underlying dynamics and assumptions (Tippett & Searle, 2005).

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Someone suggested putting up a sign saying, “help yourself” but it was noted that a previous experience of doing this resulted in people going away with the whole plant (digging it up). Another volunteer told the story of a proposal to put sheep in part of the park (in a small paddock) to which someone had responded, “But, they’d be stolen!” (Field notes 25.07.12)

The volunteers were struggling with how to set out and apply the ground rules for the new commons they were creating where the public was being invited to share in the produce while not undermining its continued availability. It was part of a larger discussion about how to change perceptions of these public places in transition where citizens have the opportunity for new rights and responsibilities.

This question of different perceptions of resources and how to share them came up in another incident that arose in the park on the same day that the “help yourself” sign was proposed. It highlighted how cultural versus provisioning services were perceived and valued. While cultural services (such as opportunities to admire the flowers or stroll or play in the park) were often much valued, and provisioning services (such as supplying food and other resources) ignored, this wasn’t always the case. The below example describes how a decorative element was converted to fuel wood.

We noticed that a piece of wood, which had been clearly part of the border of a flower garden, had been taken away to use as firewood. It wasn’t entirely burnt, so a couple of the volunteers carried it back and reinstalled it in its place in the flower garden. One of the volunteers commented that it was interesting that while people exploited the firewood resource, they did not help themselves to herbs (the volunteers had intended that these be available to all). (Field notes 25.07.12)

Plate 9 Socially acceptable ecosystem services: fuel wood or garden border?

It is interesting to consider that this act would in some contexts be seen as appropriate exploitation of a resource, while it is generally perceived as anti- social behaviour in the context of a British park. (It was also interesting to note that the Platt Fields volunteer gardeners were more flexible in their views. They

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mainly found the decorative border’s conversion to fuel wood amusing.) This highlights some cultural shifts with respect to ideas about the benefits of nature. The utilitarian perspective that is common when people are directly dependent on natural resources (Teel, Manfredo, & Stinchfield, 2007) has given way to a recognition and an emphasis of the importance of cultural ecosystem services versus provisioning ecosystem services.

Increasingly however, people seem to be seeking less passive relationships with nature (as exemplified by growing interest in activities like gardening and fishing, along with renewed respect for foraging). Additionally, more direct dependence on local resources may be seen as desirable with respect to enhancing urban resilience. There is an opportunity for some sort of community discussion about these different perspectives. In Platt Fields we talked about whether an interpretative sign or workshop activity could be used to pose the question e.g. by showing photos of the piece of wood in its two incarnations and asking people what they thought about these different possible uses, or other uses. This could stimulate discussion about which sorts of services could and should be provided in a park.

The sort of people-nature interaction represented by the fuel wood example is not necessarily collaborative, as the user is exploiting without stewarding, but it may offer more potential for engagement than no interaction at all. Is there a way to encourage a shift from resilience-reducing to resilience- enhancing exploitation of ecosystem services? One of the programme managers interviewed gave an example of this:

[Explaining Junior Rangers programme] It’s a group of adults who said we don’t want kids coming in here just to make trouble, burn the trees, dump stuff, so how about we create an alternative set of activities for them, around rangering. So it’s about ‘they still cut down trees but it’s the right tree under supervision. It’s about pond dipping, not pond dumping’. So still have grapple hooks and you can be chucking and pulling stuff out but it’s in a positive way and learning about how that environment works for them, that sort of thing. I guess thinking about ecosystem services, what sorts of cultural services or provisioning services does this woodland provide for you? Of course you obviously wouldn’t use that language but you just start to embed this idea that the woodland isn’t just a scary place where no one…it’s actually a place that we can enjoy and does things for us as well. (Programme Manager 2)

Such activities can provide an entry point into appreciating urban nature and acting to enhance it, rather than degrade it. They can empower action by young people, many of who are looking for opportunities to physically act and to interact with their environments. Such opportunities are currently few and far

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between in the very controlled contexts where many people grow up. Seeing young people engaged in such activities can also contribute to a broader rethinking of who should be doing what in urban spaces, thus potentially changing perceptions of both cities and the role of young people.

5.2.8 Confronting the knowledge gap

As is apparent from the previous sections, many forms of citizen engagement in transforming landscapes were in evidence in Platt Fields Park. However, these interactions were not always as resilience-enhancing as they might have been due to a lack of knowledge about the workings of SESs. This phenomenon was frequently mentioned by programme managers and by volunteers themselves, as in this reflection by an active volunteer in Platt Fields Park:

We see a small little clip of nature and we don’t have a full understanding; there’s a lack of knowledge. It’s weird we don’t know what we are seeing. (Citizen 17)

Many examples presented themselves as to the impact of this lack of knowledge. Ignorance of ecosystem services contributed to a decision to hold Parklife, an event lasting two days that would result in a reduction of ecosystem services over several months. Efforts and opportunities were wasted when for example a citizen gardener planted beans in pots just big enough to hold the seed. More commonly, volunteers were paralysed by ignorance of how to proceed and by fear of making a mistake.

When people learn more about a SES, they see it differently and subsequently they interact with it differently, generally in ways more likely to enhance its resilience. One example of this presented itself in relation to the Platt Fields lake, which incidentally is heart-shaped—a feature often highlighted by people who love the park. For some time, Friends of Platt Fields and other stakeholders have struggled to identify management strategies that would improve ecosystem functioning of the lake, which has been confronted for some time with the challenge of blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) and other problems that are most effectively resolved through some form of ecosystem management. Most engaged citizens have very limited understanding of the functioning of the lake ecosystem. Many do not even recognise that ecosystems are functioning in cities.

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However this can be remedied by spending time with urban nature as one park volunteer described:

It’s hard to believe there are fish in the lake; it’s a manmade thing so I used to assume there were no fish…My attitude to the lake has changed since [starting to work in the park] because I’ve got to know the features. (Citizen 16)

It could be argued that understanding and managing ecosystems is beyond the capacity and responsibility of citizen volunteers. However, reduced funding in places like Platt Fields means that this capacity is not generally available among paid staff either. It therefore falls to citizens to try to figure it out and Friends of Platt Fields did its best to meet the challenges. Its members, along with other volunteers, explored potential solutions, carried out small-scale experiments and seized opportunities to collaborate with academics, non-profits and local businesses.

Engaged citizens also learned from one another. The social learning that takes place as people work together is very important. While in the herb garden, one volunteer explained to another that:

“There are different categories of herbs, both culinary and medicinal. It’s great because it’s fresh and free, and with no chemicals, unlike in the shops.” He suggests that she take some herbs home but she says she’s rubbish at cooking. He gives her some ideas about how to make a sauce with fennel and holds some out for her to smell. She says that she thinks she would like it in tea and will take some for that. (Field notes 30.07.12)

In another exchange, one volunteer said: “There is such a variety of plants here. I didn’t know this before, but seeds travel, carried by wind and birds.” “I never really thought about that,” another responds. (Ibid.)

Doing things collectively not only provides opportunities to learn about nature and its services. It also tends to give rise to imagining and undertaking different kinds of projects (which are sometimes more creative, feasible and shared than those resulting from participatory planning processes.) Many future projects emerged through informal conversations while weeding, planting, etc. Such conversations often involved references to the potential of the surrounding landscape and the resources at hand.

It should also be recognised that not all knowledge travels through exchanges of words. The movement of plants from sources like Manchester’s Hulme Community Garden Centre or from the garden of an experienced herbalist

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represented an important way of letting people know what to plant. The flow of people, plants and ideas among different sites revealed a broader SES, another scale in a panarchy that was affecting and affected by Platt Fields. These flows were particularly apparent among sites in geographical proximity, thus constituting a local level SES that comprised linked sites in the neighbourhood of Platt Fields as well as those within Platt Fields itself.

5.2.9 Seeing the system: The Platt Fields SES reaches a tipping point

As described above, citizens were involved with a number of different projects in different parts of Platt Fields, and how they worked at each site was influenced by their experience at other sites. These connections expanded beyond the limits of the park to other sites in the neighbourhood and sometimes in other parts of the city. Either some of the same people were involved or the people involved at different sites knew one another and shared information about their work in a variety of ways--and kept a close eye on what was happening at other sites. Some of the things happening nearby were mentioned in the overview of sites in Manchester (Section 4.3). These included:

 An allotment shared by people who also gardened together in the park. Sharing of the space allows greater access to allotments (as in many cities, demand outstrips supply in Manchester, while some holders find their allotments too large for their current needs). Sharing also facilitates collaboration with the resulting social learning as described above.

 The ‘Secret Garden’ in a fenced area on a housing estate. The space was offered to a resident who had begun gardening beside his house, which attracted the interest of the estate managers who were concerned about inappropriate use of a central area on the estate. The Secret Garden provides a place for growing food and other volunteer-led projects, including a nature-based adventure playground for local children.

 An experimental forest garden in Birchfields Park where four different volunteers take the lead on management of four sections, each with a different species composition.

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 Schoolyard greening at Heald Place School, which offers a range of benefits both recreational and educational and provides opportunities for school children to engage with nature.

 A range of efforts in smaller areas including alleyway greening, pocket parks, bus stop landscaping and personalised street trees

Plate 10 Rusholme pocket park

Respondents at sites across the city regularly mentioned how they had seen or been involved in examples of citizen-led transformation at similar (often nearby) sites and saw the potential for replication at another site with which they were engaged. The greater the proximity of the example, the more confident the volunteers were regarding the feasibility of replication (possibly because the same regulations applied and the same resources were likely to be available). Some areas such as that surrounding Platt Fields appeared to have reached a tipping point (or crossed a threshold in SES terms, in this case into a more favourable regime) where citizen intervention in the landscape became normalised and new initiatives appeared with increasingly regularity.

While just seeing nearby ‘model’ sites provided knowledge and inspiration, it was also common for volunteers who were primarily active at one site to help out at another. They provided labour, advice, encouragement and sometimes other resources. In the case of Platt Fields, for example, the herbalist brought both knowledge and plants. Similarly, members of Envirolution brought many skills, along with materials, to Platt Fields and to other sites. People active at nearby sites visited Platt Fields to see what was going on and to exchange

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knowledge and other resources, including through organised events like the Envirolution festival and community gardening workshops. It is these flows that help to define the local SES and contribute to its resilience.

Through application of a landscape ecology lens, matrix, patches and corridors become visible. While within the discipline of landscape ecology such interpretations generally focus primarily on ecological elements, social-cultural processes play a key role in this urban context and produce a rich social- ecological mosaic. Dominant local landscapes of citizen engagement are influencing smaller patches via corridors both physical and virtual. For example, Platt Fields may serve as a matrix in the Fallowfield and Rusholme neighbourhoods. It is the largest expanse of urban nature in the area and has engaged many volunteers over a number of years. It is also accessible to all. It is therefore a logical matrix to influence smaller patches in the surrounding area.

The system that has been described in this section also includes loose connections between the most and least inviting landscapes case studies. Certain individuals and groups (e.g. Envirolution and Hulme Community Garden Centre) were involved in both places and some materials (such as props from the Envirolution festival) travelled between the sites, leaving their mark, often in artistic form, in both. The next section will describe the apparently less inviting landscapes of Manchester’s Ashton and Rochdale Canals to the north east of the city centre.

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5.3 Ashton and Rochdale Canals at Ancoats, Miles Platting and Newton Heath

The area around the Rochdale Canal in East Manchester stood out as the least inviting landscape during the second stage of empirical research and was therefore selected for the Uninviting Landscape case study. The focus was initially on an initiative to encourage local communities to enjoy and care for urban nature along the Rochdale Canal at Miles Platting and Newton Heath. The boundaries of the case were expanded to include Ancoats (and therefore the Ashton Canal, which along with the Rochdale Canal flows through the neighbourhood) in order to better capture the perspective and actions of newcomers living in an area where large-scale capital-intensive regeneration has taken place. The area of interest comprised the three labelled neighbourhoods along the canals as depicted in the satellite map below.

Map 4 Rochdale and Ashton canals at Ancoats, Miles Platting and Newton Heath

Unlike Platt Fields Park, the canals of East Manchester, which formerly served industrial and commercial purposes, were not historically cherished green spaces. From the perspective of the neighbouring communities, the Ashton and Rochdale Canals were at the centre of a very Uninviting Landscape. The canal’s history continues to strongly influence how it is perceived today. At the same time, the canal landscape is evolving as urban regeneration expands, bringing new infrastructure and new residents so that both the material

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landscape and people’s responses to it are changing. In parallel, there is increased awareness of the natural richness of the canals and their potential to provide amenities for local people.

Support has recently been provided to connect local communities to the canal and one prime example of this was the Community Connections - East Manchester initiative28, which sought to foster interest in and caring for canal nature. Local organisational actors also increasingly see enhancement of the canal landscape as part of their work to improve the quality of life in adjacent neighbourhoods. For example, the housing association Adactus, which has responsibility for managing recreational spaces in Miles Platting, was an important collaborator in the Canal Connections project. It was actively involved in project activities, used its own community events to encourage interest in the canal and tried to support the emergence of a Friends of the canal group. The variety of current perceptions of the canal indicate a landscape in transition; for some it is a place of great potential, but for many it is still a very Uninviting Landscape.

5.3.1 History casts a long shadow

While long-time visitors to Platt Fields remembered the carefully tended flowerbeds, the canal held other sorts of memories. One of the most frequently recounted stories was that of the blue birds that were not supposed to be blue, as one resident explained:

There was a dye factory, you know the story of the blue dye, and everything was blue…blue birds, blue swans, blue flowers, blue everything. (Citizen 18)

Pollution is a key element in the canal narrative, along with the presence of danger, as this local resident described:

For a lot of people it was dirty, children died in it, it was polluted and smelled. (Citizen 20)

28 ‘Canal Connections – East Manchester’ was a two-year project that began in 2011. It was developed through a partnership involving Manchester City Council, British Waterways (which ceased to exist and was replaced by the Canal and River Trust on 2 July 2012) and the Waterways Trust and it received £124,537 through the Big Lottery ‘Access to Nature’ fund. Its goal was to connect the communities of Miles Platting and Newton Heath to the Rochdale Canal with the goal of increasing appreciation and care for the nature of the canal.

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While a growing number of people have begun to see the canal as a place for recreation and local children have enjoyed some opportunities to paddle around it in canoes and kayaks, the negative perception prevails. A child playing several feet away from the water’s edge was reprimanded by a parent who called out ‘How many times have I told you not to go near that canal? It’s dangerous! (Field notes 13.05.13)

Plate 11 Never go near a canal…you might die

Contribution to a collection of thoughts about the Rochdale canal, Newton Heath Library, 13.05.13

A media report about the discovery of the body of a missing person in another part of the canal system prompted a site-based staff person to sigh and say, “This is exactly what one expects to hear about canals.” (Field notes 10.07.12) One resident described how the historical ‘baggage’ continues to influence current perceptions about both canals and surrounding neighbourhoods:

People have baggage about these East Manchester neighbourhoods--and the canals go along with that… They’ve been no go zones and a lot of people, I’m sure, continue to—and may always continue to--think of them as no go zones. (Citizen 18)

A passerby seeing me pulling rubbish out of the bushes along the towpath warned, “You have to be careful in there round here.” (Field notes 16.05.12)

The fact that there is so much rubbish in and around the canal is an indication of the lack of value attributed to the canal landscape. Institutional

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management of the canals in the post-industrial era also contributed to this attitude. As one respondent recounted, British Waterways’ early strategy was to try to essentially eliminate the canals, thus creating a landscape that strongly communicated its worthlessness and had the effect of encouraging local residents to treat it with contempt.

After the canal stopped being used for transport, it was filled in and so it was forgotten about and just used as a dumping ground. In the last decade, it was opened—it was dug out again, mostly by volunteers. A lot of people still see it as a dumping ground. They don’t really see it as a leisure resource and a nature resource. (Site-based staff 11)

So the canal’s past continues to haunt it, encouraging people not only to avoid it but also to further degrade it, thus reinforcing a sense of hopelessness among those who tend toward pessimism and discouraging efforts to improve it.

5.3.2 A lens of pessimism and exclusion

The characterisation of both canals and the neighbourhoods that border them as ‘bad places’ are shared by outsiders and residents alike. The way that long-time local residents perceive the place they live seems to be tied to how they see their own place in the wider society and economy, i.e., largely excluded from sharing in any gains.29 This fosters a certain level of pessimism about the possibility of positive change or being able to reap any potential benefits. One of the programme managers described the response when local residents were asked for feedback on ideas for improvement, which was primarily about how things wouldn’t work:

…we’ll put some signs up and say we’re going to do this, so anyone who wants to come along, come along. And we’d often get people coming along just to tell us we were wasting our time, that it would just get vandalised, saying, “You know, people round here don’t deserve it.” “Well, you come from round here!” we replied. (Programme Manager 8)

Similarly, regular volunteer efforts to clean up the canal and surrounding area elicited a variety of discouraging comments from onlookers, passersby and fishermen. During one session of ‘Towpath Tidy’, the comments included: “What a waste of time!” and in reference to removing rubbish from the water using nets, “There’s no point. It will all just blow back in tonight.”(Field notes 28.02.12)

29 This may have links to Bourdieu's concept of habitus, which includes both ‘habitat’ and ‘habit’ and implies that one’s sense of place is closely linked with the sense of one’s place in a social hierarchy (Bourdieu, 1977).

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Plate 12 Towpath Tidy

In addition to maintaining that positive outcomes were unlikely, some local residents seemed to feel that if changes in the canal landscape did occur, it would benefit someone else at their expense, as the example of some new footbridges demonstrates:

There are a number of new footbridges that cross the canal and it was explained to me that people living along the canal did not like them because they were too high and too close to their houses (and thus allowed views into their windows). They were built higher to allow the passage of pleasure boats and there is resentment among the people living along the canal toward the boaters and toward British Waterways for their focus on accommodating wealthier people from the outside. (Field notes 28.02.12)

Some long-time residents who likely felt excluded from the benefits of changes to the landscape engaged in anti-social behaviours, including vandalising new features. An example of this was repeated acts of vandalism to a new building that was associated with a large-scale regeneration project. The large windows had been broken multiple times and eventually a black covering had been added that detracted from the appearance of the building but made it less obviously fragile. However, the glass had been smashed again. (Field notes, 28.09.12)

A description of the process of installing a new mural demonstrated the extent to which vandalism was associated with the neighbourhood:

It did have to be made “Miles Plattingised” because I turned up with posts of wood and things thinking it would be okay but one of the people who was helping me put it up said, “honestly, it’s not going to last five minutes, it’s just going to get burned.” So they went and made a proper metal structure for it. They were the Parks team so they’d done all that before. (Site-based staff 19)

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The mural described above survived but a similar one was less fortunate, perhaps because it was seen to be the work of outsiders, even when the ‘outsiders’ were children from a nearby neighbourhood. The same respondent described how:

We tried to put up all the murals but we had some technical problems and the only one we could get up said: ‘This was made by the children of St. George’s Centre’. It was a centre in Miles Platting but it was across Oldham Road on the other side of the road, just on the corner opposite. I did get told again about this sort of postcode mentality--and because it was on that side of the road… There were a lot of people from the community going there to use [the Centre] because it’s a great resource but some people within the community also saw it as ‘outside’… If it had just said that ‘this has been made by young people in April 2012’, maybe it would have been fine, possibly… but it was ripped off the wall and chucked in the canal. (Site-based staff 19)

This sort of destruction of things done by local citizens to enhance the landscape and engage others (which was the purpose of the mural) is perhaps the most significant characteristic of an Uninviting Landscape. Volunteers are very discouraged from engaging with the landscape if they believe the results of their efforts will be deliberately eradicated. Fortunately, there are usually a small group of people who will persist regardless, like this active citizen:

I think people are afraid to make improvements and put things in because of anti-social behaviour; it’s just going to get kicked in the canal or knocked over or whatever. But if you never do anything, then nothing ever changes, nothing ever improves. (Citizen 18)

Many of the people who remained determined to improve the canal landscape were new residents, who looked at the landscape through different eyes. They rejected the pessimistic response, just as Raymond Williams rejected that of H.G. Wells’ toward the “great towering city” (as described in Section 2.4.2.2).

5.3.3 Newcomers to a different experienced landscape

Lacking both the historical narrative and the current feelings of pessimism and exclusion, newcomers to the canal dwell in a different experienced landscape. They see the canal as an interesting place both historically and ecologically, and recognise its recreational and aesthetic values, while agreeing there is much room for improvement. It is therefore not surprising that many of the citizens who are active on the canal are newer residents. One engaged citizen described how many of the most active volunteers are newcomers to Manchester and even to the UK (origins including Australia, Mexico, New Zealand, US and

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Russia were mentioned). Another active volunteer concurred, while also maintaining that older residents would spend time on the canal in certain conditions and that there was thus an opportunity to engage them.

Quite honestly I think the people that come out regularly [to work] are the ones who really use the canals most recreationally and those tend to be imports; people who…Well, this is interesting actually that a lot of the other people who come to our events maybe don’t use the canal so much on a regular basis but, you know, maybe will go out to them on a nice day. That’s part of what we want to open the canals to, also to get people thinking about them in a different way. (Citizen 18)

Newcomer volunteers perceived the canal landscape differently and longer- term residents perceived the volunteers differently than, for example, their counterparts in Platt Fields. People are of course part of the landscape so it is important to consider how they contribute to making it more or less inviting for others.

5.3.4 The people in the landscape – perceiving engaged citizens

It was described earlier in this chapter how volunteers in Platt Fields were key elements in an Inviting Landscape. The situation was quite different in the canal landscape where citizen volunteers were sometimes perceived as components of an Uninviting Landscape. Their roles and motivations were often misread, or at least interpreted in a variety of ways. They were frequently seen as possibly undergoing some sort of punishment themselves or doing something that was likely to cause suffering to other people—particularly long-term residents.

Many volunteers reported with amusement how they were frequently assumed to be people undertaking community service as a form of punishment for a crime. At other times, we were thought to be undertaking some sort of compulsory work experience or training as a means to other forms of employment:

Two women stopped and asked us: “Are you on a course?” They tried to be helpful by telling us where we should go to pick up rubbish. (Field notes 16.05.12)

Some volunteers use the misapprehension as an opportunity, as one of them explained:

A lot of people will ask questions when they come by. Because a lot of people think: ‘they’re doing community service’ despite the fact that we’re looking like a certain type of person… So we’ll tell them,

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and that’s probably the biggest impact we can have, if we don’t get people actively coming out, is awareness, and hopefully people will think about that and that will slowly filter into their minds, and how they talk and think about the canals. (Citizen 20)

It was also sometimes suspected that the work being carried out by the volunteers would contribute to displacement of long-term residents. The latter assumed that these efforts would serve someone else’s interests and exclude their own, as the same engaged citizen described:

When we’re working, older residents will come and say: “Why are you cleaning up? Is it for redevelopment?” They’re often cynical about regeneration. (Citizen 20)

Resentment is also sometimes felt toward volunteers because, as one volunteer stated: “The people round here, they don’t like volunteers because they’re doing the work that people should be paid for.” (Field notes 28.02.12) This volunteer seemed to share this sentiment, having got involved in order to combat the tedium of long-term unemployment but feeling bitter that the efforts to enhance the canal did not provide opportunities for paid work.

Other local residents did not necessarily want paid jobs but felt strongly that looking after the canal was not their responsibility. Like an earlier generation in Platt Fields, they felt that they paid their taxes and therefore things that needed doing in the public domain should be done by someone paid to do them--as it used to be done. A couple of passersby commented to the volunteers who were busy cleaning up:

“It’s a shame, isn’t it, that people throw all this rubbish into the canal. They should do something about it. They used to send boats to clean it up sometimes.” (Field notes 28.02.12)

One reason that many local residents misinterpreted the motivations of volunteers was that they found it difficult to imagine that anyone would actually take pleasure in manual, and often dirty, labour. For workers in a knowledge economy, physical labour can be perceived as a form of relaxation or desirable exercise. For manual workers, it is work, and in many cases in this area, it is work that is no longer available as a source of income, as volunteers discussed:

“The reality is that you’re going to have a certain sort of person who’s going to come out on a Sunday and do actual work.” “It’s therapeutic [for those of us who sit in front of computers]. But if that’s what you do for a job, or even worse, what you used to do for a job and get paid for…” (Field notes 28.09.12)

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New residents, who are more likely to be professionals or students, tend to both enjoy the work and feel that they are personally benefitting, as this respondent describes:

Doing this work just makes things look better. It’s selfish in some ways…I enjoy doing it and so do others. I like doing outdoor work. It’s also just getting the place to a standard where we (who live here) can enjoy it. I like getting my hands dirty and I find that so do a lot of young people, the students who live in the area. (Citizen 20)

Plate 13 Ancoats Canal Project poster Conventional attempts to reach out to longer- term residents had little success. An effort to create a Friends of the canal group yielded only two potential Friends from the older neighbourhoods: the same two who showed up to tidy the towpath. Leafleting houses had almost no effect. However, posters on the canal did seem to bring people out, showing that the sub- section of people who actively used the canal were a better target compared to people who simply lived nearby.

It also appeared that a direct call to people to look after the canal was perhaps not the most appropriate approach. It was not the sort of community engagement people were used to and indeed several women responded by saying they were not willing to get involved in the mucky work but they were happy to do the more traditional volunteer work of preparing food. An excellent lunch was thus prepared for the Towpath Tidiers and while we ate it, the chefs participated enthusiastically in a discussion about how to improve the canal. They told us about an existing community barge that had been used in the past for outings for children and other community members and they proposed retrieving it from its mooring place and putting it back into service. It was exciting to hear some happy memories of times spent on the canal by long-term residents, as well as the beginnings of a conversation about future possibilities. (Field notes 28.03.12)

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This process seemed to echo some of what had taken place in Platt Fields in the nineties, i.e. a handful of people beginning to have some ideas about how to make things better, largely focused on community activities and events, along with a few others starting to take responsibility for enhancing their local landscape, and an aesthetic of care becoming visible in a few small areas.

This new generation of active volunteers is somewhat out of step with the majority of local residents but they are also part of a different canal tradition. They continue the legacy of the committed citizens who struggled to counteract the Uninviting Landscapes produced by the institutional decision to fill in the canals once they no longer served their industrial era purpose. Volunteers across Britain worked to restore their local canals, sometimes even digging them out with their bare hands30. This was a demonstration of an unwavering commitment to preserve and enhance these waterways on the part of enough citizens to make a very significant difference. The persistence of this sustained level of commitment by volunteers on the Ashton and Rochdale canals, and others like them, suggests that canals are fundamentally Inviting Landscapes.

The natural and cultural narratives associated with canals are very attractive to many people. Most people appear to have a strong biophilic attraction to water and will choose to live by it in the absence of deterrents (as evidenced by higher real estate values associated with proximity to water—even when the water quality is poor). People also generally enjoy contact with landscapes that are associated with earlier periods of history—unless it is a history that they find commonplace or that they personally associate with suffering, their own or that of their ancestors. As one newer resident reflected: “I find the canal interesting, maybe because I’m from somewhere else, it’s not my history.’” (Citizen 20) Another talked of the attractive combination of natural and cultural assets:

The locks are really amazing. People love to watch the boats go through the locks. There’s so much history here. So not only do you have the water but you have the historical element and it’s just really…it’s interesting and it’s beautiful. (Citizen 18) These natural and cultural values of canals, along with emerging citizen engagement, offer the beginnings of an invitation.

30 Volunteer efforts to save Britain’s canals are well documented in a BBC documentary film ‘The Golden Age of Canals’ (2011).

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5.3.5 The beginnings of an invitation

As described above, despite the burden of its historic narrative and its contemporary challenges, this canal landscape is not entirely uninviting. Several contemporary features are contributing to its gradual transition to an Inviting Landscape. These are briefly described below:

Given the natural attractions of the canals, efforts to highlight the presence of nature can serve as invitations to engage. Such initiatives are particularly valuable if they can begin to replace the dominant negative narrative with an ecological one. As in the Platt Fields case, art was an effective medium to re- imagine the canal landscape and communicate a new narrative to others.

In Miles Platting and Newton Heath, an artist worked with children and youth respectively to explore canal nature and communicate a new nature-infused vision as this respondent described:

The project I did in Miles Platting was mostly about the wildlife on the canal and how people should look after it but it was making art, getting kids together and asking ‘what’s your favourite animal?’ I’d introduce them to all the different animals that you find along the canal and say ‘what’s your favourite?’ and then ‘let’s draw that’ or ‘let’s paint that’. That resulted in a big awareness board about what wildlife you can find on the canal, and different views about the history of the area because it used to be mills and big black smoke and lots of pollution and now there’s a lot of green grassland, and a lot of wasteland too. But it’s getting them to see the difference between the pollution and the mills and things like that and how it is now—and how we should try to maintain it so it stays like that. (Site-based staff 19)

Plate 14 'Wildlife on your canal' by children in Miles Platting

The involvement of younger members of the community in recreating their home landscape is key, and their role must be emphasised and signposted. Social and ecological resilience must co-develop and efforts to support it must attend to the complex social dynamics among young people struggling to form an identity

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amidst feelings of exclusion and fear of an uncertain future, as the same respondent explained:

They fear the unknown. And not being the norm; not being what their parents did or what their friends do. But along with that it’s the fear, not having the confidence or the aspirations to go outside of their area to something unknown to them. But I think a bit of that is pride as well; pride in their area, wanting to make it look nice like those kids that make this artwork… We had a bit of live art on that celebration day in Miles Platting. And I honestly didn’t expect it to last. I thought we’d go and paint it and then the next day, next week something like that, it would be covered in graffiti. I got everyone to paint it obviously so kids were coming from all over who hadn’t been working on the project and at the end of the day I wrote ‘We are Miles Platting’ on it—and it stayed, it’s not been touched, which is…I wasn’t expecting it, I hoped that it would but I wasn’t expecting it. (Site-based staff 19)

Also participating in the same event (the July 2012 Miles Platting Summer Festival) were members of the organisation Larkin’ about. They used art and play to engage local people with the canal nature. This included a performance on a houseboat and different places along the canal, which participants would move through and interact with volunteer actors representing canalside characters who would tell them about the nature of the place. This creative and compelling interpretation of the Rochdale Canal was billed as an “interactive treasure hunt”.

Plate 15 Miles Platting Summer Festival

It is important to mention that both the artist and Larkin’ about game designers invested considerable time interacting with local community members about their experiences of the canal and their vision for its future before developing their activities. The July 2012 Miles Platting Summer Festival, where some of the art-related activities described above were carried out, was a well-attended community event. It attracted a broad range of people and served to build some bridges between old and new residents and between communities and the canal. Given that some of the activities that attracted considerable participation were focused specifically on appreciating the canal, the emerging

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social capital had potential to lay the groundwork for a contribution to ecological resilience in the longer term.

Smaller events were also organised by active citizen volunteers in order to connect with a wider range of neighbours.

The social events have been much more mixed compared to the people who are regularly coming out and doing real hard work on the canal. The “picnic/kayaking/circus performer event” attracted a lot of interest! (Citizen 18) A fellow volunteer agreed about the significance of such activities for building much needed bridges:

In the context of urban regeneration, there was no way for old and new residents to connect. Social activities and canoeing were a way to get neighbourhoods to cross over (otherwise they didn’t really have anything to do with one another) (Citizen 20) Some other activities were organised to help reveal the natural world of the canal, including a nature photography session and a bat walk. These were excellent activities led by extremely knowledgeable and passionate people, and those who participated were much affected. The importance of such activities will be discussed in the next chapter. However in Miles Platting and Newton Heath these activities had limited success in attracting long-term residents. It seems the latter were easier to reach through schools or other organisations/institutions with which they were already involved, and were more likely to participate in traditional community events.

Many efforts were made to organise activities that addressed both social and environmental needs. As in Platt Fields, social activities and community events appeared to be key in building social-ecological resilience and should therefore be seen as key elements in an emerging Inviting Landscape. Unfortunately, institutional supporters were less likely to support the social side of things: “They’ll help with the maintenance aspect of things; the community-building side, that’s where that invisible line is drawn.” (Citizen 18) This indicated a lack of a SES perspective, which would bring recognition of the need to work on social resilience in order to move toward ecological resilience.

Attention to social capital also helped to alleviate some of the concerns about safety. Around the canals, the issue of safety was key even among local residents who were positive about their landscape. Feeling unsafe is a particular issue for

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women. However, spending time in intimidating landscapes in the company of others and gradually becoming more familiar with them can help to overcome initial impressions. This was the case for one citizen who now happily spends time alone on the canal and is actively engaged with its enhancement:

When we first came out [to the canal]…I was probably focused more on the gritty side of things. From a safety factor, I was thinking, “Is this okay for me to run by myself as a woman?” And I remember thinking, no, I would never run along this area of the canal by myself—and now I do it all the time! It’s really interesting that it’s done a complete turn around…as we started getting to know the area together, as I’ve started exploring more and becoming more comfortable. (Citizen 18)

Feelings of safety did not extend into hours of darkness. A walking group, composed mainly of older women, suggested that lighting would be helpful.

5.3.6 Early engagers lay the groundwork

Engaged citizens, and the paid staff who are sometimes available to support them, are prepared to work to transform the characteristics that make canals uninviting for other people. A site-based staff person described how they were “doing things to make the canal more inviting”:

I suppose at the moment when people look at it, we’ve got scrub, overgrown vegetation, quite a lot of rubbish. So what we’re hoping to do is transform it; fairly regular litter picks and then wildflower planting and then hopefully do some sort of artwork along that wall, an interpretation panel. It just makes it look more cared for. Hopefully that will deter people who use it to throw things away. (Site-based staff 11)

This statement clearly conveys a belief that changes to the canal landscape will change the way that people interact with it. This was reinforced by assertions that when people saw changes being made (often in small and protected spaces), the response was often positive. An engaged citizen gave some examples of this:

I think that if we clean up, other people keep it tidier. Older people in the neighbourhood have commented favourably on the changes. I hear positive feedback from people I meet in the pub. I see people taking photos of things like the daffodils…Since we started to clean up, they [various landlords and British Waterways] started to do more as well. (Citizen 20) Another described how her work was informed by a belief that the process of changing the landscape would gradually change perceptions:

That’s the hope, that once you clean up an area and make it appear better, you get more people out there gradually, that’s my hope, that it’s a really subtle change, and that, really I think it’s volume because once you start getting more people using an area and interested in an area…perception will change gradually. (Citizen 18)

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In order to make these initial changes, engaged citizens focused on making small improvements in protected places:

We’re trying to get boat usage from the Canal & River Trust so we can prune certain things and maybe do certain plantings. We have bird boxes and duck houses we want to put out. You know the sad thing about those is you’ve got to put them somewhere where people don’t have access because the duck houses will end up in the canal and the bird boxes will end up getting knocked off their perches wherever you put them because of anti-social behaviour. So you have to think of “okay, where can absolutely nobody access this except the birds and the ducks and the geese. (Citizen 18)

5.3.7 Starting with provisioning ecosystem services

As was discussed in the Platt Fields case study, increasing understanding of ecosystem services is an important objective if the hope is that people will value and steward them. Some of the regulating and supporting ecosystem services are not very visible and are therefore difficult for many people to recognise. Cultural and recreational services are more obvious to people in cities but they may be taken for granted as a public good, with those who are not directly involved giving little thought to the link between stewardship and benefits.

Therefore provisioning services, such as food cultivation, offer the most potential as an entry point. People are able to see direct benefits of collaborating with nature, and to develop greater understanding of how ecosystems work, through the frequent interaction required, for example, to tend a garden. Toward the end of this research project, two community gardens were developed in Miles Platting under the leadership of the housing association. This offers new opportunities for the local community to come together in a process of transforming the landscape. It will be interesting to see how people engage with the new gardens and how this affects engagement with the broader local landscape.

5.3.8 Subtle differences in local landscapes

My first contact as a researcher with the canal neighbourhoods was a site visit to Newton Heath, followed by a walking interview along the section of the canal that it bordered. I returned frequently to Newton Heath thereafter but was struck while developing the canal case study by how much I was focusing on Miles Platting (Ancoats was a different context because it had been largely

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transformed by regeneration and it was added to the case study later). While having many similar characteristics, Miles Platting is further on its path to becoming an Inviting Landscape. This is no doubt partly due to engagement and leadership of the community development staff at the housing association. It is also however possibly related to the existing landscape.

Initially, I perceived Miles Platting as being a promising site for citizen engagement because of the social resilience potentially indicated by a relatively vibrant high street and a public library, both immediately adjoining the canal on either side. However, Old Church Street, which connects the two sides, crosses a bridge above the canal, meaning that the canal is slightly below and somewhat disconnected from the hub of the street. It also means that passersby look down upon the canal (which offers a particular perspective) and have to make a decision about descending the stairs, which they are perhaps unlikely to do under present circumstances as a site-based staff person explained:

[We want to] try to engage people, invite people down off the main high street, down onto the canal. Just now we see someone pushing a pram past and the children want to see the ducks but it’s not necessarily the type of environment you want to take your children into. (Site-based staff 11)

In Miles Platting the landscape is quite different because the canal is incorporated into a large green space that provides the main gathering place in the community. This is the sort of large open space that often becomes an unappealing area and then a no-go zone in certain types of housing development, and Miles Platting has certainly experienced this phase (and is still a no-go zone for some after dark). However the presence of the attractive and well-kept Victoria Mills Park and a community hut right beside the canal makes for a very different picture.

Plate 16 Victoria Mill Park The park stands as testimony to the potential to create good community spaces and the community hut is a long-time gathering place. Both are host to regular activities and community events. This is an indication of the importance of how a landscape is situated vis-à-vis other spaces of community engagement and how it links to larger landscape narratives.

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5.4 An Inviting Landscape continuum within a panarchy

While there was no intention to begin each case study with a history of the place, this emerged as the logical starting point for both stories. The histories of these places are powerfully inscribed in the landscapes and are a key determinant in people’s current interactions with them.

In terms of the ecological landscape, there is not so much to differentiate the two sites. Both have levels of ecosystem functioning that are capable of providing a similar range of ecosystem services. Interestingly, both have artificially constructed water bodies, which are contaminated and do not constitute healthy ecosystems, while remaining their most attractive features and providing habitat for various species. However, as cultural landscapes, they are fundamentally different: one a ‘well-loved park’, the other a ‘post-industrial badland’, as signified by various landscape elements. This has a profound effect on how citizens interact with them, so that one has lots of ‘friends’ and the other is largely treated with contempt. The way that people interact with the landscapes as a result of these perceptions in turn affects the material landscapes and determines whether they become more or less socially and ecologically resilient over time.

In both cases, social events had been successfully used to connect people to place (and to each other) and subsequently begin to change the way in which they saw the landscape, from one they viewed with fear or distaste to one in which nice things happened and they enjoyed themselves. (It is notable that in both cases authorities responsible for the sites did not value citizen-led community events). At both sites, citizens have begun to gradually make physical changes to the landscape. Platt Fields is much more advanced in this process as was demonstrated by the several generations of activity in the Eco Garden. The canal neighbourhoods are just beginning, with small and defensible interventions, and with the parallel large-scale regeneration process exerting both a positive and a negative force. It provides an opportunity to rethink the landscape, along with a new pool of engaged citizens, as well as deepening

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feelings of exclusion within older communities. At both sites, artistic interventions have played an important role in both rethinking and engaging.

The above discussion indicates that the two case studies should be viewed on a historical continuum as well as an Uninviting versus Inviting Landscape continuum. The most inviting landscape has had uninviting characteristics at different times in its history and the most uninviting landscape shows many signs of becoming more inviting, and both are subject to potential downturns overall or in parts. While Platt Fields Park and the neighbourhood that surrounds it stood out as the most inviting landscape in the sample, it became clear through the empirical research and subsequent analysis that it has not always been so inviting. At some periods of its history (1970s and earlier) it was too ordered and manicured to invite citizen intervention and at other stages, it was too neglected to inspire caring and hope (1980s and early 90s). Even the relatively newer Eco Garden has had its own ups and downs but has stayed in the same ‘regime’ (from a resilience perspective) continuing to invite new generations of engaged citizens to intervene in positive ways.

As was described in 2.3 and mentioned earlier in this chapter, SESs move through different phases of an adaptive cycle (as illustrated in Figure 2) and such linked cycles exist at different scales within a panarchy, where changes at one scale affect and are affected by changes at others (as illustrated in Figure 3). The landscapes of the park have moved through different phases of the adaptive cycle and sometimes different ‘regimes’ (defined in 2.3) However, at a higher scale in its panarchy, Platt Fields has remained in the same regime in so far as that, in living memory, it has always been a park. This has preserved at least a minimum right of access, a sense of ownership and feelings of affection. This is quite different from post-industrial landscapes like the canal, which have experienced dramatic changes in use and governance.

Interestingly, both parks and canals underwent a period of major transition at the same time. The policy changes and economic upheaval of the Thatcher era resulted in both deindustrialisation and reduced funding to parks. In the earlier stages of this transition, parks and canals exhibited many similar characteristics:

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signs of neglect, including rubbish and deteriorating infrastructure, and the prevalence of anti-social behaviours that made the areas seem unattractive and dangerous to many potential users (and stewards). In the 20-30 years since that transition, the section of the Rochdale canal running through Miles Platting and Newton Heath has remained generally uninviting whereas Platt Fields has become an exemplary ‘Inviting Landscape’. The positive cultural landscape that remained in the minds of the people who had enjoyed Platt Fields Park, reinforced by the presence of landscape elements that continued to signify ‘park’, served to inspire hope for further (and more positive) transformation. The sense of affection and connection, and the feelings of attachment and ownership, fostered the initial engagement that laid the groundwork for citizen interventions that set in motion a positive feedback mechanism.

On the canals, the narrative focused on pollution, a post-industrial wasteland, and the jobs lost in the surrounding communities through deindustrialisation. As a result, a new cultural landscape has had to be deliberately constructed and the strengthening of connection and affection facilitated. It is notable that during these periods of transition, the biodiversity and the ‘wildness’ of both park and canal have increased, but in the park they are more likely to be enjoyed, to be perceived as an ecosystem service rather than a ‘disservice’.31

There is a panarchy of SESs at play here. At a higher level, economic trends and budgetary policy have an obvious impact on landscapes at the site level and people’s interaction with them. Prevailing land uses or cultural narratives that continue to describe the canals as bad places and Platt Fields as a much loved park have influenced perception and stewardship of different sites within them. Even the humans in the landscape are viewed differently; the volunteers in Platt fields are generally viewed as engaged citizens and a source of inspiration for others to engage, whereas on the canals they are most often presumed to be

31 Poorly managed green infrastructure can provide ‘disservices’ (Lyytimaki et al., 2008). It can provide an entry point for pests and disease-bearing organisms or produce unpleasant odours and other undesirable sensations. Green spaces that are perceived to be overgrown or unmanaged may have a negative effect on peoples’ wellbeing by increasing anxiety about neglect of their surroundings and increased potential for anti-social behaviour.

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doing community service and thus being subjected to a form of punishment that observers are keen to avoid.

Changes at individual sites will influence changes at other sites (either in other parts of the park or canal or in their surrounding neighbourhoods), which can cascade back up to affect the dominant cultural narrative (e.g. moving from ‘bad’ to ‘good’ place). This can then potentially alter the economic context by reaping the benefits of a range of ecosystem services, and facilitate a shift toward policies that recognise the roles of urban citizens and nature and support their collaboration. This means that attention should be paid to SESs at both site scale and at other scales within this vertical panarchy.

The concepts of the adaptive cycle and panarchy are also applicable with respect to how different sites within a larger SES support one another. This could be viewed as more of a horizontal panarchy. Transformation of local landscapes that enhance resilience at a number of sites can add up to enhanced resilience at the city scale. Furthermore, given that SESs at local sites are in different stages of their adaptive cycle, they are able to support one another. Therefore, at the city scale one can observe diverse sites where SESs (composed of groups of people interacting with landscapes) are at different stages of their adaptive cycles. This permits them to share resources within a system that lacks clear boundaries, allowing for a degree of resilience that it is very difficult for a large local authority or private infrastructure provider to attain. For example, while the Friends of Platt Fields is in a ‘conservation’ phase (see Figure 2) and is unlikely to undertake anything innovative or attract new members with new energy and ideas, it does have the stability and the experience to be able to support a group like Envirolution. This allows the latter to bring its ideas and energy to bear on another generation of citizen activity in Platt Fields.

Envirolution has the vision to take on new spaces like the abandoned bowling green, which may feel like too much of a big new project for the older group, which has already faced so many challenges. The bowling green also represents for some members of Friends of Platt Fields a loss to be mourned; a place of memories of childhood, or perhaps the loss of a last remnant of what the park

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used to be. In the latter case, the Bowling Green may be similar to the Pets Corner experience of twenty years ago, which needed a new generation to arrive in order to transform the landscape and the meaning of that site in order to create a new important landscape, the Eco Garden.

These different perspectives and approaches on the part of different actors also highlight the variety of responses to a particular cultural landscape—or the different cultural landscapes inhabited by different groups. This set of competing narratives supports Trosper’s (2005) claim regarding the importance of culture in understanding the working of SESs. Furthermore, the existence of diverse perspectives and approaches in a citizen-managed landscape is likely to enhance the resilience of the SES in keeping with Barthel’s (2006) findings in the Stockholm Urban Park, which were discussed in Section 2.3.

5.5 Conclusion

This chapter presented two case studies undertaken at sites to the south and to the northeast of Manchester’s city centre. These cases were chosen because they seemed to represent the most and the least inviting landscapes of the cases examined in the previous stage of empirical research. It was discovered that with respect to ecosystem functioning, the two sites had a lot in common. However, citizens perceived them very differently and this determined people-landscape interactions. These case studies demonstrated the strength of cultural landscapes in transmitting particular narratives and they also indicated that these narratives could evolve as a result of relatively small changes in the landscape.

Through close examination of people’s responses and interactions with Inviting and Uninviting Landscapes, certain phenomena became discernable. Some of these, such as relationships among landscapes and SESs at different scales, were discussed in this chapter. Others, such as the mechanisms whereby landscapes exert their influence on citizens, which in turn impacts on social- ecological resilience, will be subject to further analysis at the end of the next chapter.

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The case studies also detected a number of landscape characteristics that were inviting and repelling citizen efforts to enhance social-ecological resilience. The next chapter will draw heavily on these two cases to enumerate and analyse a range of Inviting Landscape characteristics. This characterisation of Inviting Landscapes represents the first theoretical contribution of this thesis.

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6 An Inviting Landscape

6.1 Introduction

The empirical findings outlined in the last two chapters indicated that certain features of a landscape tend to produce certain responses, in some cases creating an ‘invitation’ to engage with the landscape in ways likely to enhance the resilience of the underlying SES. This chapter will continue to draw on the empirical data in order to discuss the range of characteristics that constitute an Inviting Landscape.

As potential Inviting Landscape characteristics began to emerge during the analysis, they were grouped together in different ways in an attempt to make the data more meaningful. Early in the process, and drawing on the discussion of cultural landscapes in Section 2.4.2.1, the characteristics were organised in terms of those that communicated something about urban nature versus those that communicated something about the role of citizens. As the data collection and analysis proceeded, it became apparent that different characteristics were playing important roles at different stages in the process of engagement and that the characteristics were best grouped by stage.

According to this framing, Inviting Landscape characteristics can be categorised relative to their contributions to three stages of engagement: rethink, connect and act. These stages loosely correspond to the different components of the experienced landscape (see Section 2.4.2), consisting of the cultural landscape and the ways people respond to it with varying degrees of agency, first emotionally and then through action. This differentiation between emotional and action responses in turn corresponds to the culture/agency breakdown of the ‘social’ in the SES suggested by Trosper (as described in Section 2.3).

The first stage (‘rethink’) is stimulated by cultural landscapes that challenge the dominant narratives described in Section 2.4.2.1 (i.e. those negating the

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significance of citizens and nature in shaping the city). Important characteristics at this stage are those that reveal the presence of nature in the city and highlight the role of citizens in stewarding it. In order to provoke this questioning of assumptions, these landscapes need to attract attention; they are therefore often surprising or undergo frequent change.

Multiple landscapes may contribute to encouraging an individual to rethink his or her ideas about the roles of urban nature and citizens. However, each person will engage in a hands-on way with a very small number of landscapes, often only one. Therefore the important characteristics of the second stage (‘connect’) relate to personal responses to landscapes leading to development of a relationship between an individual and a particular place. This connection is usually stimulated by features of the landscape that a person finds attractive or interesting, or that afford them desirable opportunities. Repeated contact creates an attachment and the connection moves to another stage, one of concern, if they realise that they have a role to play in caring for the place.

The third and final stage is where people are moved to take action. The landscape facilitates their capacity to take action and signals that their endeavours are likely to result in tangible and positive changes. The landscape indicates that it is transformable, i.e., that change is possible, that ‘you the citizen’ have the capacity to do what is required, and that other people will likely work with you.

The characteristics of Inviting Landscapes are discussed below in accordance with these three stages of engagement. An ideal Inviting Landscape would have all of these characteristics but they are not all necessary conditions for citizen engagement. As mentioned above, the ‘Rethink’ stage can occur in response to a landscape other than that with which one will actively engage. Therefore not all landscapes need to be surprising or make very explicit the presence of citizens and nature—but it is important that some landscapes have these characteristics. Some of the characteristics that invite connection and action are more necessary than others, such as basic feelings of safety and permission to interact with a landscape. It should also be noted that, as demonstrated in the case studies

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discussed in Chapter 5, some citizens require less of an invitation to engage. Therefore even if only a few inviting characteristics are present, this will be sufficient for early engagers to begin to transform the landscape in ways that will make it more inviting to others.

The variation in the Inviting Landscape characteristics present in different landscapes means that rather than being separable into discrete types, Inviting and Uninviting Landscapes sit along a continuum. The analysis of the characteristics outlined in this chapter revealed that the most Inviting Landscapes actually sit at midpoint on this continuum where there is a balance between visible presence of nature and degree of human control. This means that while Inviting Landscapes tend to be quite similar, Uninviting Landscapes vary considerably, ranging from wildscapes to concrete infrastructure.

The Inviting Landscape type and the Uninviting Landscape types are inserted into the critical realist model introduced in Chapter 3. This facilitates analysis of the mechanisms underlying citizen’s interactions with nature in urban landscapes and their effects on social-ecological resilience. The chapter ends with the presentation of a conceptual model of an urban SES as viewed through landscape, which highlights the roles played by citizens and urban nature.

6.2 Characteristics of Inviting Landscapes

Stage 1 – Rethink (subversive messages from urban cultural landscapes)

The invitation to rethink the role of people and nature in cities is provided by cultural landscapes that challenge dominant narratives. They serve to ‘loosen space’ (Franck & Stevens, 2007) as described in Section 2.4.3. They make legible the presence of citizens and nature. These landscapes must also attract people’s attention, often with some element of surprise.

6.2.1 Thought provoking

Landscapes that are somehow surprising are particularly effective because they draw people’s attention. Unusual uses of urban spaces provoke reflection about what can happen in such spaces. Seeing for example Brussel sprouts trees

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rising out of a city centre car park draws attention to the possibility of growing food in the city in a way that a more discreet planting might not. Unless of course, the vegetables are discreetly arranged in ornamental designs that makes it difficult to distinguish them from the formal plantings more typical of urban areas. If prominently displayed, these arrangements are also likely to elicit surprise and attract interest.

Plate 17 Edible urban landscaping

A city centre beehive in a meadow is particularly striking:

Plate 18 Beehive in meadow, Manchester city centre

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A grass sofa in Platt Fields Park encourages reflection about the park as a living space and as a place where creative interventions are possible. The bathroom planter in the Fallowfield Secret Garden has a similar effect and also references the possibility of finding new uses for unwanted materials. Maybe it also suggested the potential usefulness of toilet facilities and indeed some of the volunteers subsequently got organised to construct a composting toilet.

Plate 19 New uses for old resources

Many of these interventions are somewhat humorous. Humour draws people in; it is not overtly threatening and thus puts people at ease. One remembers the ‘joke’ while continuing to think more about the underlying message. A sign in Levenshulme where residents strive to make their street more of a living space than a thoroughfare, advertises for “volunteers to be run over”.

Many surprising landscapes are temporary—and this is important. Changes can be made temporarily that would not (yet) be permitted on a long-term basis but which allow people to experience very different ways of creating and being in urban places. Quite often they do lead to more enduring change. The temporary art installations during the many arts-infused festivals in Platt Fields Park seem to have contributed to inviting a range of more lasting creative interventions (this was discussed in Section 5.2.2). Events that are specifically focused on modelling urban space for nature, as well as people, such as the Dig the City installation next to Manchester Cathedral in the summer of 2012, offer significant opportunities for imagining other urban landscapes. This event did

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leave behind a legacy garden and has apparently contributed to re-thinking the future of the area in which it was held.

Temporary changes do not need to involve large-scale festivals. The PARK(ing) phenomenon, where parking spaces are occupied (and generally paid for) to create temporary parks, has spread worldwide, including to Manchester’s city centre. Play Streets, where streets are closed for a few hours so that local children can play, have sprung up in the neighbourhood of Rusholme next to Platt Fields Park. When traffic access is limited for a few hours, it makes people think about streets as public spaces for play and interaction, and not just for circulation and storage of cars

While many temporary alterations accidentally or deliberately fuel ideas about more permanent uses of urban spaces, changes that are explicitly temporary have their own helpful messages. ‘Meanwhile’ landscapes, often gardens, are spreading. They are usually situated on land slated for development and thus provide access to land that would otherwise be unavailable. They offer potential for challenging ideas about obdurate landscapes and unchanging nature. They also highlight opportunities for citizens to use urban spaces under a range of property regimes. This is a tremendous advantage for cities like Manchester where numerous vacant lots seem to be a permanent fixture, constituting a waste of resources and exercising a significant influence on perceptions of the overall urban landscape.

Plate 20 Meanwhile Garden in Salford Groundwork began a Meanwhile project in Salford in 2012 in an area where new housing would eventually be constructed. It was known that it would likely be two or three years before construction work began on the site. In the meantime, food can be grown on the site and skills developed by local residents that can be transferred elsewhere, along with the containers (recycled from agricultural industries) where the food is grown.

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6.2.2 Legibly including nature and people

While the landscape features described above are often new additions and/or unusual uses of urban space, there are also opportunities to rethink our ideas about people and nature in cities based on existing elements that are currently invisible to most people. Attention to the legibility of these elements can assist in ensuring their messages are revealed and clearly transmitted. Inviting Landscapes include those that are legible with respect to the presence of nature and ecosystem services, and those that indicate other citizens are interacting with ecosystems and enhancing their resilience. Legibility can be enhanced by eco-revelatory landscapes and/or by signposting and interpretation as illustrated in the below examples.

There are landscapes in Manchester that remind people that nature is still there even if currently out of sight, such as indicating the route of the River Tib, which has now been channelled beneath the city centre.

Plate 21 A reminder of the River Tib

Similarly, sightings of interesting species rarely seen, or not seen for some time, can be recorded in the context of other historic events in the neighbourhood, as in this plate on the pavement in Hulme Park.

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Plate 22 'Wax Wing Spotted' in Hulme

As urban nature is largely invisible to many citizens, landscape elements that make it more legible are important. However, two of the programme managers interviewed felt that too much emphasis on ‘signposting’ should be avoided. The first felt that trying to spell out the meaning of the landscape too clearly would threaten ‘personal journeys’ in discovering landscape and would limit opportunities for individuals to share their impressions with others:

There’s this real sort of thing about branding everything, and nature’s about…one of the things that we sort of say is that if people are inspired, they will copy it, so it’s about inspiring people, and it’s about that journey of self-discovery, and then if people are really interested in this, then they will go and find out what those flowers are. And that’s the way in which you change people because it’s their own journey, it’s not being told things, it’s not being taught things, they’re doing it for themselves. (Programme Manager 6)

This would presumably impact negatively on the development of personal and community narratives, which are important factors in connecting to place as described later in this chapter.

However it can be argued that many urban landscapes, including those described above, fully conceal urban nature or have largely displaced it—such is

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the case with the rivers channelled into sewers and the species now rarely seen. The story told about urban nature by these signposted landscapes is one about what might be recovered if people engage in transforming urban SESs.

The second programme manager suggested that the understanding of complex ecological processes needed a more solid base of individual knowledge and that this needs to be taught:

I think it’s more about understanding. I know you don’t mean this but it would be hard to put a signpost everywhere saying “This is…” I don’t know what you’d have to do; how do you get much greater understanding of that infrastructure, of those ecosystem services? ...I think the understanding of systems is not there. It’s not taught. So if you’re going to make a change, it has to be at that level. (Programme Manager 2)

There were examples of in situ activities that tried to reveal the system in reference to specific elements in the landscape. One that stands out was an excellent presentation and interactive discussion (facilitated by a local volunteer who also worked for Red Rose Forest) that was integrated into the Friends of Platt Fields Open Meeting of 11 November 2011. With reference to specific trees in the park, the ecosystem services provided were collectively identified (without ever speaking about this in terms of ‘ecosystem services’).

Such education/interpretation activities are perhaps not generally considered elements of the landscape. They are the tools that help people to view or understand the landscape, like the airplane that allows the aerial photo to be taken, or the camera itself. But sometimes the tools are also part of the landscape, such as the presence of the identified viewpoints that guide us to look at specific landscapes--or the situations where we may not notice that our view is being directed, as when buildings or landscapes are framing a view that the architect has designed for the viewer. In the latter case, it is a landscape framing a landscape, which is part of an overall landscape experience. People are elements of landscapes (the importance of the presence of people is discussed at several points in this chapter) and some of these people are guides and interpreters, just as some of the objects in a landscape are tools that invite people to look closely and thoughtfully. So the presence of both helpful people and tools can perhaps be considered a characteristic of Inviting Landscapes.

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Urban nature can be highlighted by providing tools and activities, such as guided tours and equipment, participatory bioblitzes and photography courses. Bat walks were popular activities at many of the sites:

There is tremendous interest in bat walks. Previous bat walks organised by the Friends of Platt Fields have been enormously successful and have indicated that many families are interested in wildlife. The Friends agree to buy a bat detector. (Friends of Platt Fields Open Meeting, November 11, 2011)

The fact that the bat walks took place in the evening also offered opportunities for people to visit the areas at a time of day where they might usually feel uncomfortable (which was mitigated by being in a group; local police officers were also invited to join initial bat walks on the Rochdale Canal and Moston Brook). Experiencing nature at night is an opportunity for a whole other set of potentially awe-inspiring experiences and for developing awareness of the range of species and processes that are part of a landscape.

Photography was another valuable entry point. A Nature Photography Walk on the Rochdale Canal at Newton Heath (June 4, 2012) was very effective in creating awareness and interest in plants and insects along the canal. The workshop leader was a passionate photographer and very knowledgeable naturalist able to identify every species and communicate a range of information about them. Focusing so carefully (literally, with the camera lens) on different species while simultaneously hearing about their behaviours, habitat needs, potential threats, etc., created a deep impression.

Plate 23 Focusing on nature

At the end of the walk, the canal landscape seemed to be teeming with life from a participant’s perspective. In order to reveal some of these discoveries to a wider audience, participants’ photographs were posted on the Canal Connections Facebook page. This page also documents how citizens have assisted in identifying and recording species on the canal with over 200 entries made as of summer 2013.

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One of the programme managers interviewed spoke of the importance of developing this capacity to see the nature that is present in urban landscapes:

A lot of it is just about observational skills; once you get kids looking close, they start to see it all--and you think of all of those great discoveries that have just been from good observational skills. What’s great about these landscapes is that you get kids looking, they become inquisitive and they perceive things. (Programme Manager 6)

Another programme manager described engaging people using compelling nature facts like how many worms per square foot would be found in a particular location. I asked: “How do you actually communicate that information?” She responded that people were the best means of communication:

It’s mainly face-to-face; it’s by far the best way. We’ve done leaflets, that obviously promotes it, but it’s been the events that people actually…because they can also feel the passion that you’ve got for the subject, so in a leaflet you can’t really get that across, but face-to-face you can confer your passion about your subject, and also really inspire and engage people in what you’re trying to help them to appreciate. (Programme Manager 10)

This emphasises the importance of the emotional aspect in the process of engagement, whether it comes from interaction with other people or with other species or with the landscape overall.

As explained in 4.2.4.2, even if people are aware of the presence of urban nature, they tend to think of it as static. They do not realise that ecosystems change over time, and are sometimes not even conscious of seasonal changes, as this programme manager explains:

People have lost so much---we have enquiries from people asking us for wildflowers in the middle of winter, for weddings and things. People have completely lost the seasons, no idea…extraordinary. (Programme Manager 6)

This same programme manager gave an example of the sorts of experiences that wake people up to how ecosystems work:

…somebody had an old orchard that they had grubbed up, and that orchard had been there a hundred years and the field was just solid poppies, the next year it disappeared, and they were completely flummoxed, and they wrote in and they told us, said where did they come from and where have they gone and what’s happening? And we said, there are probably about a hundred million seeds all sitting there, and they need disturbed ground for it to happen. (Programme Manager 6)

This programme manager then suggested that one could facilitate this sort of experience by allowing landscapes to evolve naturally or by deliberately creating landscapes that make legible the constant changes that ecosystems undergo:

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You have to bring a bit of chaos in there, and I think people are forced to get used to the change, because it’s different every year, some of it depends on the weather, and it depends what sort of winter you’ve had, it depends on whether it’s a hot summer…I think it’s about looking at these landscapes changing. (Programme Manager 6)

People are more motivated to steward urban nature when they realise the benefits it provides, i.e. the ecosystem services, as this programme manager stated:

People need to value it. If they don’t understand the things they’re getting from it, then it’s often difficult to value. And therefore we’re starting to ask about the whole idea of attachment and that psychological attachment to place, but I think there’s also something about the utility of the place. You know: “What do I get from all this stuff, it looks nice and it costs me some money on my community charge. What do I get?” So I’m really interested in how you do that. I don’t think it’s signage everywhere! (Programme Manager 2)

These services are often challenging to make visible. The interpretation described above of those furnished by Platt Fields trees was one example of how to approach this. Conversations among volunteers about the value of provisioning services also contributed to legibility:

I am really happy that the fruit trees are here and to have been involved in planting them, it really adds something… It’s amazing the value of the fruit we produce. Fruits are so expensive to buy, as are walnuts and hazelnuts. (Citizen 16)

The volunteers in Platt Fields Park made hand-painted labels and put them in the herb garden they had planted in order to encourage passersby to both learn about the herbs and help themselves.

Plate 24 Making the herb garden legible

The i-trees project demonstration site in Whitworth Park behind the Whitworth Museum is very revealing of ecosystem services that are relevant to

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mitigating the effects of climate change. The project demonstrates the capacity of vegetation to absorb potential floodwater by measuring the rainwater running off comparative areas: (a) tarred (100 litres); (b) a tree planted in an area of one square metre (20 litres); and (c) planted with grasses (1 litre). It also measures temperature gradients, showing for example that at a particular time the temperature may be 40 degrees within the tarred area, which addition of the tree reduces to 28 degrees. It is helpful to have these sorts of demonstration sites and ideally involve citizens in monitoring efforts.

Making existing nature and ecosystem services more legible within existing green spaces is one approach to rewriting narratives about nature in the city. However, there are people who rarely set foot in the more obvious urban natural landscapes such as parks. Natural elements in the everyday landscapes of work, study and transport are very important and efforts should be made to introduce them—and to attract people to existing alternatives for meeting their everyday needs. For example, nature-infused transportation corridors offer very interesting opportunities for regular contact. The development and maintenance of natural corridors is very important for connecting up the fragmented ecosystems of cities, or in landscape ecology terms, connecting the matrix and patches (defined in Section 2.4.1). Equally interesting are the benefits that people obtain by using green corridors for transportation. In addition to the cultural and recreational services provided by contact with nature, there is increasing evidence of the health and welfare benefits provided by ‘green exercise’ (Tzoulas et al., 2007). Another advantage is the opportunity to rethink the purposes of urban landscapes and to conceive of everyday urban life lived in regular contact with nature, where natural corridors are the way that people move about their cities, as this respondent describes:

What I like is that [the canal] can really connect you with places. You can use it for public transport. We use it to go to supermarket…Why would we want to go on the busy street with a million cars? So we take the canal. There’s a park, the one big park in the area, Philips Park; this is how we would go there. People use this to get to the stadium. So some people do use it as a transport link...this is the way I walk to work. I could take the street but I would prefer to take the canal towpath…It’s peaceful. (Citizen 18)

Experiencing the city daily from the perspective of a towpath or old railway corridor rather than through a car window on an A road can completely transform one’s urban landscape and ideas about what the city is and should be.

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This may explain the motivation to volunteer on the part of a resident of an older neighbourhood in Miles Platting who spoke of the pleasure he took in cycling along the canal.

Landscapes that invite us to ‘rethink’ are sometime results of deliberate efforts to create specific surprising and/or temporary landscapes or simply innovative things that people have chosen to do with little thought to the effect on others. In other situations the focus is naturalising spaces such as university campus, schoolyards, retail areas, etc. and on bringing people into existing more natural landscapes by removing obstacles to access through for example signposting and making them feel safe. In this way, contact with urban nature becomes part of everyday life.

It is important to make visible the human hand that is contributing to transforming urban landscapes. Showing that people are doing positive things in landscapes serves to counteract ideas that people are powerless to change cities or that our interactions with nature have predominantly negative results. A walking interview around the Eco Garden with some Platt Fields volunteers (Citizens 16 & 17) yielded the following commentary:

I really like the willow sculpture. I like things that are made from natural structures and with flowers. I think the park has lots of potential for people to do things, for people and nature interaction.

I like the recycled boat (planter), transforming something that would have gone to waste (and something that references the importance of the lake and the boating activities that have gone on). We look at it now and we see the colour of the flowers—and the work of volunteers rather than vandalism.

I like the (communal clay) oven even if it’s not often used but I like the sign of human ingenuity and of time and energy invested.

One of the things that makes Platt Fields an Inviting Landscape is that it is full of creative and obviously handmade infrastructure, which is so clearly not mass- produced and thus indicates the involvement of the diverse individuals who are engaged with this place.

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Plate 25 Homemade: recycled tyre planters in Platt Fields playground

In some cases an effort has been made to communicate to other citizens about appropriate ways to interact with other species. This may include how to feed, and not feed, the birds, or reminders to be aware of all the living things in and around the canal and the need to look after it.

Plate 26 Reminder to look after your canal

This completes the summary of the first group of Inviting Landscape characteristics, i.e. those that encourage people to rethink the potential of urban landscapes and the role of citizens in stewarding or transforming them. The next section will focus on the landscape characteristics that facilitate citizens’ connections with specific places, with which they may begin to actively engage.

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Stage 2 – Connect (the emotional response to the landscapes) i. attraction While multiple landscapes may cause someone to rethink accepted ideas about people and nature in the city, individuals engage in a hands-on way with a specific place or places. The first step in active engagement is to develop a connection with a place and the following landscape characteristics can contribute to encouraging citizens to make this connection.

6.2.3 Safe

In order to connect with a place, people have to spend time in it, and feeling safe is a basic prerequisite. Perceptions of safety vary considerably based on characteristics of actors and the conditions in which they enter the site (e.g. time of day, their companions, ‘authority’ to be there); feeling safe for some may require excluding others who are perceived as threatening.

Fear for safety is a big problem for people, they won’t use somewhere if they don’t know what’s around the corner, or if they’ve heard that teenagers hang around in the evenings. They just won’t go there, just for the fear of it. (Programme Manager 10) Landscape characteristics play a major role in perceptions of safety and their influence does not seem to be diminished by other sources of information about how safe a place might be. In addition to the presence of certain other people in the landscape, respondents spoke about feeling unsafe in places that were dark, littered and ‘gritty’ or ‘sketchy’ in appearance; they frequently mentioned feeling ill at ease in places that seemed ‘uncared for’. The following quote conveys a widely shared sentiment:

Parts of [the canal] seemed really sketchy. It was appearance though because I really don’t think [it’s dangerous] during normal hours…I was definitely looking at the appearance of the place, the maintenance, the litter and you know it was kind of a turn off. (Citizen 18)

Some of the programme managers cited this as key obstacles to people spending time in more natural spaces:

Psychology of safety is quite a big thing as well. Sometimes it’s not even substantiated, it’s just fear. But obviously the psychology is just making it so you’ve got clear lines of view. (Programme Manager 9)

People’s sense of vulnerability can vary considerably and women and older people are likely to feel more fearful. Some people will only feel comfortable in a group setting, as this situation indicated:

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One of the volunteers kept commenting on how nice it was to be out in the park; how lovely it was. She twice mentioned how peaceful and safe she felt working there. She said she wouldn’t have felt safe being in the park on her own but that it felt fine being with the group. This was at about 8 p.m. or just before and it was not yet even dusk and we were working in an area near one of the entrances to the park and beside a well-used footpath (field notes 30 May 2012)

Having people one trusts present in the landscape is a key element in feeling safe. This makes activities like walking and gardening groups and other scheduled collective activities important features for inclusive Inviting Landscapes because they bring reassuring groups of people into the landscape.

Most of the programme managers spoke about the need to make changes to some landscapes so that people would feel safe enough to use them. They provided examples of the types of interventions they thought were required. These included clear indications that the site was being cared for or managed in some ways. As one programme manager described,

One of the things that came out of [a piece of research done in Knowsley, Merseyside] was a very striking increase in usage on sites that had just the first start of visible management. There was a big jump in usage, you had this continuum, but actually the usage went bang up when you just got started, and it was just things like mowing a tiny bit of grass at the entrance or along the paths, would suddenly make people think this is cared for, this is looked after. (Programme Manager 5)

Good sightlines were also frequently mentioned as important features for an increased sense of security. Several considerations were noted, including making volunteers working at a site feel that passersby could see them if a problem arose:

[Regarding a site where are new community garden is in development] We’re going to remove some of the trees, and some shrubs just to make the site more visible. To make people feel a bit safer. (Programme Manager 11)

It is also important to help people see what is around the corner as they move through the site:

You make [footpaths] more open so that people can see longer vistas, you make them lighter, cut the canopy out. (Programme Manager 7)

In some cases, there may be a need for people to get a sense of what is inside an area that has been a no go area for some time as in the case of the Nutsford Vale site:

We had a big impenetrable bank of trees along the road, and nobody had really much of an idea about what was in the rest of the site. It’s a big site, thirteen hectares. So one of the first things we did was quite a substantial thin, and some scrub removal, so that you got a chance to see in. (Programme Manager 5)

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Ironically, it seems that nature needs to be cut back in order to encourage people to spend time in natural sites, and thus hopefully develop an attachment to them and go on to engage actively in stewarding nature.

6.2.4 Intriguing

Landscapes have to be interesting in some way in order to draw people in and encourage them to return. One programme manager spoke about observing new regular users following naturalisation of an area, which included adding colour through planting wildflowers:

It’s the changes that we see, [different groups of people] keep coming back here. Why are they coming here? It’s the whole feel of the place, and it’s all part of it, isn’t it? If it was just a mown square of grass, they probably wouldn’t bother. (Programme Manager 6)

One volunteer mentioned multi-sensory experiences:

There are different smells like lemon, vanilla, strawberry. And there are colours—they attract butterflies. It’s like a boiling kettle, like a sweet--and I want to eat it! If we leave this area and go to other parts of the park, it seems bland; it’s just grass. (Citizen 16)

And also described the attraction of specific features:

I did some work in [another site] but it doesn’t have a lake; it doesn’t have the same potential [as Platt Fields]. (Citizen 16)

Water seemed to a big attraction at a variety of sites:

People do like the canals! (But I think they can be really put off from it because of litter, because of lack of maintenance.) (Citizen 18)

This interest in water is possibly due to the sociobiological factors mentioned in section 2.4.2.2 where it was described how water and other elements may stimulate a biophilic response. This was also mentioned by some programme managers:

[Regarding attraction to nature:] It’s hardwired into the brain, isn’t it? You know, we evolved on the edge of the savanna, and it’s part of what we are, you know, the hippocampus is based on the Fibonacci sequence, which is something that appears in plants, it’s a natural thing. The eye can identify more shades of green than any other colour, for obvious reasons. I think it’s just part of the fact that we are a part of nature. (Programme Manager 6)

This same programme manager made specific references to the importance of coloured wildflowers and of ‘edges’:

Some of it is about edges. I mean, there was Henk Bos in the Hague, who was an inspiration to me when I heard him talk in the seventies, and he was head of parks for Den Haag in Holland, and he spoke about the edges, the edge effects, that people naturally gather at the edge of sea and sand and

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the edge of wood, and that’s supposedly also where we evolved. He said that if you actually create these edges, then people like that, and nature likes that. That’s when nature comes to the edge of the pond and the edge of the wood, that’s where it all happens. And the eye bounces off edges… [respecting how these principle were integrated with the organisation’s approach to landscape management] that’s the hard path, the mown edge, the meadow, so you create a series of edges; we call it the meeting place between chaos and order, where nature wants to come to. (Programme Manager 6)

The desire to connect to other species is another biophilic tendency. A number of respondents mentioned the pleasure of watching birds:

It’s just something about being around water, and you know the geese and the ducks. (Citizen 18)

Bird-related activities and bat walks in Platt Fields and along the canal attracted a lot of interest and served to deepen connections to other species and the places they inhabit:

Over tea a volunteer spoke of how 30 people had shown up for the bat walk (there were 80 last year) last Saturday night despite the rain and the bank holiday weekend. She then spoke very enthusiastically about her own interest in various sorts of wildlife. (Field notes 28.08.12)

People are also attracted to places where they can learn something. Both a volunteer and a programme manager responsible for engaging citizens highlighted the importance of learning opportunities:

I am here to learn…I found the gardening group; I’m really enjoying it and have learned a lot. (Citizen 17)

Once people get into looking after certain sites, they want to do it every day, and they want to find out more about these sites. __ is a prime example of that. He’s looked at beetles, he’s looked at fungi. He started out just looking at the flowers, and then he wanted to find out more about the site, and what was so special about his local site--and the local site isn’t actually all that special when you look at it, but for him, it has become special, and he’s absolutely fascinated by it, and he just wants to learn more. (Programme Manager 10)

People’s particular interests or activities will also connect them to a place. If they use the space for activities they enjoy, this will encourage a particular attachment. So places that feature a range of assets and potential uses will invite a variety of people to connect with them.

One volunteer talked about how people generally figured out where they should be (in order to both enjoy themselves and engage with the place) after they got there:

People are just good at identifying when they’ve found something rather than actually being able to say, “Ah-hah, I know what I need to do, I need to go to the park because I can do this in the park.” It’s just like, “I’m in the park, this is quite good, I can do this here. Oh, I can do that here.” (Citizen 15)

Several programme managers and citizen leaders emphasised bringing people together in any way possible, through social activities, art, sport, etc. They

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claimed that the rest would follow. This creating space for people to come together is consequently another key characteristic of Inviting Landscapes.

6.2.5 Social

Part of what makes a place interesting is other people. Danish architect Jan Gehl regularly reminds his readers and audiences that people attract people and all good urban spaces reflect this reality (J Gehl, 1987). Green spaces, even if they also attract with opportunities for solitude, are no exception to this rule. The people in the landscape are a very inviting characteristic.

Social spaces are where people might meet, such as intersections of paths or areas with places to sit (ideally with the right degree of sun or shade) or places where people meet in the presence of comforting ‘props’ such as children or dogs (Mean & Tims, 2005). One of the programme managers interviewed spoke about designing for this:

In terms of how people feel about getting engaged in the site…I suppose when you think about the things that actually do work, it’s having some of the social spaces, places where people interact can be important I think. And we’ve tried designing these, so you don’t just have one seat on its own, you maybe have two or three. That then means that people can talk to each other, you could do this with an off the lead dog area, I presume, that that would actually bring the dog walkers together and then they would tend to interact more. (Programme Manager 5)

While comforting props are one bridge builder, surprising elements can be another. The ‘attention-getting’ interventions mentioned at the beginning of this chapter give people cause to stop in the place and talk about them.

Inviting Landscapes are venues for inviting activities. They are spaces where community activities sometimes take place, such as informal sport or neighbourhood celebrations where people feel invited to join in. They are places associated with people having fun. Social events and activities such as barbecues, canoeing and festivals have played a role in attracting people to the Ashton and Rochdale canals and encouraging them to see it differently. As described in Section 5.2.2, festivals in Platt Fields played a very important role in its evolution and volunteers often spoke about community events that drew them in:

The first time I ever noticed [Platt Fields] properly was going past in the bus one night and it was the Diwali…the festival of lights, and all the trees had candles in them and it just looked phenomenal. It was the first time I thought, “there’s something going on there.” (Citizen 15)

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I used to come to events like the Garden of Delights, which were amazing. (Citizen 17)

It should be noted however that in order to play this role, events have to be human scale and connected to place and community, involving local people in creating them. As mentioned in Section 5.2.5 events such as Parklife can have exactly the opposite effect.

The best sort of events with respect to developing a connection to the place are those that make it about the place. Members of two organisations, Envirolution and Larkin’ about, drew on their experiences of accompanying the Miles Platting Walkers (a local walking group) and talking to them about the canal in order prepare activities for a canal festival.

Events that not only build on the ideas of local residents but also feature them in central roles in hosting the event can contribute significantly to making a landscape more inviting. The corporate branding that dominates many contemporary events can be disempowering. The candlelit paths, handmade giant puppets, bicycle-propelled scary movies and pots of homemade curry at the Creatures of the Night event that took place on 28 October 2011 in Platt Fields sent a compelling message that this was a people’s event in the People’s Park32.

One programme manager described an events-focused strategy that was used to develop a new narrative for Moston Brook:

…on this site that still hasn’t really got the definition we were talking about, it’s growing. It’s not really got it and because we don’t want to rush into it, we’re going about this gradually. But basically this young group of people set up a year of environmental events every month all different types, graffiti art, den building, everything and 75 people were turning up to these events on this site that previously had nothing. (Programme Manager 7)

There is something special about events. The creativity that is unleashed and the social capital that can be built (notably of the bridging type33) because event

32 Platt Fields is still referred to as the People’s Park. This was a name given to the first parks in the area (and in the UK) to be partly paid for by public subscription, Phillips Park and Queens Park in Manchester, and Peel Park in Salford, all opened in 1846 and proclaimed to be “parks bought by the people to be enjoyed by the people” (Britain’s Park Story, 2010). The term was later also applied to Platt Fields, the first to be purchased by the Council in response to public demand. 33 Bridging capital is a specific form of social capital involving connecting people who are different from one another (Putnam, 2001).

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organising requires a broad range of skills that can lay the groundwork for on- going collaboration around an issue or in a place.

6.2.6 Storied

Many respondents suggested that places need a ‘story’, some sort of identity or narrative to which people can connect. This is particularly important in areas that are assumed to be of no interest, as one of the programme managers explained. Making a path, putting up a sign, organising even a small event can create a new narrative that will attract people:

I’d say one of the key things is identity—it’s fundamental. A space has got to have some sort of identity, some sort of definition, in terms of actually making a connection with somebody. I can picture a particular site in North Manchester, called Harpurhey Ponds and Harpurhey is one of the poorest wards in the country, let alone the city. And there’s this great little space but it was overgrown, it was fly tipped, it was…again, why would you… you’d walk past it every day and you’d ignore it. But very very easy to generate interest. It was just to tidy up the frontages, clear an access path, put a sign up saying this is what we’re doing and this is what it is. And all of a sudden, little old ladies from across the road who’ve never set foot in it for twenty years are having a walk down to see what’s going on…I guarantee you I could put a sign up on a derelict site saying something, give it a name, give it a gate, give it an access point and say, Come here on Friday and there’s going to be something on and we’ll get somebody. (Programme Manager 7)

Given the desire to highlight the roles of both citizens and nature in enhancing urban resilience, attention should be paid to communicating both ecological and social stories.

I learned about a particularly compelling ecological narrative in the early stages of my fieldwork. I kept hearing about Red Rose Forest and the Mersey Forest and wondered where they were, until I realised that as I moved around Manchester, I was in Red Rose Forest. I would also occasionally stray into the Mersey Forest as I travelled in the direction of Liverpool. Red Rose Forest and the Mersey Forest are two of England’s eight Community Forests. The Community Forest programme (www.communityforest.org.uk), which began in 1990, has served to recast cities (with their forest fragments and street trees) as forests. It also encourages urban dwellers to see themselves as integral parts of the forest ecosystem with a role to play in enhancing it. This is a powerful concept with potential to shift cultural narratives about cities and nature. There are opportunities to make this story more legible in the landscape as a programme manager from the Mersey Forest suggested:

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92% of people when interviewed say they support the idea of the Mersey Forest; 64% say they recognise a change in their environment in the last ten years due to the work of the Forest. Would they say they live in the Mersey Forest? No—but I’d like them to, absolutely. What do we need to do in order to make that happen? One of the key things to achieve in the future would be demarcation of the boundary. So how do you know you’re going into Cheshire? You pass a big sign that says: you are going to Cheshire. On maps, on the national ordnance survey maps, there’s a line around the Mersey Forest and around Red Rose that says you are entering these places but those maps are read by, I don’t know, 3% of the population.

The opportunity to redefine cities as ecosystems has tremendous potential with respect to both seeing and valuing the nature around us and also beginning to understand the connections between seemingly disconnected fragments of vegetation. Rather than seeing the lone street tree as an ornamental plant in a pot, we can begin to see it as part of a forest with many gaps that citizens can help to fill.

Making connections and developing and maintaining natural corridors is important for a functioning ecosystem and for ensuring human contact with nature. There are also opportunities to make connections among the life cycles of trees and of the products that people use as has been done in a landscape in Trafford (Greater Manchester) that shows the whole system and path from tree to planter:

It looked like proper waste ground; it was a bit of hardstanding where nature had taken over. …It won a Landscape Institute Design award, but it also, it was for sustainability because all the things... For example the planters were actually made, the raised beds, from poplar trees that were felled, because they had this programme in Manchester to, were they diseased or something? And the guy who did the work worked with the school so the children saw the trees, saw them being felled and then saw him making the actual planks, not planks they’re more than planks, and then actually make the beds and grow food in them. (Programme Manager 11)

When reconstructing an ecological narrative in the urban landscape, it is important to proceed with care (in more than one sense of the word). The narrative of good urban nature as controlled nature has a long history in the UK as described above. It is compounded by the lack of value that has been visibly attributed to many natural areas in recent years. One programme manager explained how:

A woodland in particular is a challenge. Most of the population of Britain see woodlands as a place to dump their old fridges and couches---and those who don’t do that, don’t do it because they’re too frightened of the woodlands, frightened to go in. (Programme Manager 7)

This means that considerable care must be taken to gradually introduce more natural elements and/or maintain balance. There is also recognition that different groups of people as well as individuals experience nature differently:

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I’ve come across papers that say vegetation puts fear into the minds of some people. For other people, it’s somewhere to explore, and be excited. (Programme Manager 4)

Some programme managers spoke about the need to incorporate managed areas into wilder areas, for example by mowing a path through a meadow, which is also a way to invite entry. One explained that there is a need to insert something that will help to define the place:

Whether it’s an access point or something that’s a little bit clearer so that people can see. It doesn’t even need to be as formal as that. It could literally be mowing a meter wide ride, you know a side of a path. That’s the classic isn’t in, people say: oh, it’s all just wasteland there. As soon as you mow something, it shows somebody (again subconsciously, I know) somebody’s managing that so therefore that’s being left for a purpose. (Programme Manager 7)

Plate 27 Small signs of management turn wasteland to greenspace

One programme manager described the difference a path makes as follows:

There’s a great picture of a garden with these wonderful mounds, that have got all these orchids on it, and there’s a mown path on it, and when you actually put your hand on it, block out that mown path, it looks a bit of a mess, take your hand off and it looks ordered. It’s extraordinary. (Programme Manager 6)

Another strategy is to balance the wild with the manicured and give people time to get used to the changes as in this case of a thirty-five acre park that was transformed with wildflowers:

It’s the way in which it changes behaviour. Initially we had a lot of objections, but as people have got used to it and as the proper management kicks in, in terms of maintaining the neat edges and the sort of layered effect, the complaints have fallen away, and people get used to it. In fact the dog-walkers have created their own paths next to the wildflowers rather than using the formal paths; they’ve created informal paths rather than use the formal ones so they can actually get closer to the wildflowers, which is really interesting. (Programme Manager 6)

In another context two volunteers discussed how they liked the blend of a garden that was bit crazy but also had a path into it and some defined borders:

Citizen 17: It’s looking really well. I like the craziness of it. I like the rounded areas and the curved shapes.

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Citizen 16: I like the colour and I like how it has now has a pathway and defined borders.

One of them suggested that these signs of care were causing other users of the area to treat the garden with more respect.

Citizen 17: I would have expected it to get damaged because when we had vegetables it got damaged.

Citizen 16: It looks more established, like it’s meant to be there.

A number of respondents demonstrated that they understood the need to maintain a balance. Three of the active citizens interviewed who were focused on enhancing more natural elements mentioned that they were also keen to maintain traditional recreational areas and uses that would attract a wide range of users, along with new and creative uses that made better use of ecosystem services and took advantage of the multi-functionality of green infrastructure.

Another potentially important story is that of climate change and its effect on different species, which provides an excellent opportunity to understand how local landscapes are connected to larger SESs (and subject to cross-scale effects within a panarchy). One programme manager explained the need to think about: the permeability of the urban environment for nature moving North because of climate change. If nature is trying to move North, it hits the Mersey belt, and it either has to go around by sea, or try and get through a huge urban belt, or up over the hills, which all effectively create barriers. So if we’ve got a bit of a permeable landscape through Greater Manchester, there’s a much better chance that things can move North. But what we don’t know is how all the different species will go through it. I mean we know obviously birds and mammals can get through reasonably well. We’ve now found out what butterflies would need to be able to sort of move through, but plants, it might be quicker to just dig them up and move them through! (Programme Manager 9)

This is an example of how climate change could serve as a strong motivator for engaging citizens in enhancement of green infrastructure in Greater Manchester. It should however also be noted that climate change is not always helpful with respect to engaging people with their local environments precisely because the effects are often not easily visible in the landscape. The recent emphasis on climate change, including by funders, has sometimes presented challenges to organisations trying to support communities as this programme manager explained:

More challenging for engaging communities were projects focused on climate change because people didn’t really think it was an issue—or happening. For example, there was a problem with flooding in Salford and people could understand risk of flooding but not the link to climate change. The participation levels in that project were lower than some other areas where the focus was on a park or a play area. (Programme Manager 1)

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Initiatives like i-trees, mentioned above in Section 0, can help to make the effects more visible. However, some people believe that climate change is taking up too much space at the expense of things that really engage citizens (like nature). One of the programme managers reported this in light of a conversation with someone involved in environmental issues at the Greater Manchester level who: came to me and said, you know, I’m really glad that you’re going to be doing [nature-focused work] actually because quite a lot of people come to me and say, it’s about time we got back to the proper environment, meaning the natural environment rather than all this climate change stuff and everything else. (Programme Manager 9)

An engaged citizen and community worker made a similar statement with respect to avoiding issues that may serve to intimidate citizens:

I have taken time to find the right way to engage people and not scare them away with big global issues they should be acting on. (Citizen 19)

Combining ecological and social narratives (and offering both provisioning and cultural ecosystem services), landscapes where food is produced tell compelling stories. Many respondents remarked on the tremendous popularity of food-related initiatives. Food cultivation can offer a very strong motivation to engage, along with opportunities for intense interaction with urban nature and for education with respect to ecosystem processes and services. A number of the programme managers mentioned how food-growing initiatives were expanding in Manchester and that this came with ecological benefits:

Community food-growing is a fantastic [area of work]. Manchester’s pretty good on that…and obviously, most people want to do it organically so that gives you more sort of sustainable spaces as well. (Programme Manager 9)

They also emphasised the health and well-being benefits that connect people to ecosystem services in a way that they can understand:

There are a lot of gardens (food growing) at the moment; people who live in terraces growing food in the alleyways—and people who live in tower blocks growing food in, you know those massive builders’ bags, using those as a kind of temporary allotment. So there’s a lot of reclamation of urban areas for food growing. And that’s linked to healthy living, healthy lifestyles, access to fruit and vegetables because that links to people’s lives (Programme Manager 1)

Cultural and historical narratives were also seen to have significant impact within the landscapes that were the subject of the case studies. It was described in Section 5.3.3 how the industrial heritage of Manchester’s canals is perceived negatively by many, while also providing a historical narrative that invites others

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to engage. More traditional green spaces may also benefit from their history. Platt Fields Park celebrated its centenary in 2010, sparking a surge of new and renewed engagement by local citizens.

Other important narratives are very local. While the community forests sought to communicate the idea of the whole city as part of Red Rose Forest or the Mersey Forest, staff recognised the importance of more local narratives to connect communities:

We also recognise that people are interested in their local area so when…We do constantly tell people you’re in the Mersey Forest, the projects are in the Mersey Forest but we’re also really mindful that people are more interested in Northwich Community Woodland, they’re interested in Mistle Wood, they’re interested in Griffin Wood, and their locality.

Acknowledging the importance of the very local and the community relationship is key. Having cared for a place and perhaps fought to defend a place creates strong attachments, which should be built on. One programme manager described their determination to recognise the significance of a site of community interest even when it challenged the policy related to site designation:

That site didn’t have a Special Biological Importance (SBI) status but people valued it so much for its wildlife value. There’s been a long history of them saving the woods from development, and because they’d fought to protect the area, they’d obviously grown a lot of passion for the wildlife that was on the site…the wildlife interest was more that it was on their doorstep, although it wasn’t worthy of an SBI status. So we actually ended up designating that site (as a Local Nature Reserve), and it was a bit of a challenge with English Nature (now integrated into Natural England) (Programme Manager 10)

There may also be opportunities to build on a variety of cultural elements of a place to draw people. One respondent talked about: a gap site where we’ve been able to do a demonstration of what we were calling Blue Heaven, which was blue and white flowers because of Everton. It was near the beacon, which is on the Everton badge, and we’re linking that with the poetry of Charles Manley Hopkins, who was a parish priest there. So we’re using sort of a whole range of different sort of cultural connections to engage people and to give a vision as to what could happen on a larger scale. (Programme Manager 6)

Citizens themselves often seize the opportunity to personalise the landscape. This is likely to encourage them to engage more fully and stay involved in the longer term as is indicated by the below example:

In East Manchester, in Clayton, there’s a sort of long alleyway, and there’s a couple of ladies who’ve done one bit, and it’s kind of focused on children, so we’ve got like a sandpit and things like that, and then the next bit, it’s got this weird colour scheme where it’s sort of pink and it kind of fades to white on the walls, and you know they’re all different. And they’re, I mean they’re interesting because they’re quite old now, but they still work. (Programme Manager 11)

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Personal stories also play an important role as this citizen described:

People have a relationship to the park, maybe they have grown up in it, they have memories and this gives meaning to the park. (Citizen 16)

As this whole category of Inviting Landscape characteristics implies, some sort of personal and emotional connection to a place is an essential precursor to engagement. However the content and the adaptability of personal narratives can have a variety of results. People with long-term connections can be relied upon to rally in defence of a place. However at the same time, they can have difficulty imagining and feeling comfortable with its transformation to something better adapted to current needs—both social and ecological—and inclusive of new users and actors. It was striking how often the key actors in the landscapes studied were people originally from outside but who had formed a connection over a period of several years. They were connected to the place but not wedded to only one vision of it. They had also possibly seen a greater variety of possibilities, having experienced other places. This particular phenomenon highlights a sub-characteristic within the ‘storied landscape’ category, that of landscapes that have both compelling existing narratives and leave space for new ones. It also highlights the value of landscapes that can integrate multiple competing narratives.

Platt Fields was an excellent example of this, where a disused bowling green represented both a lost tradition and an extraordinary opportunity; and the lake was an amenity, a problem, and an experiment. The way that these narratives and the landscapes that reflect them are continually being rewritten through processes of negotiation involving a very diverse group of people is what makes Platt Fields a particularly Inviting Landscape. A key part of the invitation is the way in which this landscape remains flexible and embraces diversity, which also results in a resilient SES.

Some landscapes however lack existing inviting narratives and are very much in need of a new one. Similar to the need to transform SESs that are in an undesirable regime, some landscapes have no positive narrative on which to build to enhance resilience. They must create new ones, as when Matthews Lane tip became Nutsford Vale, as one of the programme managers described:

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It was called Matthew Lane's Tip! Well, I’m sorry…Do you fancy coming for a walk at Matthew’s Lane Tip? No you don’t, do you?! So working with the community, it’s Nutsford Vale now, one of a number of “vales” in the city. It’s not trying to be twee, it’s just trying to make it that, no, it’s not a tip anymore, it’s a well-loved green space and you’re the ones who can get a lot out of it. So there’s a lot of hope and a lot of opportunity there. (Programme Manager 7)

Plate 28 Nutsford Vale

Nutsford Vale is now a place that one can begin to be hopeful about, with which citizens may feel inspired to engage. In other cases, associations with the name can be altered:

Moss Cider, I saw them at an event in Moss Side, in a park, and it was great. They were crushing all the apples and they had all the kids round. I don’t know whether they came up with the name first (laughs) and then thought we’ll make cider afterwards. (Programme Manager 11)

I learned later that coming up with the name ‘Moss Cider’ played a significant role in driving development of the initiative. It may also be a key factor in the tremendous success that the initiative has experienced since the first apples were pressed in September 2010. Moss Side is a name associated with a long history of social ills and residents welcomed the opportunity to project a new image of apple trees and neighbours working and celebrating together.

Once a positive identity develops, people will come, as one volunteer in Platt Fields described.

Someone mentioned that a new volunteer had arrived at Platt Fields who had some very useful expertise that could potentially be applied to sorting out the algae problems in the lake. I asked how this individual had connected to the park. Another volunteer replied, “He just found it, people find Platt Fields.” (Field notes 30.05.12)

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This park has become a place that not only interests people from around the city, but also suggests to them that there is an opportunity to get involved in transforming it.

(Stage 2 – Connect) ii. Attachment

Once people are attracted to a place, which often results in them spending a certain amount of time there, there is potential for forming an ‘attachment’. This means moving beyond ‘liking’ somewhere to what one programme manager described as ‘cherishing’ a place. This programme manager mentioned that his organisation was trying to deliberately create landscapes that elicited such feelings:

We’re looking to create cherished well-wooded landscapes. The latest work that I’m quite keen on exploring around that is attachment so how are people attached to their landscape and how do you create places where people feel ownership (Programme Manager 2)

This section will focus on the landscape characteristics that stimulate formation of such an attachment.

6.2.7 Welcoming

In addition to persuading citizens that this is a place worthy of their interest, Inviting Landscapes should also make them feel welcome. First of all, citizens must feel that they have permission to enter into the space and to get involved. As in the case of feeling safe, this perception of permission may vary depending on the individual(s) and the conditions. For some people, lack of obstacles is sufficient whereas, for others, permission must be clearly signposted. The Gardening Group at Platt Fields was described by one member as ‘authorised guerrilla gardening’. Those comfortable with guerrilla tactics understood that a less subversive arrangement was required to attract a broader range of participants.

The area should not be fenced off and entry should not be otherwise implicitly or explicitly prohibited. For people who need a clearer invitation, having a welcoming entrance is a way to invite them in, as was mentioned by several programme managers. The use of both simple pathways and carefully designed entranceways have been added to many green spaces in Manchester

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while the areas inside are quite wild, which sends an interesting message, seeming to invite people into nature.

Plate 29 Inviting entrances

The area should also be permeable and accessible in other ways, including from other sites that people can and do frequent. Sometimes this is a question of how nature is managed:

You [invite people in] by making things more accessible, you increase the footpaths, you make them more solid, less woody (Programme Manager 7).

At other times, it is related to connectivity of the place to the surrounding area. Where this connectivity is lacking it can have an off-putting effect, as in the case of the canal system:

It isn’t the most permeable though because you do have to go through the stadium parking lot into the neighbourhood. So you have to go through the parking lot, out to Alan Turing way, that big street and then you can weave your way back into the neighbourhoods but there’s this long stretch here where you can’t get into (the canal) or out of it, depending how you’re looking at it. (Citizen 18)

Permeability is sometimes sadly reduced by ‘improvements’ to the place. According to neighbours of Heaton Park, following the pope's visit, a lot of money was put into the park and it was used to build a wall around the park so that neighbours can no longer see into it. (Field notes 12.07.12)

There also has to be space available for the ready-to-engage citizen to intervene in the landscape, space that is vacant or unoccupied to some degree (like the unused Broom Lane drying area or the vacant lot where the Fallowfield

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Secret Garden is now located) or where there is room for newcomers and existing occupants are welcoming as is the case in Platt Fields Park. One of the Platt Fields volunteers summed this up well:

[Another volunteer] has got a really nice way of explaining this: that parks and pavements are the only places left people feel ownership of. So by doing things in the nice big open space of the park, you’re initially sitting there with your arms open and a lot of people kind of come and find you there (Citizen 15). It is important the space be open to all; it should be inclusive. Although again, inclusive for some may require exclusion of others, e.g. those that engage in behaviours perceived as threatening.

Tenure of the space should be fluid. Land can be publicly or privately owned, or privately owned but publicly adopted as in the case of some alleyways in Manchester, or formerly public but now privately owned as is the case of an increasing amount of land in the UK. It must however appear unclaimed or with formal or tacit agreement by the owner that it can be used and possibly altered by others, as seems to be increasingly the case with Manchester City Council with regard to green space and the Canal and River Trust (formerly British Waterways) with regard to canals:

With the new mission of the Canal and River Trust they’re really trying to encourage this kind of ownership and adoption of the parts of the canals and waterways because they know they can’t do it so they really need local people to take some pride and ownership and help them out. (Citizen 18)

As mentioned earlier, people are part of the landscape and the landscape is as much about the social and institutional contexts as about the physical elements. One respondent described engaged citizens acting as ‘hosts’ in particular places and playing a key role in inviting others to engage, in contrast to regulations and their enforcers that often keep people out. The individuals, as well as the entranceways, fences and signs are all elements of an Inviting or Uninviting landscape. The below example shows how an invitation from others helped people to overcome their feelings that they should stay out of the garden:

At the Envirolution Festival, the volunteer hosts had to initially invite people into the herb garden--- presumably because they expect that they’re to keep out. It was notable that once people felt comfortable about going in, many of them ended up congregating in the middle. Once they entered into the herb garden, people began to look more carefully at the specific herbs and to smell and sometimes taste them. In addition to the encouragement from hosts, it was clearly important to have paths going through the garden, as well as things drawing them in, such as the colourful hand-painted signs. (Field notes 25.07.12)

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Plate 30 Come into the garden

Being in the middle of the herb garden provided the opportunity for a different perspective on one’s place in that landscape, i.e. being part of it, rather than looking in from outside (and the presence of other people in the centre would also impact on how the landscape looked to people viewing it from outside). This idea of entering into the garden is not a part of the dominant urban landscape narrative, as evidenced by the experience of a volunteer organisation that created an exhibit for a major garden show:

Ours was the only garden that people could walk into. Instinctively we had built something that included people and every other garden on that site, no matter how beautiful, no matter how large, you stood on the outside and looked into it, and it had never occurred to us to do that, it had to be somewhere people could get into. (Programme Manager 8)

Many engaged citizens spoke of having got involved because someone else invited them. The invitations came in many forms. For example, there was mention of the important contribution made by a resident artist in Platt Fields who was provided with free studio space and in return helped out with many things in the park. The artist involved people in making things for the festivals, such as giant birds, which another volunteer described as “great work that people were able to do, without getting paid, just because they liked it. [The artist] would invite them in and enthuse them.” (Citizen 16)

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An Inviting Landscape often includes tea and biscuits. The most engaging engaged citizens understood the importance of always providing a space for people to feel welcome and to connect with one another—ideally over food and a hot drink, or a cold drink. There are always enthusiastic volunteers to put the kettle on and everyone looks forward to the reward for what is at times difficult physical work. Handing around the cups and the biscuits creates connections among the group, as does reflecting on the day’s work. It is also an opportunity to make sure everyone has been properly introduced. Unfortunately, introductions were neglected in some cases, particularly by institutional actors:

You show up to an event and there are people hanging around a van in a shopping centre parking lot and there’s no kind of real introduction and “Hey, this is who I am. I live here.” It just moves right into this health and safety talk and I thought that’s a little strange because part of what I wanted to do was meet people; I just wanted to get to know some of my neighbours around a shared interest and so I was little disappointed on that end. (Citizen 18)

A welcoming host is a key element of being made to feel at home in any context and a feeling of being at home is an essential characteristic of an Inviting Landscape.

6.2.8 Home-like

Engagement with a place truly begins when people begin to feel that it is their place, as this engaged citizen so eloquently describes:

Now it’s my park. I think it’s the same relationship that I have with my house in that I know if I go home tonight I’ve got some digestives in the cupboard and I can have a nice cup of tea. And I know that if I get home early enough I can go and sink into the big corner sofa and have the cup of tea and the digestives all on my own, and just have a moment to myself there. I know what side of the bed that I like to sleep on. I know that in the summer I can keep my curtains open and the sun will get on my face in the morning. It’s the bits that you learn that you like in your house. I think that I’ve learned…It’s like when I was cycling over to the park today, I was thinking, “I can go and get some lemon balm from that plant and we can have some of that tea.” You learn what the park is and where it is and what there is in there and I think that it is that side of things that I like learning, that there are these plants in there that I can go and make use of, especially things like the lemon balm, which is a weed, which are kind of an annoyance to someone that’s trying to make things perfect. But to me they’re there and it is perfect. (Citizen 15)

The above quote conveys a sense of having appropriated the space over time so that one knows where things are and feels comfortable in helping oneself to what is available.

There are many features that contribute to creating the sense of being at home. The inviting hosts mentioned above tried to make everyone feel at home as this engaged citizen describes:

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[The neighbourhood and the park] connect because the park is everyone’s garden and we talk about it in terms of “This is your garden”. (Citizen 14)

Many physical features of the landscape are also important. For example places that are on a human-scale are also more likely to make people feel at home as one volunteer mentioned:

This garden is more like a domestic scale, more personal because it has all these little bits. (Citizen 16)

Platt Fields has the advantage of offering diverse natural elements; to a certain extent, there is something for everyone. However, it is in some ways too big and volunteers may get overwhelmed if they work in multiple parts of the park. Spreading oneself too thin and spending less time and energy in each place may limit one’s capacity to engage fully with a particular place. Platt Fields is also not a landscape that one can get fully into one’s perceptual frame, in the way that is possible, for example, with the fairly small and clearly defined Secret Garden nearby. It was notable that several volunteers in Platt Fields spoke of having decided to stay focused on one particular area of the park, such as the Eco Garden.

There are also places that have a more home-like feel. Residential areas tend to invite more engagement than places with a corporate or institutional feel. People feel comfortable in places that they and others already spend time, where local community members have already staked a claim in some way; where children play, etc. This may be one of the reasons why parks seem to be very Inviting Landscapes.

Places that people regularly move through on foot or bicycle also attract interest, which means that there is potential for engagement with natural corridors like waterways and footpaths or cycle ways. It also bodes well for the places people wait like bus stops and railways stations. Bus stop gardens have begun to appear in various parts of the country and one in Rusholme has already been mentioned. The Heaton Chapel train station also has a garden, and echoes the days when some stationmasters kept gardens and sold produce to supplement their income. The Friends of Heaton Chapel Station have tried to create a landscape that not only invites people to engage in looking after it but

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also to use the train and in this way ensure that this sustainable transport structure continues to be available.

The places where people regularly spend time are likely to be close to where they live and proximity is another key characteristic. People are committed to nearby places. Many of the programme managers and some citizens commented on this:

Chorlton Water Park is apparently one of the most heavily used sites in Greater Manchester now, and yet Kenworthy fields, which we worked on on the other side of the river (so it’s part of the same site effectively), it’s hardly used at all. And why? I think it’s partly because not as many people live immediately around it. (Programme Manager 5)

I think people are interested, most people are interested, in their own patch, and what happens in their own patch. (Programme Manager 4)

They want to see whatever is local to them being protected. (Programme Manager 10)

I know areas that really need work that are farther out, but then you loose your interest base because it’s not in people’s backyards. I think you really have to keep that in mind because people do seem to be most interested in what’s in really close proximity to them. (Citizen 18)

How near is nearby? It varies but it seems the closer the better:

One participant in the Once a Month Volunteer Day has been coming to volunteer in the park for three years. He said he used to come more regularly. When I asked what had changed, he said it was because he used to live very nearby. He doesn’t live much further away now but somehow it makes a difference. He just doesn’t think to come. (Field Notes 20.05.12)

Another volunteer described how it had been important to her when getting involved in looking after the canals to see work expand to the canal that was closer to her home (even if the other was not far away). She also mentioned the opportunities this offered to bring together people from different parts of the neighbourhood and to build social capital around their shared interest in the canals—and also to help expand the perceived area with they felt they should be concerned.

Another characteristic of ‘home’ is feeling that you can defend it. Defensible spaces such as alleyways or sidewalks in front of houses are tremendously Inviting Landscapes. Several of the sites investigated were good examples of defensible space, including the Secret Garden, the Rusholme alleyway and Broom Lane, where the inhabitants of the approximately fifteen houses that backed on to the area developed and maintained it.

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Fallowfield secret garden is a fenced area surrounded by houses, which is only accessible by footpaths. It has a fence around it and the gate is kept locked when no one from the citizens’ group is present. Interestingly, the project grew out of a smaller garden, which one of the founders created right next to his house. Seeing the success of that effort, the housing association invited him to do something in a vacant space where they were having problems with vandalism and other anti-social behaviours.

Sometimes a defensible space can be exclusive, as one volunteer said about the secret garden, “it’s a great space but intimidating if you can’t find it”. But it is after all a ‘secret garden’ and that is one of things that makes it interesting and attractive to people.

Being able to defend one area can encourage citizens to extend their efforts into nearby less defensible spaces, as when people in Broom Lane got involved in looking after the public footpath in the adjoining park.

In another case, in North Manchester, the defensible area was enlarged when work in an alleyway expanded into a vacant lot, which was then also gated and is now the site of a community garden and a special place for the people who created it:

They got permission to use that whole bit of land, and now it’s…it’s quite an interesting shape because it kind of slopes up a bit, so you walk down into it, and they’ve made it their own. I think there’s a guy who does woodcarving or something, and they’ve put out lots of gnomes and ornaments and things, but in amongst the plants and seating areas and everything as well, so everybody sort of makes it their own. (Programme Manager 11)

This is also an example of how people seek to personalise the landscapes they look after and how this should not be impeded, as it is likely to sustain engagement.

Alleyways are good examples of Inviting Landscapes because they are defensible spaces, which are close to home, shared with neighbours and tend to elicit feelings of responsibility.34 Different social contexts mean that different

34 Alleyways in Manchester are not generally owned by the City Council. “They are owned by the householder for the length of their house to the middle of the alleyway; so that section belongs to them, unless they’re adopted and looked after by the Council. A lot of them when they’ve been gated, they’ve been handed over to the residents to look after long term.” (Programme Manager 1)

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levels of protection are required to allow people to feel that they have sufficient control over the space to protect their investment in efforts and material. The practice of gating has been strongly supported in the UK context due to problems with vandalism. This is due to lessons learned early in the efforts to support alleyway greening. One programme manager recounted experiences from the mid-eighties:

What we did was work on…it wasn’t so much back alleys as back crofts, the little triangular drying areas that were left at the backs of properties, and we would go into the crofts, which had had parts of asbestos done to them and stuff, tidy them up, build planters, plant them up and two or three years later they were all trashed. They were all trashed and no one was looking after them, and all of that work, I’ve not seen a single surviving piece of improvement from the early eighties, I was there ’83 to ’85. None of those that I’ve ever been back to have survived, because they weren’t gated. Everybody thought gating was too difficult at that stage, but people are now really, giving people that ability to really take control and responsibility for something has been shown to work in those instances, I think. (Programme Manager 5)

Despite this emphasis on the importance of gating, the Rusholme alleyway near Platt Fields Park, which was one of the sites included in this study, was not gated, and yet was very successful. The residents thought they would eventually add gates but things have gone so well with respect to no occurrences of theft or vandalism that they are leaving it open for now. It may have been protected because of the strong social capital present among the residents in the streets and possibly because of the larger Inviting Landscape of which it is part and which had begun to define the character of the neighbourhood.

These above examples have illustrated the landscape characteristics that facilitate attachment. The next section will explore the characteristics that play an important role in moving people to a deeper stage engagement where they feel concern for the place and a sense of responsibility in protecting and enhancing it.

(Stage 2 – Connect) ii. concern Once someone forms an attachment to a place, they will logically care about what happens to it. However, such feelings are unlikely to rise to the fore unless they feel that the place needs them. Many respondents described how people only became deeply engaged with a place once it appeared to be under threat or when they saw a particular role for themselves in enhancing it. Furthermore,

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people were less likely to concern themselves with places where there was no indication of concern by the broader community.

6.2.9 Needing your help

As described in the last chapter, citizens began to engage with Platt Fields Park because they perceived it to be under threat. It was suffering from neglect and needed defending; initial efforts were sparked by a particular event, the threatened closure of Pets Corner. The Friends of Whitworth Park emerged for similar reasons. The park was also neglected and was perceived as a dangerous place. Citizen engagement was galvanised by a perceived threat of some portion of the park being converted to a car park. Believing that a place needs defending is a common reason for citizens to get personally involved in caring for it, as one of the programme manager explained:

In terms of the sites that have had active Friends of groups, they are as often set up from a negative point of view, as they are from a positive. The Friends of group is set up because of this or that might be a threat to the site, or a problem that the site is causing. A site that is simply liked probably wouldn’t precipitate a lot of engagement until people perceive the threat to it. (Programme Manager 5)

There is however a fine balance to be struck between places that are neglected to an extent that people who feel some connection to them are moved to come to their defence versus places that have so many problems that few people can recognise their potential value or believe that their care will be rewarded by positive change. For most people it has to look like other people care too. It was frequently mentioned how people were put off by rubbish, which was seen as a clear sign of contempt for the place. Inappropriate institutional infrastructure sends a similar signal, as this example conveys:

Rather than saying, “we’re going to do a nice entrance, we’re going to put bollards in so that vehicles can’t get in, and make it discreet”, in the 70s and 80s it was just stick a big tree trunk across it and put some concrete boulders in and then they got broken down so put a metal post in. It just looked awful! So it’s like if you're the managers and showing that level of contempt for that space, then what are you supposed to think? You take a picture, and it’s like a bit of log, a bit of metal, a bit of stone; you can’t really bothered can you, so why should we be? (Programme Manager 7)

Only when changes were made to that infrastructure, as in the case of the ‘inviting entrances’ pictured in Plate 29 did the community start to engage.

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Other places that call on people to care are those that are not directly and urgently in need of defending, but do seem to be failing to fulfil their potential. This may cause some people to think about how a place they frequent could be made better, as this respondent described:

A lot of the time I think it’s places that are underused, things that are just grass, and you kind of just think oh that could be a lot better, because actually some waste ground sites, like out here you see loads of little birds and kingfishers and herons, even though it doesn’t look great but it’s got buddleia growing out of it and you do see a lot of birds. But yeah, I think it’s where you’ll--or it’s just sort of really unimaginative business parks, and you think oh you could have done something really good. (Programme Manager10)

Once people feel concern for place and see themselves as having a role in protecting it or enhancing it, other landscape characteristics may move them to action.

Stage 3 – Moving to Action

6.2.10 Transformable

As mentioned in the literature review, there is an array of factors that make people feel that change is impossible and possibly undesirable. The power of obduracy, the tendency of existing landscapes to naturalise and normalise current states, people’s behavioural conservatism and the disempowerment of citizens all serve to preserve the status quo. However, as also mentioned, many SESs are in an undesirable regime and transformation is required. Therefore, a key feature of Inviting Landscapes is that they communicate that change is possible and desirable. They should support creation of ‘loose space’. As described in Section 2.4.2.2 this refers to a process whereby dominant meanings of sites are ‘loosened’ allowing the text of the cultural landscape to be re- scripted. The process of loosening can lead to spaces that are not so clearly defined as they may have previously been with respect to property regimes, opportunities for intervention and rules about space.

Demonstration sites are important to show people that it is okay to do something radical:

People aren’t so courageous to do something really interesting and challenging, and so they’re not prepared to strip off the topsoil as we’ve done with some of these sites, or to utilise waste, and so we use the centre here, and some of the sites we’ve done as demonstrations of what you can achieve. (Programme Manager 6)

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Citizens should be permitted, and ideally encouraged to intervene, in urban landscapes. Inviting people to get involved in specific activities can be a good entry point.

Well, certainly you have to have the opportunity to make change, if you have something that you weren’t allowed to do anything in, it reduces your ability to interact, and I think being able to come in and plant some trees or do some tree thinning, or sow some bulbs in parks like Platt Fields or Birchfields is a big boost to engagement. (Programme Manager 5)

Such activities give citizens a chance to begin to feel comfortable about working with nature in public spaces. They also learn skills and get to know other community members and often begin to form their own ideas about what could be done. One volunteer specifically emphasised the importance of making space for people to be more creative and develop their own projects:

There were always things like the annual bulb planting session that the wardens would run with the public. The bulbs would all come in and everyone would come and plant bulbs, children and community. I don’t know where they came from; I think they put up notices in schools and things. But it was always terribly tokenistic. (Citizen 14)

Being able to see a diversity of landscape elements that indicate the involvement of all sorts of people spread across a landscape is a particularly strong motivator to move others to action. Incredible Edible was mentioned as a model by more than one respondent:

Incredible Edible Todmorden, that to me is a good example I guess, of the sort of inviting landscapes, because they’re all over the place, and you can see there, you know, different people are doing different things, it’s experimental. I would suspect it’s quite encouraging for others. (Programme Manager 4)

Platt Fields, with its array of evidence of ‘non-formal’ interventions by citizens as described in Section 5.2, is another very good example of this. Ideally these interventions should attract attention by being interesting or innovative and thus serve as an inspiration. They should be well adapted to the place and not likely to be perceived as somehow threatening. They should provide examples of things that potentially engaged citizens might see themselves doing. Ideally they should also appear as ‘work in progress’, i.e. in someway incomplete, or providing a base on which something else can be developed (as was the case with the Eco Garden described in Section 5.2.3) so that there is still room for newcomers to be part of the process. Alternatively there should be space for new interventions.

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If a particular landscape to which a citizen is attached does not yet have any sign of citizen intervention, they can still be inspired by things happening elsewhere, particularly if that place has something in common with their place, and if it is nearby. With respect to street trees, a programme manager described how people from all sorts of streets and neighbourhoods wanted to plant and look after street trees but that they tended to be inspired by what was happening nearby:

What you do sense is clusters, so where you’ve managed to get one or two streets done, the streets around start expressing an interest. (Programme Manager 5)

Another programme manager described how Manchester had ample opportunities for people to be inspired by what had happened nearby:

The beauty of our city is that we could say: Well look, you’ve got this here now, but come and have a look where I used to work because that’s what it was like 20 or 30 years ago. (Programme Manager 7)

However even in the absence of local examples, inspiration from elsewhere was seen as helpful:

I want to give people hope and aspirations and give them examples and say, ‘Look you can do that because we’ve done it over here or we’ve done it in Liverpool, or in the States. Why can’t we do it here?’ (Programme Manager 7)

Groundwork puts together tours called ‘Seeing is Believing’ so that people can see transformation at other similar sites, including those that are perhaps out of sight, like alleyways for example. In Moss Side, citizens put together their own tour, as one of them described:

At that meeting people were talking about how wonderful it was, the whole idea of forest gardens and permaculture spaces and things, and one person who was there said, “I wouldn’t even know how to start doing my yard, making anything in my yard”. So I suddenly thought of it and I said, “You know in Didsbury and places they have these things called Open Gardens where everybody walks around and looks in each others’ posh gardens, why don’t we just do ‘Open Yardens’?” and everyone burst out laughing, and I said, “some people have got beautiful yards with lots of lovely mosaic and things like that”. And so we thought that was a really good idea to think about and we decided that before we made a decision we’d do a recce, and we all took certain streets to go and talk to, to knock on doors, to go and talk to people about whether or not they had a back yard that they would be prepared to show to other people and if not, why not, and through that we got loads of stuff from people who really want to do something and have no idea how to start. (Citizen 14)

Few people will take it upon themselves to start transforming a landscape on their own. Either they will join in with citizens already involved or they will begin some sort of conversation with someone else who may be interested in engaging. Once again the people in the landscape are playing a key role. In the context of a SES, transformability is determined not only by openness of the

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physical landscape to transformation but also the availability of people with whom to undertake a challenging task. Therefore the presence of other people, ideally doing interesting things, is a key characteristic of Inviting Landscapes.

Actually seeing volunteers at work and being able to interact with them is the best invitation and many volunteers view responding to other interested citizens as a key part of their role, as this volunteer explains:

“It’s so important for people to see volunteers working in the park. People stop to speak to me all the time, they ask all sorts of questions. I always say, “we’re volunteers”. (Field notes 22.09.12)

My own experience of working in the park made me aware that other people were often paying attention to what I was doing. Sometimes people, particularly children, offered to help:

Seeing a group of us not in any kind of uniform and a sandwich board announcing a volunteer day made it apparent to many people that we were volunteers. A father of a small boy who wanted to help mentioned he had noticed both of these things. Three small boys (at separate moments) showed particular interest and responded enthusiastically when I invited them to help. One helped with planting and the other two helped with watering and both children and parents seemed very grateful for the opportunity to contribute. (Field notes 20.05.12)

Second best to seeing volunteers is seeing that other citizens have intervened creatively, visible through the presence of non-standard infrastructure that was mentioned earlier. A volunteer commented on how this had affected her:

One volunteer said that she walked through the park regularly, which she had started doing because she needed exercise and ended up really enjoying the park. She had noticed that there were a diversity of things in the park and the gardens and had thought about how a lot of people must be working behind the scenes to make all those things--and later, she joined in herself. (Field notes 30.05.12)

Getting the message that your contribution is particularly needed is a very inviting element as this example shows:

When one volunteer mentioned how much the plants needed water just now with so little rain, two others who worked nearby were very keen to take responsibility for coming to water the plants every lunchtime. They mentioned repeatedly how happy they were to come over and do this watering. (Field notes 30.05.12)

This situation was similar to the over-enthusiasm for watering street trees that was described in Section 4.2.2.2. It is important that this cry for care, or invitation to stewardship, is made legible. Consequently, this raises some questions about how this message might be more effectively inscribed in the landscape. Perhaps a watering can or some tools could be provided, or a chart asking people to perform a task and then check it off.

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In addition to roles that people feel they are well placed to take on because they are nearby and available, tasks that are particularly challenging can also be attractive. Places that present problems to be solved, or things to be fixed or finished, in ways that call on the skills or imagination of potential contributors are likely to draw people in.

Finally, the transformation must be visible. As well as seeing what other people have done and what they themselves might do, engaged citizens want to be agents of visible transformation and see their own actions reflected in the landscape. One programme manager described an approach that ensured short- term visible results, while also laying the groundwork for the longer term:

We worked from annuals, a lot of our sites are annuals, because you get that in three months, you get an instant, so people see an instant result if they’re involved in the project. But you underset with biennials and perennials, so that starts to move through a progression. (Programme Manager 6).

Citizens too spoke of the need to see visible results of their efforts:

I used to say, “I’ll just get every weed out of this one section.” (Citizen 21)

People have begun to feel that they’ve got a stake in the park, their little area, their little bit is actually visibly improving as a result of their efforts. Things like when we first did the tyres in the playground, with the plants, that was a great thing. (Citizen 14)

As a regular volunteer myself, I also began to share this satisfaction and noticed how I was motivated to engage further:

It was fantastic to see how beautiful the various gardens looked and notice how the plants I had planted or looked after myself had grown. One really gets a sense of having contributed to something significant, to a transformation of the place. I also noticed as I cycled through the park to get to the garden that I was noticing things and thinking about how I should perhaps trim the branches around the path that I was cycling under, etc. It struck me as rather surprising of how I now automatically think about doing things in the park as my responsibility. (Field notes 18.07.12)

There was also satisfaction in being able to see how other people appreciated and benefitted from it:

We see how as volunteers we have influenced things and have made it diverse and colourful. [As we are speaking we see a man and a small boy looking at the herbs and smelling them] (Volunteers 16 & 17)

When we first started planting food, people would come and show interest and we would tell them it was food and that they could take it. We can say we’ve planted things and may have helped some families with food. (Volunteers 16 & 17)

Signs that the ecosystem was benefitting are also very satisfying:

“My goodness, we are getting on if we’ve got bumblebees!” (Field notes, 8 May 2012)

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Being able to see one’s own contribution is important, as is taking up a particular challenge and feeling responsibility and ownership for it. As a result, both citizens and those trying to invite engagement noted the advantage of having a project of one’s own, as one volunteer explained:

So where possible people are creating something from start to finish, which is very much more satisfying…and the trick has been to only concentrate on projects where the Park [administration] has allowed us to have control, where we can look after that area. (Citizen 14)

I would like to start plants from scratch…I would like my own bit. (Citizen 17)

At Fallowfield Secret Garden, participants were encouraged to develop ‘a project within a project’, an invitation that seemed to be well received. A lot of the transformative projects that citizens undertook or wanted to undertake were of the sort that would attract other citizens to engage (this can be seen as a deep version of user-driven design). The following example demonstrates how several key features of Inviting Landscapes are present in this citizen’s vision.

I would like more flowers. I am still learning but next year if I am feeling confident I will plant seeds, adding colour… I would like to see more sculpture in the park like Garden of Delights – all the people and artwork! (Citizen 17)

This indicates that Inviting Landscapes are likely to engage citizens in transforming them in ways that will make them more inviting to other citizens.

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6.2.11 Summary of characteristics of Inviting Landscapes

Table 7 Inviting Landscape Characteristics by Stage

Stage Inviting Landscape Specific Features Characteristics

1. Rethink Surprise Temporary and creative interventions

Legibly including people and Nature present nature Nature changing

Ecosystem services

Nature in everyday life

Citizen stewardship

2. Connect a. Attraction Safe Signs of care

Presence of other (non- threatening) people

Sightlines and escape routes

Intriguing Biophilically attractive (e.g. water, edges, other species)

Learning opportunities

Social Social spaces

Community events

Storied Ecological

Cultural/historical

Local community

Personal

Creating a new (positive) narrative

b. Attachment Welcoming Permeable

Welcoming entrance

Inclusive

Fluid tenure/space available

Hosted

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Home-like Human-scale

Looks like home

Nearby

Defensible

c. Concern Needs your help Threatened

Unfulfilled potential

Others care

3. Act Transformable Intervention is not prevented

Evidence of other citizens’ efforts

Inspirational examples

Work in progress Unfinished

Space for new ideas/basis for next step(s)

Joining in Seeing others acting

Feeling needed

Rewarding of effort Visible results

Specific role/project of one’s own

The Inviting Landscape characteristics are summarised in the above table by stage. This is a fairly extensive list and it is important to note that not all Inviting Landscape characteristics need to be present in a specific landscape in order to initiate a process of citizen engagement. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, not every landscape needs to have the visible and surprising characteristics that make people begin to rethink the role of people and nature in cities. A few such landscapes in strategic locations and/or with significant media coverage will ensure that an adequate number of members of a community are exposed to a landscape that inspires them to think about what they might do in another landscape. There are however some characteristics that are necessary in all landscapes. If, for example, a landscape is completely inaccessible, then it is unlikely to invite intervention.

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Furthermore, not all Inviting Landscape characteristics need to be present to the same degree in a particular landscape. What matters is that the characteristics add up to an invitation that is sufficient for at least some citizens. It has been mentioned that some people, such as guerrilla gardeners and insurgent urbanists require very little invitation. These ‘early interveners’ will transform the landscape in ways that make further intervention more inviting to citizens who would not feel comfortable putting the first shovel into the ground.

A number of the Inviting Landscape characteristics correspond to those that are currently considered in the designing of public spaces e.g. making people feel safe, designing attractive entrances, creating an identify. The phenomena that stimulate affective responses, such as the aesthetic of care (Nassauer, 1995), biophilia (Kellert & Wilson, 1995), the importance of social spaces and the human-scale (Gehl, 2010) and the transformative power of art (Kagan, 2012) have all been noted in the literature. People’s motivations to engage in pro- environmental behaviour have also been widely studied; these range from place attachment and response to threats, social norms and practices, sense of self- efficacy and evidence of results, to incentives and rewards (Clayton & Myers, 2009). The contribution of the Inviting Landscapes concept is to bring together knowledge about a variety of phenomena and translate these into a set of landscape characteristics that together constitute an invitation to appropriate and transform urban places in resilience-enhancing ways.

6.3 Analysing Inviting Landscapes

6.3.1 Inviting Landscape Types

Inviting Landscapes sit along a continuum as described in Section 5.4 and may have a variable mix of characteristics present to different degrees, which are able to invite responses from a range of different people. It is notable that while Inviting Landscapes share a similar set of characteristics and are perceptibly of the same type (or at least one with little variation), the uninviting ends of the spectrum can tend in quite different directions: the visibly neglected versus the heavily controlled; the wildscape (see Section3.4.3 ) versus obdurate infrastructure that obfuscates nature (see Section 2.4.2.1).

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Plate 31 Inviting Landscape Types

Plate 32 Uninviting Landscape Types

uncared for controlled wildscape nature?

Seen from this perspective, the Inviting Landscape is not so much at one end of a continuum ranging from uninviting to inviting. It is rather at a mid-point where there is a balance of sorts between the roles of people and nature in determining the composition of the landscape. It is a landscape that indicates collaboration between people and nature.

Figure 6 The Inviting Landscape at a mid-point of domination by people or nature

Controlled

Wildscape Inviting Void of life

Neglected

In this diagram, the red circles represent different types of Uninviting Landscapes. These types stand at the opposite ends of two axes, an x-axis that focuses on the degree of presence of nature in the landscape and a y-axis that focuses on the degree of human control of the landscape (while noting that both degree of human control and presence of nature are characteristics of all the landscape types). The Inviting Landscape type represented by the green circle is at the mid-point of both axes. In this ideal Inviting Landscape, people and nature are exerting equal force on the composition of the landscape and they are not-simply co-existing but rather collaborating. This means that people are stewarding nature, which in turn supplies them with ecosystem services. 209

The Inviting Landscape type and Uninviting Landscape types send different messages to the citizens who experience them. They also affect different citizens in different ways, eliciting various responses. The nature of these interactions can be explored using the critical realist framework that was introduced in Section 3.4.1.

! Empirical!(experienced)! 6.3.2 Citizen interaction with Inviting and Uninviting !

Actual!(‘events’)! landscapes - A positive feedback loop ! !

Real (un!derlying ‘mechanisms’) * Experienced* Material* Social'Ecological* Landscape* Landscape* System*(SES)*

! The experienced landscape and the material landscape are

represented by the outer (blue and green) layers of the critical Message!(cultural)!

Response!(agency)! realist model of a SES (depicted as metaphoric earth) presented in Figure 4 and copied here, which can also be viewed as the top layers of a profile of this metaphoric earth as depicted in Figure 5. These experienced and material landscape layers are used to interpret how cultural landscape characteristics affect citizens and how the citizens in turn will affect the material landscape. As previously explained, the experienced landscape is divided into ‘cultural’ (i.e. message inscribed in the landscape) and ‘agency’ (i.e. the response of individuals to the landscape). The content of the top layers (experienced and material landscapes) of the abovementioned profile is filled in for Inviting Landscape and Uninviting Landscape types in Figure 7 below.

The cultural landscape types are illustrated by photographs and labelled in accordance with the types identified in Plate 31 and Plate 32. It is appropriate to use photographs to portray the cultural landscapes because it is presumed that not everyone will experience them in the same way. The use of images allows the viewer to receive the message directly. The responses (both feelings and compulsion to act) to the messages from the cultural landscape are described in terms of common effects on engaged citizens (those who are already interacting with landscapes) and unengaged citizens as identified through interviews and observation and described in Chapters 4-6. The result of these responses, i.e. interaction or lack of interaction with the landscape (similarly identified through empirical research) and their likely effect on ecosystem functions and services are summarised in the material landscape layer.

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Figure 7 Critical realist model of people-nature interactions in an urban SES: Inviting and Uninviting Landscape case types

Critical Realist Layers Inviting Landscape Type Uninviting Landscape Types Experienced Agency Unengaged Potentially affected by inviting landscapes Reinforcement of disengagement either because someone else is Landscape (response) citizens at the level of being surprised, rethinking taking care of things and intervention is unwelcome (controlled) urban nature and the role of citizens or the landscape has no value (neglected) or it is intimidating (wildscape) or it is impossible to see the presence of nature/imagine a role for citizens (obdurate infrastructure obfuscating nature) Engaged Increased knowledge of ecosystem Small number of actors struggle to transform the system (and to Citizens functioning, sense of ownership and stay motivated) (interacting responsibility and empowerment to act. with This combination increases likelihood they landscape) will act to enhance resilience. Cultural Cultural invisible (message) Landscape uncared for controlled nature/obdurate infrastructure

Material Citizens are engaged in stewardship; Ecosystem functions are disrupted to different degrees. For Landscape ecosystem functions are in the process of example, ‘wildscapes’ (Jorgensen, 2012) may be in a process of restoration; conditions are in place to natural regeneration; citizens are not playing stewardship roles. support increasing biodiversity…

Note that the upward arrows on the left and the downward arrow on the right show relationships among the layers and apply equally to the Inviting and Uninviting Landscape types.

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Using a critical realist framework to integrate different perspectives on landscape (as described in Section 3.4.1) allows phenomena observed within the ‘material’ and ‘experienced’ (with the latter broken down into ‘culture’ and ‘agency’) layers to be understood through different disciplinary lenses and considered side by side. Relationships between layers can then be identified and described.

The relationship among the layers in this case is one of a positive feedback mechanism. The cultural landscapes (both Inviting and Uninviting) influence the engaged and unengaged citizens in different ways, which encourages them to respond by interacting with the material landscape in accordance with their cultural perspectives (generated through a combination of the elements in the landscape and their personal situation as described in Section 2.4.2). Their responses effect change in the material landscape, which will in turn affect the cultural landscape, which will consequently affect the responses of citizens who interact with the modified landscape. Through this process, Inviting Landscapes are likely to become more inviting and Uninviting Landscapes are likely to become less inviting.

6.3.3 The resilience of Inviting Landscapes

Figure 7 above portrayed interactions between citizens and landscapes (both cultural and material). Given that landscape is used in this thesis as a window into a SES, it is appropriate to turn now to the workings of the deeper underlying mechanism of the SES. With respect to the conceptual model, this means examining the bottom layer of the profile (see Figure 5) or the core of the metaphorical earth (see Figure 4). As in the previous section, this requires both identifying and describing phenomena within this layer and analysing relationships with the other layers. In the previous section, phenomena were explored within the categories of Inviting and Uninviting Landscape ‘types’ referring to types of cultural landscapes that are influencing the behaviour of citizens. As the focus now is on the underlying SES, the two categories are perhaps best described as Inviting and Uninviting Landscape ‘regimes’. The term ‘regime’ aligns with the vocabulary used in describing the state of a SES and it

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presumes that either regime (linked to Inviting and Uninviting Landscape types) can tip into another regime as was discussed in Section 2.3.

As the practical goal of this research project is to understand the potential contribution of citizen engagement with urban landscapes to enhancing social- ecological resilience, the information about the SES that is of most relevance is its degree of resilience. As described in Section 3.4.4, when data was collected about sites, indications of features of resilience were also noted. This included both the resilience features listed by Walker and Salt (2006) (see Table 1) and specifically with respect to ecosystem services, the criteria for classification of ecosystem services identified by Barthel (2006) (see Table 2). An example of the type of features that were identifiable during an episode of participant observation is provided using the below excerpt from field notes and accompanying analysis:

Two neighbours are speaking to one another in their greened alleyway where dozens of new plant species have supplemented the weeds poking through the stones that previously represented the extent of the vegetation. They are surveying the fruits of their labour and remark enthusiastically on the presence of bees in the alleyway with one commenting that “We must be doing well if we’ve got bees!” (Rusholme green alleyway, 8 May 2012)

Plate 33 Rusholme Alleyway

The researcher is able to see the diversity of plants, an example of primary production, which is a ‘supporting’ ecosystem service. A number of the plants are edible (and are eaten, and sometimes shared by a diverse group of neighbours during communal meals in the alleyway), thus providing ‘provisioning’ and probably also ‘cultural’ ecosystem services. The bees are busy carrying out their work of pollination, i.e. providing a ‘regulating’ ecosystem service. The attractive alleyway where the neighbours gather provides a cultural ecosystem service. The compost bins are turning waste to resource and the rainwater collectors are

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diverting runoff to irrigation, while the increased vegetation and soil coverage reduces risk of flooding.

The neighbours chatting together about their collective work is an indication of social capital. The neighbours’ knowledge of the important role of the bees and pride in their work having helped the bees to fulfil their role shows that they are recognising, valuing and enhancing ecosystem services. By asking a few questions, the researcher finds out that one neighbour has learned from the other about these things. A visit to neighbouring alleyways that are indicative of the former state of this one attests to the capacity of the group of volunteer residents to transform their alleyway-scale SES and to continue to manage it.

By comparing these observed effects with the list of ‘Key Features of a Resilient System’ (see Table 1) that are relevant at the scale of this alleyway and can be rapidly assessed using qualitative research methods, the researcher can state with confidence that the six resilience features assessed35 are present within this SES to some degree (see Box 1 below).

Box 1 Key Features of a Resilient System identifiable through rapid assessment

The ‘Key Features of a Resilient System’ (Walker & Salt, 2006) that can be identified through rapid assessment at the scale of a citizen-managed landscape:

 Promotes and sustains biological, landscape, social, and economic diversity  Embraces ecological variability (rather than trying to control natural cycles such as floods, droughts, insect outbreaks, fires, etc.)  Recognises, values, protects and enhances ecosystem services  Builds social capital  Fosters innovation and learning  Adaptability (capacity to manage SES) and transformability (when SES not tenable)

Using the Characteristics of Inviting Landscapes (see Table 7) as a guide, the researcher can also note a number of characteristics of Inviting Landscapes (e.g. an aesthetic of care, defensible space, welcoming hosts, diverse creative touches, an unfinished look). The alleyway is ungated, the volunteers report that it has

35 The four remaining characteristics (modularity, slow variable, tight feedback and overlap in governance) require another level of analysis and may or may not be present at this scale. They are discussed later in this section.

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not been subject to vandalism, that it has attracted interest from other residents, and that people from other neighbourhoods have been to have a look and talked about doing something similar. Across the fifteen cases studied, the six features of a resilient system listed in Box 1 were present to some degree in association with the characteristics of Inviting Landscapes listed in Table 7. Less inviting landscapes, while sometimes high in biological diversity (when of the wildscape type), were lacking in other key features of resilient systems (such as social capital and valuing ecosystem services). As in the relationship between experienced and material landscapes portrayed in Figure 7 a positive feedback loop was identified in the relationship between landscape (experienced and material) and resilience. The outcomes of this positive feedback loop vary depending on whether the system is in an Inviting or Uninviting Landscape regime.

The conceptual model introduced in Figure 4 is now used to illustrate how cultural landscape characteristics affect engaged and unengaged citizens and how their responses affect the material landscape, which in turn affect the features of resilience present in the SES. The SES layers of the ‘profile’ (see Figure 5) are filled in for Inviting and Uninviting Landscape regimes in Figure 8. The relationship among the layers is again one of a positive feedback mechanism, which is driving the SES to greater or lesser resilience. The cultural landscape influences the engaged and unengaged citizens in different ways and causes them to respond by interacting with the material landscape accordingly. Their responses effect change in both the material landscape and the resilience of the SES. Changes in the material landscape can also affect the cultural landscape, which will in turn alter the responses of citizens. Resilience features or lack of resilience features will be reinforced accordingly.

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Figure 8 Resilience of Inviting and Uninviting Landscape Regimes

Inviting Landscape Regime Uninviting Landscape Regime Unengaged Potentially affected by inviting landscapes at level of being Reinforcement of disengagement citizens surprised, rethinking urban nature and the role of citizens Engaged Increased knowledge of ecosystem functioning, sense of Small number of actors struggle to transform the system (and to Citizens ownership and responsibility, empowered to act – and stay motivated) therefore act to enhance resilience Cultural Invisible Landscape uncared for controlled nature/obdurate infrastructure

Material Citizens are engaged in stewardship; ecosystem functions Ecosystem functions are disrupted to different degrees e.g. Landscape are in the process of restoration; conditions are in place to ‘wildscapes’ (Jorgensen, 2012) may be in a process of natural support increasing biodiversity… regeneration; citizens are not playing stewardship roles SES Resilience – cultural and biological diversity, improved Lacks resilience – may have biological diversity only or ecosystem functioning, ecosystem services are valued, sense cultural diversity only; lacks diversity of interventions; of responsibility, skills, learning, experimentation, ecosystem services are not valued (e.g. may have high innovation, social capital, adaptability, transformability biodiversity but citizens are unlikely to appreciate it); lack of social capital

Note that the upward arrows on the left and the downward arrows on the right show relationships among the layers and apply equally to the Inviting and Uninviting Landscape regimes.

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The positive feedback loop shown among the Inviting Landscape layers creates potential for the SES to tend36 toward greater resilience or, in the case of an undesirable regime, for the SES to tip into a more desirable regime. The latter is an example of the additional ‘transformability’ attribute of resilience (see Section 2.3), which is the capacity to create a fundamentally new system when ecological, economic, or social structures make the existing system untenable.

In the Uninviting Landscape regime, a positive feedback loop is reinforcing reduced resilience. In a SES where an Uninviting Landscape is the layer that people experience, resilience is reduced and a positive feedback loop makes it difficult to turn things around. The landscape sends the message that it is not worth caring about and unengaged citizens consequently ignore it or do it further damage, which can cause the small number of engaged citizens to lose hope and cease their efforts. Biodiversity may be high if the area is left to itself but the local population will not experience it positively and will not defend it if it is threatened by environmentally unfriendly forms of development.

The above model and the data that support it indicate that cultural landscapes are driving people’s responses to them, and that citizens’ agency in the landscape is producing new cultural landscapes, which in turn elicit different responses. These sub-components, culture and agency, of the ‘social’ component of the SES, along with the material landscape (or ecological component of the SES) participate in a positive feedback mechanism that is influencing the resilience of urban SESs. This indicates that citizens are contributing to social- ecological resilience and that cultural landscapes are an important driver of their actions.

The discussion so far has focused on the site level, importantly because this is the level that citizens perceive and interact with, but it has already been stated that citizen activity at particular sites is affecting the city over all and is affected by events at other scales.

36 As SESs are emergent systems (as was explained in 2.3), it is not possible to state with certainty that resilience will be enhanced or reduced as a result of certain factors but only that there is likely to be a tendency toward increased or reduced resilience.

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6.4 Attending to the broader SES

It was noted in the course of the empirical research that citizen interactions with local landscapes are influenced by mechanisms at other levels in time and space. They are part of a broader system, a panarchy of SESs at different scales and within different planes (spatial and temporal, horizontal and vertical). A local site may be affected by another nearby site with which citizens are interacting, or by a supporting organisation, a historic incident or a current policy as was described in Section 5.4. For this reason, it is important to pay attention to what is happening at different scales and the connections among them, and to encourage collaboration among actors operating within them. Attempts to manage a system for resilience must always operate at different scales (Cumming et al., 2012).

6.4.1 Resilience at other scales

In Section 6.3.3, it was explained that six of the ten ‘Key Features of a Resilient System’ (see Table 1) were relevant to the site (or local landscape) level. The other four characteristics, which are relevant to a broader system, such as a neighbourhood or city, include:

 Modularity, where components are strongly linked internally but loosely connected to each other (thus avoiding collapse of things like global financial systems). A panarchy of citizen-led initiatives would represent a very modular system.

 Tight Feedbacks allowing consequences of change in one part of the system to be quickly felt and strongly responded to by other parts of the system. This could potentially be a strength of local initiatives because of their small size and collegial approach. However, volunteers do not have the capacity to monitor and systematically communicate new information, so this may be an area where actors at other levels could play a supporting role (such as that for biodiversity monitoring offered by the Greater Manchester Local Records Centre).

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 Overlap in Governance, which implies that there is a tremendous opportunity for local government and other institutions to work collaboratively with citizens. This allows each to fill gaps left by the other and experiment with different and complementary approaches.

 Policies focused on ‘slow variables’ like climate change, which are associated with thresholds. These are issues that require a panarchy scale perspective and are thus not issues to which citizens engaged at local sites can easily determine appropriate responses. However, with guidance and supportive policy frameworks, citizens can play a key role in responding to such challenges.

Some of the features in the list of the six that are relevant at the site level also require further reflection with respect to their application at this higher level. For example, regarding the question of diversity, the diversity of citizen- stewarded landscapes represents a potentially very important contribution to resilience, responding to Andersson’s (2006) call for ‘Resilient Cityscapes’ as explained in Section 2.3. Similarly, the feature ‘Innovation and Learning’ will occur through processes of social learning at individual sites but as described in Section 5.2.9, sites will also learn from one another, and there is an opportunity to ‘inject’ certain information and skills into the network to fill the knowledge gap that was identified earlier.

With respect to the ‘transformation’ feature, it is notable that transformations of local landscapes can cascade up the scales to affect the larger system. Consequently, an Inviting Landscape in an alleyway may encourage replication at a city-wide level, which may in turn result in recognition of the value of alleyway greening at a policy level and the creation of new programmes and funding mechanisms to support such efforts. Alternatively, the inviting alleyway landscape prototype may have emerged in another city and been disseminated through organisational or policy networks. In time the support for alleyway greening may get stuck in a ‘rigidity trap’ (see Section 2.3) so that an engaged citizen looks at a funding opportunity from Manchester City Council and

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comments that ‘we’ve done the alleyways; we want support for something more interesting’ (field notes 09.05.13).

SESs at the level of site, neighbourhood, city and broader context interact in emergent ways, enhancing or reducing resilience at other scales. In landscape terms, actors make and view both very local and city-scale landscapes, and influence, and are influenced by, these landscapes and other ‘texts’ that reach them through the media and other sources of information. Flows of learning and knowledge (including transfer of cultural frameworks) connect these scales. In other words, the transformations that cascade up and down the panarchy scales are due to flows of learning and knowledge, and to changes in the landscape at different scales, resulting from both natural processes and changes in infrastructure—or in effect, interactions among all of these.

6.5 Conclusion

This chapter has brought together the empirical findings to meet the core objectives of the thesis: Firstly, to characterise Inviting Landscapes (which were defined as landscapes that invite citizens to transform them in resilience- enhancing ways). Secondly, to use this new perspective on citizen-landscape interactions to propose a conceptual model of people-nature interactions in urban SESs and their contributions to reducing or enhancing resilience.

Ten characteristics of Inviting Landscapes were established and categorised according to three stages of citizen engagement with landscape. These characteristics were then used to construct Inviting and Uninviting Landscape types. The landscape types were examined using the initial critical realist model of a SES that was proposed during development of the research methodology and this model was further developed based on the empirical research findings. The completed model depicted a positive feedback mechanism where Inviting Landscapes encourage citizens to make them more inviting, which in turn enhances the resilience of the SES. Following on discussion in Chapter 5 with respect to panarchy effects, the resilience of site-level SESs was linked to influences on, and by, SESs at higher scales.

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This chapter has demonstrated that cultural landscapes are affecting citizen- nature interaction in urban landscapes, which is in turn affecting social- ecological resilience. How to make urban landscapes more inviting therefore merits attention. The next chapter will respond to the final research objective by proposing approaches to make landscapes more inviting.

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7 Making urban landscapes more inviting

7.1 Introduction

The last chapter showed that citizens were more likely to interact with Inviting Landscapes in resilience-enhancing ways than they would with Uninviting Landscapes. It identified ten characteristics of Inviting Landscapes, which provides a checklist of sorts for making landscapes more inviting. However as this chapter explains, the process is somewhat more complex because Inviting Landscape characteristics are emergent. Therefore it is not simply a matter of inserting landscape elements. Space must also be created for an Inviting Landscape to emerge, which involves particular approaches and forms of governance. Additionally, Uninviting Landscapes require particular interventions in order to become more inviting.

As became clear in the previous two chapters, Inviting Landscapes and the SESs they reflect do not exist in isolation. They are part of a broader landscape and are affected by SESs at other scales. Efforts to facilitate the emergence of Inviting Landscapes must therefore attend to the city scale and to the broader institutional and policy contexts. This chapter addresses all three scales, drawing once more on the empirical data in order to suggest an integrated approach to making urban landscapes more inviting.

7.2 The site scale

In its simplest form, making Inviting Landscapes involves protecting or enhancing or creating, within a specific site, the landscape elements that were described in the previous chapter. The goal would be to create the specific features listed in Table 7. However, creating Inviting Landscapes goes beyond inserting design elements. Many Inviting Landscape features are emergent and the key is to try to create social and ecological conditions favourable to their emergence. This is quite different from conventional approaches to landscape

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management. The Inviting Landscape is also different from a ‘sustainable’ landscape because it is not conceived of as a state to be sustained. Grounded in resilience thinking, the Inviting Landscape is understood to be dynamic, and specifically to invite citizens to be part of a dynamic system. It is therefore deliberately unfinished, deliberately messy. This requires a significant shift in thinking for everyone involved, including design professionals, green space managers and citizens themselves. It means a move away from producing urban nature that is meant to be passively enjoyed and requires thinking about how to put the people into the landscape

An example was mentioned in Section 4.2.4.3 where the designers of an exhibition garden were intrigued to find themselves alone in creating a garden that invited people into it. The programme manager who told this story also spoke of adopting an approach of creating a space that people could appropriate, rather than making a single purpose setting and a set of activities to go with it:

The analogy that was knocking about the other day was of the swimming pool. You can go to your local municipal swimming baths and there’s a group of old men in one corner just chatting, there are a couple of people ploughing back and forth in two lanes because they’re training for a triathlon, there is a group of women doing aquacise, there’s a group of other people just splashing about with the kids. The people who are running the swimming pool are just running the swimming pool, they’re not doing all those things, those are effects. [The staff] are providing a pool that’s clean, warm enough, and works. And we’re beginning to see ourselves in that light. We’re going to provide these services, and we can talk to you about how it affects your particular interest, but what we do essentially is that we connect local people and their environment. (Programme Manager 8)

An engaged citizen spoke of something similar, which he described as an ‘anchor’ approach where Platt Fields Park offered a variety of ‘anchors’, i.e. different uses and values that would connect a range of local people and organisations to the park and engage them in caring for it. Creating spaces that are open and flexible and that extend an invitation requires forms of governance that are distinct from those frequently applied in urban spaces.

7.2.1 Governing Inviting Landscapes

When Manchester’s first public parks were opened in 1846, they were simply handed over to ‘the people’ without much thought given to how to manage what people might do in them. A number of perceived problems rapidly emerged (like picking flowers and having picnics) and the response was to create by-laws prohibiting potentially problematic behaviour. Signs were then posted to

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communicate the rules and park keepers were mandated to enforce them, and even given authority to lock up miscreants overnight (Ruff, 2000). It appears that whenever anything has started to happen that authorities consider inappropriate in parks or other public spaces, a new regulation has been created.

Rules and regulations concerning public space tend to accumulate over time making prohibition a key characteristic of urban landscapes.37 This sometimes unnecessarily restricts people’s enjoyment, and also their engagement with public spaces, while not being very effective at deterring seriously damaging behaviours (which are often deliberate attempts to break rules). People engaging in trying to make places better have often faced as many prohibitions as people deliberately doing damage. It is therefore important to review regulations pertaining to public space and try to eliminate those that do more harm than good—and then to think about how to actually create governance structures that support the good rather than just preventing the bad. To this end, the overall system and the less obvious effects of regulations should be considered. Rules should also be adapted to the characteristics and evolution of local sites.

Relationships with ‘Friends of’ groups are a good example of such evolution and adaptation. Many Friends of certain sites have fought with local authorities for the right to contribute to enhancing public spaces and have only achieved this after years of struggle, as one Programme Manager explained:

We’ve now got enough Friends of groups that people quite quickly see the benefits of them. When there were only a few Friends of groups it was…I remember a stage in Manchester when we didn’t want any Friends of groups, we perceived them as being anti-Council…There’s antagonism to the Council, there’s concern, there’s suspicion, but there’s still, you know, we’re going to get this done. So I think things are more positive…It’s what makes places matter to people. (Programme Manager 5)

Effective citizens groups and responsive local authorities have succeeded over time in developing relationships of trust and entering into a sort of co- management arrangement. The below example is indicative of the space this creates for positive citizen action:

The volunteers were in the yard, where supplies for the park are kept, getting materials together for the afternoon’s work. It is often quite a mess in the yard with equipment, building materials and potted plants waiting for transplanting, mixed in with various sorts of waste. I noticed that the potted plants had been gathered together and that there were some bricks arranged around them. It looked very nice and

37 This was highlighted by landscape architects who installed a sign, which was unusual in listing all of things that people could do in a public space (Potteiger & Purinton, 1998).

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the show of care made it more likely that someone would think to water these plants so they didn’t die while awaiting transplanting. “That’s a nice little garden,” I said. “I just built it,” said a volunteer, “I think it makes the plants look better.” “Do you have planning permission for this?” said one of the park staff gruffly, and then laughed. “Just winding you up, you can do anything you like here!” (Field notes 25.07.12)

Plate 34 Instant Garden

There is considerable willingness on the part of some public space managers to collaborate with citizens. Their efforts to facilitate citizen engagement and capacity development represent a significant adaptation. It should also however be noted that not all maintenance can be handed over to citizens. True co-management involves contributions from both sides as a volunteer explained:

If parks staff were able to do the work, I would still want to volunteer but it would be co-managed. It would be easy to separate the tasks and volunteers would take care of some things and staff of others. (Citizen 16)

Interventions in the Eco Garden were a good example of the sort of things that citizens enjoyed and to which they could bring a certain level of creativity and experimentation as this example illustrates:

Another volunteer and I worked for the second week on restoring the green sofa in the Eco Garden. My colleague had the idea to experiment with putting black covering (which plants could grow through) on one part of the sofa and not the other so that we could see which worked better. He mentioned that he had found some information online about transplanting, which he shared with me, and also that he would pop over to Hulme Community Garden Centre later to ask them about appropriate grass covering. We decided to put some plants along the bag of the sofa and I chose forget-me-nots because we (note I said ‘we’, demonstrating how I have quickly developed a sense of ownership) had some in the yard and they looked nice. Another volunteer observed (in no way critically) that people didn’t usually transplant them because they were considered a weed. We discussed whether they were an indigenous species. Later we joked with a visitor about planting them on the back of the sofa so that people sitting on it wouldn’t forget each other. (Field notes 30.05.12)

Such experiences were not uncommon because as another volunteer stated:

The great thing about the park is how people are able to come and do things and think out of the box. (Citizen 17)

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It was mentioned in Section 5.2.8 that the Friends of Platt Fields experimented with different approaches in an attempt to solve the problem of contamination of the lake. With a little bit of support, such an effort could be turned into a more structured collaborative experiment that could succeed in both developing effective strategies and providing opportunities for citizens to learn more about the urban SESs of which they are a part.

An important condition for experimentation and innovation is supporting a certain level of risk taking. It was striking how fearful many volunteers were of making mistakes. A persistent sense of not having the right to act on the landscape as well as lack of confidence in one’s own knowledge and skills seemed to be at the root of volunteers’ fears. Reassurances from other members of the group seemed to help, as did being in a landscape that looked a bit more diverse and chaotic. There might be value in making an experimental culture more explicit by signposting experiments in progress and documenting useful lessons learned from those that have ‘failed’. Seeing all activities as a form of social learning makes both mistakes and the diversity of perspectives and approaches more acceptable. As one volunteer remarked to another:

“The more you come here, the more enthusiastic you get and you want to do more. And as you learn and get ideas, you get more enthusiastic and it will rub off on different people--and you have a different way of looking at things than I do.” (Field notes 30.05.12)

Opportunities to test out ideas on a small project of one’s own were a good approach to learning and experimentation--and engaging people. The Fallowfield Secret Garden was particularly notable for stressing opportunities for learning and skills development, and inviting participants to initiate a ‘project within a project’. This also encouraged citizens to take ownership, which as one programme manager pointed out was much needed: because people don’t feel ownership; they feel that it’s a bit of an army state, it’s somebody else’s problem, don’t they? So it’s about trying to empower people. (Programme Manager 9)

In summary, Inviting Landscapes require some form of co-management and adaptive governance. The latter “implies different forms of collaboration that involve processes of coordination, social learning, knowledge integration, trust building, and conflict resolution, which to various extents depend on creating and sustaining social relations in networks of information sharing”. (Ernstson,

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Barthel, et al., 2010) This calls on everyone involved to relinquish control, to embrace change and uncertainty; in effect, to be more resilient.

In some cases however it is not sufficient to simply open up the space for citizens to appropriate. In Uninviting Landscapes, deliberate efforts must be made to invite initial citizen engagement and this tends to be a role for local government or community organisations. The next section concerns how they might approach this task.

7.2.2 Laying the groundwork to transform Uninviting Landscapes

As was described in Section 5.3.5, Uninviting Landscapes need particular approaches to initiate an invitation. Examples drawn from the empirical data are briefly summarised below:

 Identify a positive narrative—or invent one (e.g. stop being a dumping ground and become ‘Nutsford Vale’)

 Clean it up and keep cleaning it up until people’s perception of the place changes

 Work in defensible spaces (e.g. gated alleyways, inaccessible spaces on a canal)

 Keep it small and simple (one programme manager spoke of the tremendous effect of promoting hanging baskets in Preston)

 Show rapid visible results (aimed at changing the narrative, at rebuilding confidence in people and place)

Plate 35 Defensible planting area on Ashton Canal

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The importance of ensuring that landscapes send a message that someone cares and that the site is worth looking after came out strongly across the cases. For landscapes with a very entrenched negative narrative for the people who inhabit them, it is often necessary for outside agencies to clean up repeatedly until the actual landscape starts to evolve toward something more inviting and local communities can begin to believe in the possibility of change. This programme manager explained what this meant for her organisation’s approach:

That means us going in quite humbly, and dealing with the dog poo and the graffiti and the litter and everything else until they’re ready to think more positively, rather than dealing with the negatives, and then, everyone’s got aspirations, haven’t they? They’re all there. Once they feel that they can do them. (Programme Manager 9)

Another programme manager described how it was necessary to remove the litter so that people could see the nature behind it:

It’s happened over in Brigham; their main issue was litter, and there was a bit of pollution, and they weren’t particularly interested in the wildlife. That was their main concern and that’s what they wanted addressing. We helped them to address it; it took a matter of three months to actually resolve those issues. They could see how the site was improving almost immediately, and then they started to want to do something else to improve the site, and once they started coming out with us and doing a clean up and us showing them the wildlife around the site, then they started to look around and see what wildlife they could actually see. That’s when they started to get hooked into what was so special about the site. (Programme Manager 10)

It is not always just about cleaning up. Sometimes ensuring the site doesn’t get messed up again is also required, as this programme manager emphasised:

We’ve got to be strong on enforcement as well, make sure that if we catch anybody fly tipping, they’re prosecuted. Not on our lot, this is wrong. It’s carrot and stick; we’ve just invested a significant of money in this site, it’s not for you to come up in your van and chuck all this on it. What does that say to local communities? (Programme Manager 7)

It is also important to briefly mention here that in more than one area where citizens were being blamed for littering, bins were scarce and often not emptied.

As well as removing the ugly, attempts should be made to add the beautiful. Wildflowers were mentioned as an effective way to do this:

We also have evidence in some of the other areas where if you create these really attractive sorts of sights (involving wildflowers), civil responsibility starts to come back, where people start to take action against anti-social behaviour. In fact we have independent evidence from a website, where somebody said there’s a decline in anti-social behaviour as a result of the wildflower sowing. Now I don’t think that that happens across the board, but it is an interesting observation, that’s something independently stated. (Programme Manager 6)

It should also be noted that no matter how uninviting a landscape may appear at the outset, every place has potential and most people will respond when given a chance. Many programme managers described situations where

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certain places had been inappropriately dismissed as hopeless, as the below testimony makes evident:

There were places where originally we were told “you know the best thing to do with this wood is to build a brick wall around it”—because there was the ASB, there was a place where there was I think 30 burnt out cars in it. And people were prepared just to abandon it-and abandon the people in many ways, and say that’s a lost cause. You go there now, there’s a thriving community group, there’s the junior rangers. The site--it’s not perfect, the site has aspirations to be perfect but they’re not always achieved, they’re often achieved. So 10-12 years after that initial assessment of “let’s build a brick wall” you do have community engagement, people feeling attachment to that area, lots of things going on, young people involved in the site in a positive way. (Programme Manager 2)

Other respondents emphasised that everyone cares about ‘their patch’:

Everyone wants a better place to live; that is what people want, and it’s small steps all the time, but it’s feeling that they can actively contribute. (Programme Manager 9) and they remain hopeful about improving it:

I thought…it was going to be like: Well, we’ve lived with this post-industrial legacy and it’s always rubbish in North Manchester…and it was anything but. There was a really collective… you know, there was just hope there. (Programme Manager 7)

One respondent described how councillors had decided that people in certain neighbourhoods would not be interested in street trees (and therefore did not allocate funding to the area), while the residents themselves expressed enthusiasm at the possibility. When there does appear to be a lack of interest from local communities, it is important to think about the reasons, as this programme manager explained:

There have been a lot of communities that have been consulted to death, so that they’ve really lost any kind of interest in being able to do anything in the community; a lot of apathy…[and] there is a lack of trust, out there. Anyone that wants to do anything on our green space…an immediate lack of trust, like you’re going to do something negative to that site…They’ll immediately think you’re going to build something on it. (Programme Manager 10)

Inviting Landscapes can be a way to instil confidence that positive things can happen at a site. Citizens engaging hands on in transforming landscapes has immediate visible effect and demonstrates that change is possible and can be driven by citizens. It is not ‘just talk’, nor is it a process being directed from above.

Given the initial hesitation on the part of many people to engage, any indication of interest should be met with an immediate opportunity to get involved. As the social aspect is very important (as described in Section 6.2.5), connections with other people should be made as directly as possible. It was disappointing to once hear staff of a supporting organisation directing passersby

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interested in getting involved to the website of a national partner organisation, as opposed to introducing them to the local people who were present and referring them to the most local organisation possible—or inviting them to join in right away. One programme manager spoke of the success of such an approach:

I mean, some of the best ones were where it’s not an organised thing, it’s a spontaneous thing, where people have just come along. We just set up and literally pulled people off the streets…Yes, so we’ve done all the different ones but some of the best ones are the ones where it’s not organised…and where people can actually get really nicely engaged with the project. (Programme Manager 6)

Being invited to join in directly with other people in the community sends a message that says: You are part of this, you are needed and you can do something here and now that will have an impact.

7.2.3 Effective Approaches to making Inviting Landscapes

As evidenced by the above discussion, the approach to facilitating the transformation of landscapes is just as important as specific elements within the landscape. The spirit in which the work is undertaken is what makes for a sincere invitation and creates a context where a resilience-enhancing regime (driven by a positive feedback loop) is likely to emerge. Effective initiatives incorporate a range of approaches, which are summarised below.

Box 2 Effective approaches to making Inviting Landscapes

 Create both social and ecological conditions favourable to the emergence of Inviting Landscape features  Stimulate and integrate resilience thinking in all aspects, including acknowledging constant change and the value of landscapes that are never ‘finished’  Support efforts already underway and create space to build on them  Consider people as being part of the landscape  Encourage appropriation of spaces (and not just participation) at all stages of the process; encourage feelings of ownership  Adopt minimum specification regulations to allow for creativity and adaptation to local conditions  Focus on enabling the good and not just preventing the bad  Develop co-management approaches  Recognise the creativity of citizens and the potential for innovation at the margins and therefore explicitly accept uncertainly and relinquish control (while negotiating safe boundaries)  Facilitate social learning, adaptive experimentation and adaptive management  Encourage risk taking and learn from failure  Consider the potential merits of all sort of sites and all sorts of citizens; remember that everyone cares about where they live  In challenging contexts, start small in defensible spaces and show rapid visible successes  Create social spaces, build social capital (much of the rest will follow)

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These approaches do not necessarily cost more money than conventional approaches to managing urban landscapes. In fact, they are likely to result in considerable cost savings as citizens increasingly take charge of looking after local sites in ways that take advantage of available ecosystem services. However, they require different perspectives, different relationships and different practices, all based on a redefinition of the roles of people (acting as both citizens and paid staff) and nature in urban landscapes. This represents a significant cultural shift and it will come about through changes at various levels. The presence of a growing number of Inviting Landscapes making manifest the roles of citizens and nature will have a significant effect on how urban landscapes are perceived. Learning across sites is important and is enhanced by support for information-sharing, training and mentorship, which should be made available to staff of relevant organisations and institutions, as well as volunteers. Policy supports are also necessary. These interventions at other scales of the SES are discussed in the next sections of this chapter.

7.3 The city scale

At the scale of the city, relationships among sites are important. Sites influence other sites. A critical mass of Inviting Landscapes can result in a tipping point within a neighbourhood. Diversity among sites contributes to resilience. Connections among sites, both ecological and social, can make the city scale effect greater than the sum of its sites. The city-wide SES should be made apparent, including to citizens who need to see where they fit, as one programme manager described:

I was at a meeting the other night in the Irk Valley. There were a few residents there who sat quietly while we waffled on about the green spaces and one of them said: It’s so nice to see that there are other people doing things around me because I've got my own little blinkered world and I need to see, I need to recognise that I fit in with a bigger picture. (Programme Manager 7)

Decision makers need to see this broader landscape in order to provide strategic support and all urban dwellers should experience it in order to be part of a broad cultural shift regarding how cities are perceived. Currently, beyond the realm of the makers and supporters of Inviting Landscapes who have been the focus of this thesis, a lot of people do not take citizens working with urban nature very seriously. They are seen as people messing about in vacant lots or

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neglected green spaces and this is presumed to be a marginal activity of little interest. However, if we return to the discussion of cultural landscapes in Section 2.4.2.1, it is clear that messages from landscapes are forceful indeed. Landscapes have frequently been used by rulers to exert power and can similarly be used by citizens to influence ideas about what matters in cities. As the late Neil Smith pointed out:

…insofar as the landscapes we create refract back to us a very powerful naturalization of the social assumptions that sculpted such landscapes in the first place, a revolution in our thinking may be intimately bound up with a revolution in how these landscapes are made. Seeing the world differently probably depends on making a different world from which the world itself can be seen differently. (Smith, 2006, pp. xiv–xv)

The influence resulting from citizen interventions in landscapes grows as initiatives multiply. ‘Tipping points’ were noted at sites around Platt Fields Park and in relation to street trees in various neighbourhoods. Critical masses of initiatives should be encouraged. In this way, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, the dominant urban landscape changes and the overall city is understood differently.

The cumulative effect of local landscapes also contributes to the cultural and ecological diversity that enhances resilience. Andersson (2006) was quoted in Section 2.3 concerning the need for ‘resilient cityscapes’, which is fulfilled by the diverse practices of citizens. He later explained that different citizens had different management objectives, which increased heterogeneity in practices and in the diversity of resulting species assemblages, which therefore increased resilience in the SES (Andersson et al., 2007, p. 1276).

A mix of certain types of landscapes also assists the wider public in becoming more comfortable with ‘wilder’ landscapes. In Section 6.2.6 it was mentioned that both programme managers and volunteers were aware of the need to achieve a balance between wilder and more ordered landscapes. As well as finding a balance within sites, it is important to strive for a balance among sites. While a new generation of Inviting Landscapes may be emerging and should be encouraged, formal gardens have their place (and help to maintain cultural narratives of place), and some wildscapes should remain very wild. These sites reputed (as described in 4.3) to be ‘good places for doing bad things’ play an important role in green infrastructure, as well as some societal roles (Jorgensen,

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2011). They are often good places for wildlife, as one programme manager explained:

And while we were talking, we were standing on a small bridge and a heron landed on a shopping trolley in the stream, and you know shopping trolleys are not a problem, they can be a habitat just like any other. It’s only us that have a problem with shopping trolleys. (Programme Manager 8)

There may be a middle ground between transforming such places and ignoring or avoiding them; they can be valued and seen as an important part of ecological networks. They can be put on a map and identified as destinations for urban explorers or sites for bioblitzes. This sort of valuing may also bring about organic changes in their use, which allows for wild adventures that are not necessarily destructive, as in the example of the Junior Ranger programme described in Section 5.2.7.

When thinking about ecological networks in cities, it is important to stay focused on the role of citizens in influencing urban ecosystem functioning (which means that the ‘ecological network’ should be recognised as a SES). It has been suggested that landscape ecology has limited applicability in cities because ecosystem processes have been so disrupted that function no longer follows form (Andersson, 2006). However, function does perhaps still follow form, but the form is a ‘messy SES’ (Alessa et al., 2009). It includes a variety of people, nature and places bound together in a complex web of relationships, and it is people, oriented by both culture and agency, who are often facilitating system connections. This is not just via conventional infrastructure, which has long determined the flows of matter and energy in cities, but also through individual people carrying matter, skills and inspiration among sites—transferring natural, social and knowledge capital. According to landscape ecologists as described in Section 2.4.1, flows of matter and energy determine the structure and function of a landscape. The role of active citizens thus merits consideration in efforts to understand landscape ecology in cities.

As Andersson (Ibid., p.3) points out in relation to maintaining spatial resilience: “There are two aspects of connectivity, the continuity of a certain habitat (structural connectivity) and the possibility for organisms to move within or between patches (functional connectivity)”. The important thing is that they find a way to move, and sometimes citizens facilitate this. As mentioned in

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Section 6.2.6, one respondent spoke of how increasing urban permeability would help species migrate and therefore survive climate change, and said half jokingly, that with respect to plants, “it might be quicker to just dig them up and move them through!” (Programme Manager 9) It appears that citizens are often picking up plants and moving them. Most commonly, they are purchased and driven to a private garden (and have been known to create invasive species problems) but there are equally citizens who are moving plants in an effort to reintroduce indigenous species or create edible landscapes or plant wildflowers that make landscapes more inviting. The latter are often obtaining the plants from other citizens or from community organisations at little or no cost, sometimes planting them in extensive areas such as parks, or along corridors like canals. This can have a significant impact on urban ecology and needs to be taken seriously. The ideas and skills that citizens take from one place to another also influence the SES.

The important role of the herbalist who provided support for the herb garden in Platt Fields was mentioned in Chapter 5, as was that of the community artist who was involved in both Platt Fields and the canal neighbourhoods. Platt Fields itself was a source of inspiration and learning. Most of the citizens engaged with Manchester landscapes that I encountered made some mention of Hulme Community Garden Centre as a source of plants, gardening materials and/or training. It became apparent that certain people, organisations and places were playing key roles across the system. They are important system ‘nodes’ serving to inspire, teach, supply and connect. Such nodes should be identified through a process of system (i.e. SES) mapping and provided with any support they may require to maintain and enhance their functions. This mapping and supporting role is appropriately played by larger organisations or local government.

7.4 The enabling context

At the higher scale within this panarchy, cultural narratives, policy frameworks and public discourses, along with social, economic and environmental trends, influence what happens at other scales. It is thus

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important to ensure that policy is supportive of Inviting Landscapes. Three key areas for attention are: recognising the roles of citizens and nature; supporting green infrastructure (with people in it and making it); and shifting to more open and adaptive governance structures.

Urban nature and the role of citizens must be taken more seriously and this should be reflected in supportive policy and funding. Paying attention to citizens means considering their perceptions and experiences of urban landscapes, as well as recognising the importance of cultural landscapes and trying to make these as inviting as possible. The agency of citizens must also be acknowledged, which primarily means leaving space open for citizens to appropriate. Invitations should largely replace consultations and incentives for prescribed behaviours. At a minimum, authorities at various levels should avoid creating obstacles to efforts by citizen to enhance resilience in SESs and they should then consider how to support and invite such activities.

A key mechanism is to ensure that the openness, flexibility and support for experimentation, which was discussed earlier in this chapter in reference to the site level, is supported by broader policy. Existing regulations concerning urban planning, including the role of supplementary guidance in shaping development; the development of green infrastructure, such as regional Green Infrastructure plans; and national and strategic guidance relating to the management and development of urban green spaces, should be reviewed and those that prevent the ‘good’ (in terms of developing Inviting Landscapes) without deterring the ‘bad’ should be eliminated. Many respondents spoke about the barriers created by ‘health and safety’ policies and commented on the sad irony that these often reduce health and safety through limiting access to nature and exercise, and reducing opportunities for individuals to develop their capacity to assess risk.

Funding mechanisms that emphasise delivery of pre-established outputs, rather than focusing on impacts and allowing flexibility for how these are achieved, often limit adaptive management and experimentation. More funding programmes should frame funded projects as experiments and value learning from ‘failed’ projects as highly as achieving more predictable outcomes. Local

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authorities should provide training for their own staff in order to develop a culture of adaptive management and of co-management, which will allow them to work more effectively with citizens.

Flexibility should also be emphasised with respect to ensuring access to sites for potential citizen intervention. This research described resilience-enhancing activities occurring under a wide range of property regimes and included mention of meanwhile sites, which are growing in number. Innovative policies for maximising citizen access to unused sites include the Scottish government’s new policy to bring derelict and vacant land back into temporary use to benefit communities, while Washington DC now offers property tax deductions to landlords who lease their land for urban agriculture.

Attention should also be paid to other aspects of Inviting Landscapes for which support is often neglected, such as the role of art in reimagining urban spaces and unleashing creativity, and the role of social spaces and community events in redefining place identity and bringing prospective engaged citizens together. Creating opportunities for unengaged citizens to connect to urban nature is also key, as this programme manager pointed out:

We have to keep people connected, and we have to have some understanding of the role that nature and life support systems play, and their need to be looked after. But if people are remote from them and just expect everything to be provided, then we will not get the right decisions being made. (Programme Manager 9)

The ‘right decisions’ may include both the decision to engage in stewarding urban nature and the decision to provide political support for initiatives that protect and enhance urban nature. Efforts by local authorities to support citizen engagement with urban nature not only have effects with respect to resilience- enhancing transformation of local landscapes but also create a base of support for city or national level policy concerning urban nature.

The capacity of citizens to innovate and develop responses to urban challenges should also be recognised. The complexity of urban systems and the rapid rate of change require diverse and creative responses, some of which can be brought to bear by ‘citizen-innovators’ (Brand, 2005). Citizens have the capacity to bring diverse knowledge along with enthusiasm for further learning. Andersson et al. (2007) found that citizens involved with allotment gardens

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developed a strong sense of place, ecological knowledge, and continuous learning. These citizens became motivated environmental managers with increased understanding of the ecosystems that provided them with desired services.

Green infrastructure should be promoted and implemented as a cornerstone or resilient cities. It is a language most stakeholders understand. Many of the programme managers commented on the usefulness of green infrastructure as a concept as one of them describes here:

We use ‘green infrastructure’ to identify two things: the assets, so where’s the green infrastructure that‘s meeting a need? So where’s the green infrastructure that’s actually intercepting the water in an upper area of the ___ district, which reduces flood risk, for instance? And also where are the pinch points? Is there an identified need? For example, the need for urban cooling where there’s no green infrastructure… I’ve found that it’s easier to explain things in the language of green infrastructure, which is non-scientific. In the sense that it’s about infrastructure, it’s about functionality, it’s about benefit, it’s about value, and there are easy analogies across to things like transport infrastructure. (Programme Manager 2)

The same respondent noted that there is growing support for green infrastructure and a growing understanding of its value among professionals involved in urban planning and development. Green infrastructure is widely spoken about and thought to be something that people from different disciplines understand but perhaps not in its full complexity, i.e. understanding the range of ecosystem services that can potentially be provided—and it is still not sufficiently embedded in decision-making. This research suggests that the role of citizens is also inadequately understood and embedded. The extensive and decentralised character of green infrastructure, as well as the variety of property regimes under which it is found, means that more needs to be done to encourage citizens to be involved in developing and maintaining it. Green infrastructure should exhibit Inviting Landscape characteristics so that citizens are invited to engage fully with it.

7.5 Conclusion

This chapter has discussed ways to make urban landscapes more inviting. Given the emergent character of Inviting Landscapes, this is perhaps best described as ‘facilitating their emergence’. As the influences of SESs at different scales were found to be playing an important role in the emergence of Inviting

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Landscapes, potential approaches have been suggested at three of these: the site scale, the city scale and the enabling context. Most of the emphasis is on the site scale, the local landscape in which citizens and nature interact and transformation occurs, as one programme manager enthusiastically described:

When you think about transforming people’s idea about where people and nature meet, I think… If you’re working at a scale where you are almost implicitly creating a different relationship between people and nature, that’s really exciting. (Programme Manager 7)

At this scale, specific landscape elements are important, as are approaches to facilitating their emergence. Open and adaptive governance is a key facilitator. Particular strategies are required to shift Uninviting Landscapes into a more favourable regime as outlined in Section 7.2.2.

Local sites do not exist in isolation; they are related and connected in ways that result in emergent properties at the city scale. Cultural and ecological diversity among sites is an important contributor to resilience. A critical mass of Inviting Landscapes redefines certain neighbourhoods. Certain people, organisations and places are important nodes in the SES, serving to inspire, teach, supply and connect. Providing them with support will enhance social and ecological resilience overall.

Local authorities and other supporting organisations and institutions could play an enabling role, with respect to both policy and funding, in creating the conditions for Inviting Landscapes to emerge. This requires acknowledgement of the important roles played by citizens and urban nature in enhancing urban social-ecological resilience, which in turn involves recognising the significance of experienced landscapes and of citizen agency, as well as green infrastructure co- produced and fully experienced by citizens. This shift needs to be underpinned by more open and adaptive approaches to governance and to funding.

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8 Conclusions

This thesis began by taking note of an increase in citizen engagement with urban nature and set out to determine if certain landscapes were inviting resilience-enhancing activity. It has shown that citizens in Manchester and other areas of North West England are transforming urban spaces through their interactions with nature. The relationship can be described as one of people- nature collaboration, where citizens steward ecosystem functioning and in turn enjoy the benefits of ecosystem services. Both people and nature are changed in the process and this affects the SES of which they are part, often making it more resilient. Such resilience-enhancing activity can contribute to achieving broader goals of urban resilience and should therefore be encouraged.

This research has delved deeply, both conceptually and empirically, into the workings of people-nature interactions at sites of transformation. The fieldwork drew on many perspectives: those of citizens engaged in transformative activities; those of people who observe engaged citizens and the places they transform; and that of the researcher herself formed through experiences with people, places and activities. These multiple perspectives were combined and analysed through a conceptual lens of ‘landscape’. Landscape was chosen because it integrates nature and culture and it privileges the perspective of the viewer (Council of Europe, 2000, p. 3). As there are different types of viewers, so there are different disciplines that orient analyses of landscapes. This enquiry was concerned with the functioning of urban ecosystems and people’s motivations to engage directly with them, therefore landscape ecology (see 2.4.1), cultural geography (see 2.4.2.1) and disciplines concerned with environmental perception (see 2.4.2.2) were identified as the disciplines most relevant to the analysis.

This multidisciplinary view of landscape permitted study of both social and ecological elements and thus offered a window into the underlying SES. The SES’s degree of resilience was analysed through this window using the ‘key

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features of resilience’ (Walker & Salt, 2006, p. 146) and by looking for indicators in the landscape such as those for ecosystem services proposed by Barthel (2006, p. 310). Relationships among people, landscape, and features of resilience were elucidated leading to the conclusion that people’s perceptions of landscapes caused them to respond in particular ways, and their action or inaction affected the material landscape and the underlying SES, making it more or less resilient (as shown in 6.3.3).

This means that perceived landscapes are important, and while individuals respond to them differently depending on their own particular traits (see 2.4.2.2), landscapes transmit strong messages that are received in similar ways by most people (as described in 2.4.2.1). Consequently, landscapes can be created or maintained to send messages that invite people to interact with nature in resilience-enhancing ways. This research elucidated characteristics of ‘Inviting Landscapes’, i.e., landscapes that invite citizens to transform them in resilience-enhancing ways, which are presented in 6.2. It was noted in 6.1 that certain characteristics play particular roles at different stages in the process of an individual’s engagement with landscape.

The stages of engagement of ‘rethink’, ‘connect’ and ‘act’ emerged in analysis. In the first stage, it is important for people to see landscapes that make them rethink their ideas about people and nature in cities. These landscapes are often surprising and sometimes temporary; art often features. They are most effective when located in places many people visit, like city centres. In the second stage, an individual needs to connect with a specific landscape, which is usually close to home or frequently visited. This landscape should attract interest through its identity, its natural features, as well as the opportunities it provides for learning and interacting with other people. It should invite people in, make them feel included, and also welcome them to appropriate the space and intervene in the site. It should feel like their place, like home. At some point, citizens should begin to feel that the place needs them as much as they need it. Perhaps it is threatened or it just needs a bit of help to fulfil its potential. From here, they can begin to move into the third stage, that of action. This is facilitated if there are other people with whom they can collaborate and if they feel that they can make a

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difference. Individuals should feel that their particular skills can contribute to moving things forward, or that there is space to initiate a project of one’s own. Results should be visible. The transformed landscape in turn invites other people to engage.

Landscape is a multi-layered concept and it is also a unit of environment that exists at different scales. It depends on the viewer; be it the citizen looking around at a small site between buildings or the landscape ecologist looking down at an aerial photograph (as described in 2.4.1). The former sees the details and the relationships within the site, including his or her relationship to it; the latter is more focused on the relationships between that site and other areas in the landscape that are visible from the aerial viewpoint. While this project was focused primarily on the view of the citizen, which determines how he or she will act in the small site, it was also important to consider the broader landscape that affects and is affected by what the citizen does next. Other people working on other sites and the connections among them (both people and sites) may be part of that broader landscape. This aspect was considered both in the analysis (see 6.4) and in discussing practical implications (see 7.3).

The underlying SES also operates at different scales (as described in 2.3). The degree of resilience at lower scales affects and is affected by the resilience of systems at higher scales (Holling, 2004). The many different approaches that citizens take to managing their small sites may add up to resilience-enhancing diversity at the scale of a city (Andersson, 2006) while all of this may be undermined by policies that prohibit citizen-led efforts or prescribe a limited range of approaches to land management (this is explored in 7.3 and 7.4). It is therefore important to stay both clearly focused on the landscape of the citizens in their patch while attending to the broader landscape and the larger SESs that support or undermine their efforts.

8.1 Contributions to knowledge

The key contribution of this thesis is to strengthen the applicability of the SES concept to cities conceptually, methodologically and practically. As described in Chapter 2, the SES concept has primarily been applied to systems consisting of a

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single resource, a relatively homogenous group of users and an institutional structure (cultural, legal or organisational) that governs the relationship between users and resource. This ‘neat’ (Alessa, Kliskey, & Altaweel, 2009) array is not very characteristic of cities. While studies of applications of SES to cities are accumulating (cf. Andersson, 2006; Barthel, 2006; Elmqvist et al., 2004; Ernstson et al., 2010; Tidball & Krasny, 2007), challenges have remained and this has been attributed to the weak development of the social component of the SES (Ernstson et al., 2010; Evans, 2011). Building on the work of Trosper (2005), this thesis split the social into the categories of culture and agency.

It then argued that landscape constitutes a potentially valuable vehicle through which to operationalise this insight. This landscape lens approach was effectively applied to studying citizen-nature interactions in urban SESs. The usefulness of the concept of landscape was reaffirmed in the course of this thesis. Its transdisciplinary character (Wattchow, 2013) and its capacity to fully integrate culture and nature (Council of Europe, 2000, p. 3) in a way people can make sense of (Gobster et al., 2007) make it a valuable tool for analysing complex systems. The fact that perception of landscape is an essential part of its definition (Council of Europe, Ibid.) and that it is recognised that this perception may vary among people (Meinig, 1979) further increases its usefulness in cities that must respond to the needs and desires of diverse populations.

Analysis of citizen-nature interactions in urban SESs (see Chapter 5) revealed how the relationship between users and resources is structured in part by a variety of cultural narratives transmitted by landscapes, which orient the practices of individuals and groups who respond and interact with landscapes in particular ways based on their own attributes. Citizens’ agency in the landscape impacts on both people and nature resulting in transformations of the SES, which enhances or reduces resilience (see 6.3.3). A central finding of this work (as described in 6.3.2) is that the transformation of urban landscapes subsequently influences other ‘users’, setting in motion a positive feedback mechanism that will keep the SES either in an Inviting or an Uninviting Landscape regime.

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This conceptual development was facilitated through use of a methodology built on a critical realist framework (see 3.4.1) which viewed the SES as an underlying mechanism that could not be apprehended but that would ‘produce’ landscapes and people’s experience of them and responses to them. Three ‘layers’ of landscape were elucidated: the material landscape, the cultural landscape and responses to the landscape (see 2.4). Landscape ecology, cultural geography and disciplines concerned with environmental perception and people-environment interactions were used to study these three layers of landscape. These are disciplines that view landscapes differently but the adoption of a critical realist framework, which accepts the existence of multiple levels of reality, allowed the different disciplinary perspectives to be brought into dialogue with one another in a novel way. As in the case of the concept of landscape mentioned above, this thesis has reaffirmed the value of critical realism as a support for interdisciplinary studies. The critical realist lens, along with the triangulation of multidisciplinary research methods that is encouraged within its associated method of retroduction, do indeed breakdown disciplinary boundaries and “act as a precursor to interdisciplinary social science.” (Downward and Mearman, 2006, p. 78)

The process of retroduction facilitated integration of the different perspectives by encouraging triangulation within both data gathering and analysis (as described in 3.4.2). The methodology, also in accordance with retroduction, incorporated an iterative approach, manifested in a three-stage empirical research process that began by casting a wide net and ended by looking closely at individual citizens interacting with landscapes. This process was facilitated by using a case study approach that triangulated data from different sources, and gradually narrowed and deepened the analysis. Close examination at the site level situated within a broader landscape and a larger SES allowed for development of the conceptual model that revealed a positive feedback mechanism whereby landscapes influence citizen-nature interactions, which in turn change citizens and nature, and consequently impact on resilience (see 6.3.2 and 6.3.3).

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Refining the SES concept using different perspectives on landscape within a critical realism based methodology also yielded a new concept, the Inviting Landscape. This is defined as a landscape that invites people, particularly in their role as citizens, to transform it in resilience-enhancing ways. Given that the thesis revealed that citizens and urban nature have an important role to play in enhancing social-ecological resilience in cities, protecting and creating Inviting Landscapes is a worthwhile goal. Through analysis of citizens’ interactions with landscapes in Manchester and in other areas of North West England, Inviting Landscape characteristics were elucidated (see 6.2) and practical approaches to facilitating their emergence (see Chapter 7) were proposed. These are likely to be of use to local authorities and to other institutions and organisations involved in supporting citizen engagement in strengthening urban social-ecological resilience, as well as to citizen leaders. Anecdotal evidence and responses to the Inviting Landscape concept during conference presentations indicated that the concept has relevance and applicability beyond North West England. It has practical implications in relation to more effective use of public budgets; expanding and adding value to green infrastructure; increasing resilience in the face of climate change and other challenges; and enhancing community cohesion, health and well-being.

8.2 Implications for policy and practice

The practical implications of this thesis are particularly concerned with ensuring that the characteristics that make up an Inviting Landscape (see 6.2) from the citizen’s point of view are present in urban landscapes. Many of these characteristics are products of emergent processes, and so it is as much a question of creating appropriate conditions and adopting certain approaches, as inserting elements into the landscape (as detailed in 7.2). Larger landscapes or higher scales must also be considered, with attention given to the connections among different sites and to the institutional supports and policy context that influence the urban SES (see 7.4).

There are particular roles for certain actors. Local and regional governments have opportunities to enhance green infrastructure and many, as was shown to

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be the case in North West England (see 4.2.2), have recognised its value. Collaboration with organisations that support citizen engagement ensures that green infrastructure is appropriately developed and maintained and that it fulfils its multi-functional potential. Housing associations also have an important role to play because of the close-to-home spaces they manage. Many of them have a commitment to engaging residents and can use this as a vehicle to create more Inviting Landscapes as was demonstrated in the East Manchester case study (see 5.3)

This research also has implications for the regeneration efforts currently underway in many cities. It questions the wisdom of investment in large scale ready made developments and suggests more small-scale and diverse interventions that leave lots of room for residents to continue creating the places in which they live. It is a challenge for urban designers to move away from making a finished product and instead leave space for inhabitants to develop it according to their own interests, skills and desires. But it is a challenge that must be met in order to enhance resilience; cities and their parts are continually moving through adaptive cycles (see Figure 2) and working with modular components and social capital (see Table 1 Key Features of a Resilient System) is a better use of resources than demolishing tower blocks and policing hostile spaces.

Cities in the UK, as in other parts of the world, are currently trying to become more resilient with limited resources; challenges grow while budgets shrink. Most local authorities find themselves struggling to maintain basic services, making it difficult to direct resources toward innovative responses to complex problems. A possible solution would be to move away from an exclusive focus on financial capital to also consider the natural, human and social capital that is present in all cities. Financial investment is required but it should increasingly be directed to enhancing the other forms of capital, for example toward developing green infrastructure and supporting citizen efforts. It should be thoughtfully deployed to maximise synergistic benefits, based on an understanding of the city as a complex and changing SES where citizens and nature have an important role to play in enhancing resilience.

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Narrowly conceived efforts to incentivise certain pro-environment behaviours (such as litter picks or recycling) should give way to opening up space and support for citizens to engage in transformative action. In this context, the role of local government is to make sure that the appropriate resources are available (similar to the responsibilities of the managers of the metaphoric swimming pool described in 7.2.1) and also to engage in on-going city level analysis and adaptive management. This may require different approaches to planning processes, including in how deliverables are defined and results assessed. Legal and policy barriers and enablers need to be explored in different contexts.

Local government and other agencies working at city or regional scale have the capacity to see the connections among sites of citizen engagement that are only visible with an aerial view of the broader landscape. From this perspective, assets and gaps can be identified, and reinforced or filled respectively; corridors can be opened up between matrices and patches. Threats and opportunities that are emerging from SESs at higher levels in the panarchy can be signalled, and preparations made to ensure that these cascade down the scales in ways that strengthen, rather than undermine, the social-ecological resilience of the city and all its neighbourhoods.

A messy SES requires complex system thinking and adaptive governance, which poses an immense challenge to the way in which most local authorities and central government in the UK are organised today. While there is a lot of talk about experimentation and innovation, the reality involves rigid funding and reporting frameworks with pre-determined deliverables and unreasonable timelines. This severely limits the possibilities for citizens and the organisations that support them (and government itself) to do what they want to do, and what they know they need to do at a local level.

Most urban dwellers are currently living in a cultural landscape conveying the message that the global economy is the defining reality, in which most people are powerless and nature is an externality. It does not signal a role for citizens and nature in defining and enhancing their urban homes. There has been much

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discussion in the UK in recent years about the need to shift the emphasis from rights to responsibilities in concepts of citizenship. However, there is actually a need to move toward recognition of the right of citizens to define and create the places we inhabit and the responsibility to contribute our diverse ideas, interests and skills to bringing a more socially and ecologically resilient world into being.

8.3 Suggestions for further research

This thesis derived Inviting Landscape characteristics from analysis of existing examples of citizen interactions with landscapes. In order to further test the concept, it would be appropriate to experiment with the introduction of Inviting Landscape characteristics, as elucidated in this thesis, as deliberate design elements in order to test their effects under more laboratory-like conditions. The development of urban laboratory approaches (cf. Evans & Karvonen, 2012) could provide a framework for such an undertaking. Similarly, given that Inviting and Uninviting Landscape characteristics were linked to SES resilience, the presence of these characteristics could provide some indication of whether the SES is tending toward increasing or decreasing resilience. Inviting Landscape characteristics may thus have potential for use in rapid qualitative assessment of urban social-ecological resilience. This could be a subject for further study.

Toward the end of this research process, the potential of the ‘unfinished’ characteristic of Inviting Landscapes as part of a deliberate invitation to other citizens, surfaced as a particularly interesting aspect. The deliberately unfinished landscape is very different from the usual end project visualised by people who intervene in landscapes. The focus is instead usually on completing the project and then worrying about it being maintained. Adaptive cycles in citizens’ engagement are, however, reflected in parallel adaptive cycles in landscapes. Rather than trying to sustain engagement and maintain the landscape, it should be expected that the effort will eventually lose momentum and the site will exhibit signs of neglect. Attention should turn to trying to leave behind some seeds (literally and metaphorically) for the next cycle of growth, when a new wave of engagement will further transform the landscape (as was the case in the

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Platt Fields Eco Garden). Additionally, other scales in the panarchy (such as the neighbourhood or a network of engaged citizens) can be looked to for support during transitions. This is an issue that most citizen groups face and it is a particular challenge in settings where there is a regular turnover of engaged people, such as in the case of students involved in campus-based initiatives.

The ‘unfinished’ as invitation merits further investigation. This is true in practical terms as described above, and also with respect to how it points to a tension between the concept of landscape as something somehow finished (e.g. it can be captured in a snapshot or framed) versus the dynamic nature of the Inviting Landscape, which is seen as a product of emergence. Similarly, as described in Section 4.2.4.2, developing typologies of static landscapes that should be maintained has limited use in the context of climate change. There is perhaps a need to rethink the concept of ‘landscape’ in broader terms so that it better reflects complexity and change, and focuses on resilience rather than stability.

Similar questions can be posed in relation to how urban landscapes are viewed within landscape ecology. At the city level, the mosaic of individuals’ perspectives and their site-level interventions enhances diversity and orients transitions in the overall urban landscape, as Andersson (2006) pointed out. It would be useful to undertake city-scale mapping that combined the fine-grain of the local landscape with the aerial view. The focus should remain on the roles of citizens and nature in transforming their patches, while mapping relationships among sites and tracing the flows of ideas and resources that were described in Section 7.3. This could lead to some rethinking of landscape ecology in the urban context. If one considers the matter and energy flows that are influenced by citizens collaborating with urban nature and their effect on ecosystem functions, it could be asked if the social-cultural landscape should also be subjected to analysis in terms of mosaic, matrix, corridors and patches.

This thesis has refined the SES concept to investigate citizen interaction with nature and the resulting transformation of urban spaces. Other opportunities may exist to apply the culture-agency breakdown to analysis of other types of

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urban SESs, possibly again using landscape as a window. Could this understanding of SESs be used for example to think about transforming urban food systems or transport systems or both? Road networks dominate the urban landscape, which not only influences how people move but also largely determines how food is transported. If the road system easily accommodates heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), it may favour long distance transport, large supermarkets and vertical integration (and also result in increased cyclist deaths involving HGVs thus driving people away from active transport). The roads, lorries and supermarkets in the landscape serve to normalise a particular food and transport system. But here again, people are working with nature, in this case small local food producers meeting demand from certain consumers. They are growing food in different ways and distributing their products through different social-ecological corridors (sometimes footpaths and cycleways, and more often smaller safer roads, to different retailers or consumers). Could the SES concept with the cultural-agency breakdown be used to analyse this system and indicate ways to enhance its resilience? Could other urban challenges such as supplying energy and managing waste also be addressed using this conceptual framework?

Cities, as well as the entire planet, are facing tremendous social and environmental challenges. People and problems are concentrated in cities but so are potential solutions, precisely because of the concentration of people and problems. Citizens are numerous and diverse in their capacities and perspectives. They are capable of responding creatively to all sorts of challenges if these are at the scale where they can be seen and understood and acted upon, such as the scale of a local landscape. Many citizens have shown themselves to be willing and able to undertake transformative work that enhances social- ecological resilience. There are many others who could do likewise. They need to be invited. This research has shown that it is possible for the landscape itself to act as an agent in this invitation, and has developed the key characteristics of Inviting Landscapes that constitute the invitation.

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9 Appendices Appendix 1 Principal sources of data

Eleven programme managers from the following nine organisations participated in ten interviews (two programme managers participated in one interview):

Conservation Volunteers (formerly BTCV)

Forestry Commission

Groundwork Manchester, Salford, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford

Landlife

Manchester City Council

Red Rose Forest

The Mersey Forest

UK MAB Urban Forum

Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester and North Merseyside

Site visits were made to the below fifteen sites and ten walking interviews and ten working interviews took place at ten of these sites as detailed below:

Manchester city centre Birchfields Park

Ancoats (2 walking) Rusholme allotments

Miles Platting (1 walking and 1 working) Platt Fields Park (3 walking and 3 working)

Newton Heath (1 walking and 1 working) Fallowfield Secret Garden (1 working)

Moston Brook (1 working), Moston Vale Rusholme - St. Ives Road alleyway (1 walking), street trees and pocket gardens Clayton Vale (1 walking) Moss Side - Moss Cider, Open Yardens, Nutsford Vale Moss Side Community Allotment

Broom Avenue, Levenshulme Whitworth Park (1 walking and 3 working)

Observations were also recorded concerning footpaths and cycleways between sites.

Participatory Observation was carried out over five months at the following two sites: Rochdale and Ashton canals at Ancoats, Miles Platting and Newton Heath (North East Manchester) Platt Fields Park with bordering neighbourhoods of Fallowfield and Rusholme (South East Manchester)

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Appendix 2 Participant Information Sheets

(Introduction for all types of participants) You are being asked to participate in a PhD research project entitled Inviting Landscapes - engaging citizens with ecosystem services for sustainable urban infrastructure. This research will be conducted by Janice Astbury. The aim of the research is to increase understanding of how landscapes can facilitate citizens’ stewardship of nature in ways that lead to more sustainable urban infrastructure. The practical goal is to develop guidelines for the creation of ‘inviting’ urban landscapes.

______

Participant Information Sheet – Programme Managers

You are being asked to participate because you are involved in managing a programme that supports or recognises community greening activities in Greater Manchester. This is the first stage of the empirical research and the goal of this stage is to refine the conceptual framework for the research and identify potential case studies. If you agree to take part, the researcher will ask you to participate in an interview lasting no more than one hour. This interview will be recorded and the recording will be treated as confidential. If this is not acceptable, notes will be taken instead. Points that you make and/or quotes will be identified by your job role unless you request that these remain anonymous. Your name and the name of your organisation will appear on a list of respondents. If you are willing, the researcher may contact you again after the interview and ask your permission and possibly your assistance to contact one or more of the individuals or organisations that your organisation has supported or recognised in order to invite them to participate in the next stage of the research.

The data collected (notes and recordings) will be stored on the researcher’s computer in password-protected accounts. All participants in the research will be assigned code names and only code names will be used in recording observations or transcribing interviews. The list of individuals identified by anonymising code names will be additionally password-protected with a unique password. All data will be destroyed within ten years. Participation in this study is voluntary. You are free to refuse to participate or to withdraw at any time without giving a reason.

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You will not receive any financial compensation for your participation in this research project. You will receive a report (if you wish and provide the researcher with an address where it can be sent) at the end of the project that describes what was learned from the research about the type of activities that your organisation supports or recognises.

Participant Information Sheet – Walking Interviews

You are being asked to participate because you are involved in an activity that is developing or maintaining sustainable urban infrastructure. If you agree to take part, the researcher will ask you to participate in a one- hour “walking interview” and possibly an additional half-hour conventional interview. The researcher will first ask you to describe the initiative in which you are involved and your own role in it. Then you and the researcher will walk around the site of your activity and the surrounding neighbourhood, following a route of your choice. The researcher will ask you to describe the landscape through which you are walking from your own perspective and mention any particular feelings or memories you have about particular elements of that landscape. In the last part of the interview the researcher will ask you about your motivation for being involved in the initiative. This interview will be recorded and the recording will be treated as confidential. If a recording is not acceptable to you, notes will be taken instead. Regardless of whether the interview is recorded, the researcher will take some notes during the walk and will also take photographs of some of the places that you point out, if you are comfortable with this. Points that you make and/or quotes will be identified by your role in this initiative unless you request that these remain anonymous. Your name will appear on a list of respondents unless you prefer otherwise. The data collected (notes, tape recordings and photographs) will be stored on the researcher’s computer in password-protected accounts. All participants in the research will be assigned code names and only code names will be used in recording observations or transcribing interviews. The list of individuals identified by anonymising code names will be additionally password-protected with a unique password. All data will be destroyed within ten years. If the researcher wants to include a photograph of you in a published report, your specific permission (signed consent) will be sought for use of a particular photo or photos. Participation in this study is voluntary. You are free to refuse to participate or to withdraw at any time without giving a reason. You will not receive any financial compensation for your participation in this research project. You will receive a report (if you wish and provide the researcher with an address where it can be sent) at the end of the project that describes what was learned from the research about your activity and others like it. The full research project will take about two years. You will receive a report at the end of the research project.

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Participant Information Sheet – Participant Observation

You are being asked to participate because you are involved in an activity that is developing or maintaining sustainable urban infrastructure. If you agree to take part, the researcher will spend time with you at the site of your greening activity in order to observe how you carry out and talk about your activity (specific time(s) and location will be noted on the consent from). The researcher will take notes based on these observations. Photos will be taken of you carrying out your activity if you grant permission (this is not obligatory for participation in the research). The data collected (notes and photographs) will be stored on the researcher’s computer in password-protected accounts. All participants in the research will be assigned code names and only code names will be used in recording observations or transcribing interviews. The list of individuals identified by anonymising code names will be additionally password-protected with a unique password. All data will be destroyed within ten years. If the researcher wants to include a photograph of you in a published report, your specific permission (signed consent) will be sought for use of a particular photo or photos. Participation in this study is voluntary. You are free to refuse to participate or to withdraw at any time without giving a reason. You will not receive any financial compensation for your participation in this research project. You will receive a report (if you wish and provide the researcher with an address where it can be sent) at the end of the project that describes what was learned from the research about your activity and others like it. The full research project will take about two years. The researcher will visit the site of your activity for a period ranging from several weeks to a year (this will also be specified on the consent from for your particular site). You will receive a report at the end of the research project. ______

(Conclusion for all types of participants) In addition to the report that you receive, the outcomes of the research will be published in a thesis and hopefully in peer-reviewed scientific journals. It will also be presented at conferences or to interested organisations at their request. For further information, please contact Janice Astbury at [email protected] In case anything goes wrong, please contact the principal investigator of this research. Her contact details are provided above. If you wish to make a formal complaint about the conduct of this research please contact: the Head of the Research Office, Christie Building, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL.

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Appendix 3 Consent Form

University of Manchester School of Environment and Development

Inviting Landscapes - engaging citizens with ecosystem services for sustainable urban infrastructure (PhD Research Project)

CONSENT FORM

If you are happy to participate please read the consent form and initial it:

Please Initial

1. I confirm that I have read the attached information sheet on the above project and have had the opportunity to consider the information and ask questions and had these answered satisfactorily.

2. I understand that my participation in the study is voluntary and that I am free to withdraw at any time without giving a reason and without detriment to any treatment/service.

3. I understand that the interviews will be audio-recorded.

4. I agree to the use of:

- quotes identified by my role

- anonymous quotes

5. I agree to be photographed but I understand that my specific permission will be sought for inclusion of my photo in a published report.

6. I agree to have my name appear in the list of respondents.

I agree to take part in the above project

Name of participant Date Signature

Name of person taking consent Date Signature

Site of the activity and approximate times/duration of the period that the researcher will be present:

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Appendix 4 Interview Guides

(1) Programme manager interviews Thank you for taking the time to speak with me. As described in the participant information sheet, this interview should last no more than an hour and is part of a data collection process for a PhD research project. This interview will be recorded and the recording will be treated as confidential. Points that you make and/or quotes will be identified by your job role unless you have requested that these remain anonymous. Your name and the name of your organisation will appear on a list of respondents. The first stage of my empirical research involves interviews with managers in organisations that provide support to community initiatives. The goal of this stage is to refine the conceptual framework for the research and identify potential case studies. 1. Can you please briefly describe the work of your organisation and/or programme and your own role?

2. Among the community greening initiatives that your organisation has supported or recognised, are there any that stand out for you as being particularly interesting? (because they were very successful or challenging or surprising) Could you please briefly describe a few of these and explain what you found interesting? (you don’t need to mention details that would identify them if you prefer not to)

Now I would like to briefly state the initial premise and the objective of my research project and ask if these make sense to you (It’s okay if they don’t!) and also ask if you have any comments or questions.

(Initial premise) The name of the research project is “Inviting Landscapes”. I chose to undertake this research because I suspect that many urban landscapes are uninviting to citizens who might want to get involved in greening their cities in a hands-on way. When speaking of a landscape being inviting or not, I am referring to the messages conveyed by the landscape about whether citizens have a role in stewarding urban nature and changing urban places and also whether the landscape physically permits this sort of action.

3. Does this initial premise (that many urban landscapes are uninviting to greening initiatives) make sense to you? Do you have any comments on it or questions about it?

(Research objective) The objective of this research project is to increase understanding of how urban landscapes can facilitate citizens’ stewardship of

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ecosystem services in ways that develop and maintain green infrastructure for greater social and ecological resilience.

4. Does this research objective make sense to you as I have stated it? (I realise that it contains a lot of jargon.) Do you have any comments on it or questions about it?

Now I would like to ask you if the concepts I have used in stating the research objective are ones that you use in your own work. I will name the four concepts and ask you if and how you use each of them to think about or talk about your work.

5. Landscape – Do you use this concept in your work? If so, can you give me an example of how you use it?

6. Ecosystem services - Do you use this concept in your work? If so, can you give me an example of how you use it?

7. Green infrastructure - Do you use this concept in your work? If so, can you give me an example of how you use it?

8. Social and ecological resilience - Do you use this concept in your work? If so, can you give me an example of how you use it?

In order to meet my research objective I will need to identify the characteristics of inviting and uninviting landscapes (which may vary in different contexts). I will then try to describe the mechanisms whereby certain landscape characteristics might invite a response that results in stewardship of ecosystem services, development and maintenance of green infrastructure, and the creation of more resilient urban places.

9. Among the community greening initiatives that your organisation has supported or recognised, can you think of any that might help to shed light on the characteristics of inviting or uninviting landscapes and their effect on citizen action? (wait for possible response and then ask sub- questions)

a. For example, can you identify any initiatives where the landscape may have played a role in encouraging people to initiate or get involved in activities at a particular site? b. Or, have you noticed any patterns in the types of landscape where the initiatives you support or recognise unfold?

10. Is there anything else you would like to tell me about your work that you think might be relevant to this research project?

11. Do you any further comments or questions about the research project?

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If you are willing, I would like to contact you again and ask your permission and possibly your assistance to contact one or more of the individuals or organisations that you have supported or recognised. I would be asking them to participate in a different kind of interview, one that would involve a short walk around the site where they are active and the surrounding neighbourhood. During this walk I would ask questions about how they perceive the landscape and whether this has any bearing on their involvement in the greening initiative. Would you be open to my contacting you for this purpose?

Thank you very much for your participation in this interview. As mentioned in the participant information sheet, I will report back to you on my findings in the hope that this might be helpful to you in your work.

(2) Walking interview participants Thank you for taking the time to speak with me –and to take a walk around the site of your activities and the surrounding neighbourhood. This should take not more than one hour, and at the very most an hour and a half. As described in the participant information sheet, this interview is part of a data collection process for a PhD research project. You have agreed/not agreed to let me record this interview. (The recording will be treated as confidential and safety stored.) Points that you make and/or quotes will be identified by your role in this initiative unless you have requested that these remain anonymous. Your name will appear on a list of respondents unless you prefer otherwise I will (also) take some notes during our walk and I will also take photographs of some of the places that you point out, if you are comfortable with this. I am going to ask you about your work on this initiative and about your perception of the site and the surrounding neighbourhood. Before we start walking, I would like to ask you to briefly describe the initiative in which you are involved and your own role in it. Now if you don’t mind, I would like you to be my guide around this site where you are working and the surrounding neighbourhood. We can take whichever route you think will help me to know and understand your initiative and the area around it. As we walk, I would like you to describe the landscape through which we are walking from your own perspective and mention any particular feelings or memories you have about particular elements of this landscape. (at the end of the walk) Have any elements in the landscape through which we have just walked changed during the time you have been involved in this initiative?

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It is recognised that the walking interview may follow a somewhat different pattern and touch on different questions given that the respondent will play a major role in directing it. Possible final questions:

What made you want to undertake this work in the first place? What encourages you to stay involved in this initiative? (Or if no longer involved) What made you stop being involved/doing this work? Is there anything else that you would like to tell me about your work that you think might be relevant to this research project?

Thank you for the tour and your thoughts! As mentioned in the participant information sheet, I will report back to you on my findings in the hope that this might be helpful to you in your work.

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Appendix 5 List of codes and sub-codes

Level Code Description 0 Perspectives on citizen engagement with General ideas expressed by programme managers (and later site-based urban landscapes staff and volunteers) on how and why citizens engage 1 Importance of green space Role of green spaces in cities (including contributions to social- ecological resilience) 1 Types of collaboration with communities The relationship that supporting organisations have with communities and how they collaborate 1 Value of engagement Perspective on whether engagement contributes to enhancing green infrastructure, social capital, etc. 2 Importance of citizens having knowledge Effect of citizens’ level of knowledge/capacity on the value to their contribution enhancing resilience 1 Citizens' willingness to engage Sense of willingness of citizens to engage and how they manifest it 2 Citizens' willingness to engage varies 2 ‘Difficult to engage’ citizens 2 Citizens are generally willing to engage 1 Factors in engagement 2 Characteristics of engagement initiatives 3 Responding to what people want Asking people what they want and responding to those needs and desires 3 Engagement activities are enjoyable 3 Association with exciting initiative 3 Education, raising awareness, developing To observe/see nature; know that it matters and know how to work skills with it 4 Observation skills 4 Understanding utility Citizens understanding utility and value (e.g. ecosystems services) explicitly or implicitly 3 Opportunities to learn Curiosity and passion for learning drives engagement 3 Outreach 3 Let people join in at their own pace This can mean creating space for people to join in at each stage, and also the need to keep leading the project until people start to take initiative/have their own ideas 2 Characteristics of the citizens 3 Biophilia People are instinctively drawn to nature 3 Presence of individual leaders Individual leaders are involved in the initiative (and its success may be dependent on their continued involvement) 3 Affluence of community 3 Social environment supports engagement Response to other (social) needs in the community in a way that supports greening efforts 3 Opportunities for personal and career Learn new skills; get certification; open up career paths, expanded development options 3 Interested in health benefits of working outdoors 3 Desire for self-sufficiency 2 Characteristics of the site 3 Attachment to Place 4 Attachment to wildlife 3 Ownership 3 Nearby 3 History of use The site has been used by people in the past--they have a habit of going to it.

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4 Previous community investment in the Some members of the community have been involved in defending or place improving the site and therefore contribute to it being looked after by themselves and other members of their entourage in the longer term 3 Affords benefits that people understand People know what they get from the place and feel that it's worth it 4 Affords favoured activities Like children's play and dog walking 3 Responding to a problem 3 Transformation of surrounding area - Tipping Points - Area or surrounding neighbourhood is visibly Tipping Point undergoing transformation 0 Understandings of Inviting Landscapes 1 Need or potential for citizen engagement Acknowledges that green infrastructure will need citizen engagement with green infrastructure to function effectively, either because it is decentralised or on private land or because government lacks resources 1 Inviting Landscapes Concepts 2 People-environment relationships Contributes to understanding of how people and environment interact or people think they should interact; possible data for elaborating conceptual model of urban SES 3 Disconnection from nature Evidence of people feeling disconnected from nature and the effects on them 3 "untouched nature" Idea that beautiful nature is untouched nature where previous human intervention and the benefits of on-going intervention is invisible or ignored 3 Barriers to direct relationships with People cannot relate to nature directly due to fear or ignorance or sense nature of it not being appropriate; some sort of intermediate infrastructure is required (e.g. washed fruit in a bowl) 3 Caring for nature If and how people engage in it 2 Urban social-ecological systems Includes reference to urban ecosystems and other systems perspectives 3 Connectivity Importance of social-ecological connectivity 3 Urban nature Recognising the existence and the value of urban nature 2 Landscape References to landscape from any perspective in any context 3 Landscape affects response Affirms that landscape can affect people's ideas about what the place is and what can be done in it, and their behaviour 3 Dominant cultural landscape Including for example what a park or lawn should look like 2 Green Infrastructure 2 Ecosystem Services The un-priced ecosystem services are recognized, valued, protected, and enhanced 2 Resilience References to resilience and understanding of it 3 Capacity to adapt to change Rather than trying to maintain stability 4 New livelihood opportunities Opportunities to develop skills in environmental restoration, urban agriculture, etc. that may useful in a changing environment and economy--new employment sector can emerge 3 Works with ecological cycles Rather than against them 3 Values social and ecological diversity 3 Builds social capital Collaboration around transforming spaces bringing people together, helping to resolve conflicts 0 Characteristics of Inviting Landscapes 1 Needs defending 2 Neglected but not unloved 2 Problem to be solved Areas where there is a problem that the community wants to see resolved e.g. high crime rate 2 Threatened 1 Makes space for people A place for people in the garden - Conveys that the landscape is not to be just passively observed; that people should get inside it 2 Formalising what people are already This sends an empowering message that people can define what will doing happen on a site and authorities will follow their lead and formalise or

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legitimate that activity instead of forbidding it or doing something completely different 1 Invites access Mown path, gate or sign that invites people in 2 Safe 3 Prospect-refuge 1 Welcoming host A community member takes initiative and welcomes others into the space or invites them to join in some way 1 Change is possible 2 Visible changes Seeing and/or participating in physical change, even small ones, that instil hope and empower local people 2 Intervention is not prevented Either explicitly permitted or not explicitly permitted but possible to varying degrees 3 Encouraged to intervene Citizens are encouraged to intervene 3 Not explicitly discouraged from Citizens are not explicitly discouraged or formally prohibited from intervening intervening 3 Successful insurgence Citizens are discouraged or formally prohibited from intervening but some citizens are willing and able to overcome this barrier 2 Unfinished There is space for citizens to make some of the decisions, create some of the infrastructure 2 Contribution to bigger picture 2 Replication Opportunity Has similar characteristics to a place where positive change has occurred 1 Feels like home 2 Ownership 2 Responsibility 2 Control People feel that they can exercise control over the site 2 Defensible space ‘Defensible space’ such as alleyways or sidewalks in front of houses 2 Residential Area has a residential feel (as opposed to commercial or state) 2 Near people's homes Area is close to where potential engaged citizens live 2 En route Places that people pass through on foot or bicycle 2 Immersed in the process Opportunity or see and be part of the process; engaging with an area regularly so that one can see how it evolves across the seasons and the years 2 Culturally inclusive 1 Cared for to some degree Site does not look totally neglected; there is some sign of people taking care of it or at least not abusing it. Not clear where the line is because it can't look as if there is no need or room for intervention 2 Visible Management Small interventions (often by institutions) such as mowing grass or making a path that shows the area is being looked after in some way 3 Clean, tidy 1 Identity 2 Fascination As per the Kaplans concerning what draws us to nature 2 Cherished 3 Valued and celebrated by someone Landscapes that someone values and celebrates by for example categorising or illustrating (often important for less obvious landscapes) 2 Opportunity to personalise People are not prevented from personalising the space in some way (and often can see others doing this) 2 Fun place to be 2 Heritage links The landscape makes visible some link to heritage or community narratives 2 Point of attraction An interesting characteristic of some sort that draws people--could be linked to legibility or curiosity 1 Legible

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2 Eco-revelatory 1 Community Venue 2 Social spaces Places where people might meet; intersections, places to sit. These are places where people might get to know one another and talk about the site and what might be done with it. 2 Play Space Places where children play 2 Inviting activities Space where community activities sometimes take place, such as informal sport or neighbourhood celebrations where people feel invited to join in 2 Seeing something happening Seeing people actually working on the site or some sort of change; between 'change is possible' and 'community venue' 2 Spontaneous opportunities to engage Feeling welcome to join in with activities that are going on - spontaneous opportunities that avoid having people worry about committing to something and give them the opportunity to join in with something that looks fun 1 Interaction with nature is possible 2 Nature can be protected 2 Nature can be fed or watered 2 Nature can be changed in some way Includes restoration as well as addition of new elements such as planting 2 Nature can be touched 1 Varied responses to landscape Different people experience and respond to landscape in different ways 0 Characteristics of Uninviting Landscapes 1 Inaccessible Potential engaged citizens cannot actually gain access to the site 2 Fenced off Entry is prohibited through signposting or physical barriers like fences 2 Prohibited due to danger There is real danger associated with infrastructure on the site and entry is prohibited 1 Perceived as dangerous 1 Exclusive Potential participants feel somehow excluded from the site 2 Intimidating to women Women feel uncomfortable or unsafe on the site 1 Negative image of community and its place 1 Behaviours signal contempt for the site 2 Rubbish 2 Anti-social behaviours Mention of anti-social behaviours (ASB) at site 1 Infrastructure signalling contempt for the site 1 Much talked about but no action Areas that have been the subject of various consultations that have led nowhere, leaving people feeling that change is not possible 1 Badly neglected The site appears uncared for, neglected, derelict. 1 Interventions required are challenging Environments that are difficult to work in and may require a type of intervention (use of large machinery or complex techniques) that is beyond the capacity of most citizens 1 Presents issues disconnected from Places where the issues to be dealt with are disconnected from people's citizen's lives daily lives e.g. projects framed as response to climate change 1 Absence of nature or natural processes 1 Static Landscapes Landscape does not display any indication that it is evolving and/or that there is potential for change 0 Institutional supports + governance 1 Supportive policy 2 Supportive frameworks Engagement/greening activities are supported or guided by frameworks, strategies, mapping initiatives, plans at municipal, regional or national level 2 Regulatory There are policy/regulations that support or prevent citizen

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engagement or greening of infrastructure 3 Flexibility Regulations are more flexible or organisations do not allow them to create barriers 2 Prioritisation of green infrastructure Extent to which government sees green infrastructure or community engagement with it as a priority; it may for example be seen as either a high priority or a low priority in poorer neighbourhoods 1 Governance 2 Ecosystem level governance Supports connectivity 2 Government openness to working with community 2 Engendering community trust Community trust is frequently undermined by a history of pointless consultation or unwanted development 2 Conflicting agency perspectives Engagement or greening are limited by policy/decision-making by other (usually more powerful) agency 2 Integration of efforts Ensuring the programmes are not isolated in silos but connect up (as functioning components and processes within a SES) 2 Land tenure Public, private, communal can be supportive or inhibiting 3 Asset transfer 3 Private spaces for public good Role of privately owned land in contributing to expansion of green infrastructure - note opportunities for taking the learning in communal spaces home 2 Locally connected and nationally networked organisations 2 ‘Friends of' groups A 'Friends of' group exists and is playing a role in engaging or facilitating engagement with the site 1 Supports to communities 2 Community facilitator There is a (normally salaried) individual facilitating activities who will bring people onto the site and support their engagement 2 Technical support and provision of Advice, information, materials are provided by a supporting materials organisation 2 Creation of basic physical infrastructure Institutional players create the basic structure e.g. pathways, fences & gates, planting boxes 2 Education centres + demonstration Demonstration sites that offer tours and training (often on and off site) projects and may provide materials 3 Hulme Community Garden Centre Provides training and seedlings 3 The Eden Project 3 National Wildflower Centre, Knowsley, (where Landlife is based) Liverpool 2 Exchange visits Participants visit a site that provide lessons for work at their own site or receive visitors from another site who can provide advice 2 Inspiring Places 3 Amstelveen Park (Amsterdamse Bos?) 3 Brockholes 2 Funding Funding is provided that supports engagement in some way 2 Recognition Recognition/celebration of community efforts 1 Programmes 2 Green Infrastructure Strategy (for Greater Manchester, hosted by Red Rose Forest) 2 Big Tree Plant 2 Britain in Bloom 2 Local Nature Reserves Designation of areas of everyday nature that have particular significance to local communities 2 Eco Streets 2 Greater Manchester Climate Change Strategy

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2 Manchester Eco Schools 2 SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage) 2 Access to Nature (Lottery funding) Fund administered by Natural England 2 Green Streets Street tree programme undertaken by community forests Partners: community forests, city councils, Newlands http://www.newlandsproject.co.uk/green-streets.php 2 Community Guardians Manchester City Council only? 2 Tree wardens National programme 2 Green Flag 2 Sites of biological importance Manchester based programme that recognises sites of local interest and importance 2 Newlands A Northwest Regional Development Agency and Forestry Commission scheme (http://www.newlandsproject.co.uk/), Videos at http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/forestry.nsf/byunique/infd-7qmcq8

1 Public and Social Services 2 Contributions to longer-term Municipal government agrees to maintain or support maintenance of maintenance community-initiated green infrastructure 2 Enforcement An element of enforcement is available to ensure that positive efforts are not undermined by negative ones 2 Complementary community Social services and development initiatives are in place that empower development support citizens and give them hope 0 Other considerations Includes different lens through which the situation may be viewed, which don't necessarily fit within other categories 1 Big Society Comments about how current policy supports or ignores citizen engagement in greening 1 Climate Change Role the issue plays in motivating or discouraging engagement, clarifying or confusing citizens about what they need to do 1 Children Relevant examples involving children 1 Links to health Health as a motivator or a focus of initiatives 1 Trees People's different feelings about trees 0 Projects Specifics about individual projects mentioned or visited 1 Projects outside NW 2 Island of Anglesey 2 Meanwhile Gardens, London Large diverse community gardens along Regent's Canada (visited and photographed in February 2012) 1 Sites 2 North Manchester 2 Rusholme 2 East Manchester 2 Miles Platting 2 Newton Heath 2 Whitworth Park 2 Wigan 2 Bolton 2 Moss Side Moss Cider is harvesting apples in different parts of the neighbourhood; Transition Moss Side; transformation of park 2 Fallowfield 2 Hulme 2 Northern Quarter, Manchester 2 Preston 2 South Manchester

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2 Seymour Park, Old Trafford Neglected part of park next to school 2 Little Broughton, Salford 2 Broom Avenue, Levenshulme Group of neighbours who took charge of an area behind their houses 2 Greville Street, Longsight Alleyway behind Greville Street near Dickenson Road 2 Medlock Valley 2 Weaste, Salford 2 Clayton 2 Moston Brook 2 Rochdale Canal 2 Rochdale 2 Bidston Moss Merseyside on the Wirral http://www.newlandsproject.co.uk/bidston-moss.php Partners: Newlands, Forestry Commission (http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/INFD-7GSH4U)

2 Birchfields Park 2 Brockholes 2 Chorlton Water Park 2 Clayton Vale 2 Harpurhey Ponds 2 Irk Valley 2 Kenworthy Woods Across the river from Chorlton Water Park - referred to by respondent as Kenworthy Fields 2 Kingsway Park, Trafford 2 Moston Vale Partner: Newlands 2 Knowsley, Liverpool 2 Northwood Estate, Kirkby (near Housing estate (re-housing from central Liverpool) with a sad history Liverpool) 2 Nutsford Vale, Longsight Partners: Newlands, Groundwork, Manchester City Council http://www.newlandsproject.co.uk/nutsford-vale.php 2 Partington Housing estate on the other side of Trafford where people were moved from the city of Manchester 2 Platt Fields Platt Fields Park and surrounding neighbourhood 2 St Helens Near Liverpool 2 Todmorden Particularly the work of Incredible Edible 2 Trafford Ecology Park 2 Walkden Gardens, Sale 2 Wigan Flashes The Flashes (or lakes) are a legacy of the town's industrial past and were formed as a result of mining subsidence. Some of the flashes were partially filled with colliery waste and ash from the nearby Westwood Power Station. 1 Site Types The type of site at which the intervention takes place 2 Alleyways 2 Former and current railways 2 Footpaths/cycleways 2 Vacant lots 2 Gardens 2 Parks 2 Schoolyards 2 Streets 2 Waterways

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3 Canals 3 Rivers 2 Roofs 1 Activities 2 Increasing permeability of surfaces 2 Creating wild play spaces 2 De-culverting 2 Decontaminating 2 Enhancing biodiversity 2 Ecosystem restoration 2 Green Roofs 2 Meanwhile projects Gardening or other interventions on land that is temporarily available 2 Connecting natural corridors 2 Urban Foraging e.g. Moss Cider 2 Naturalisation Of parks, vacant lots, alleyways and other corridors 3 Alleyway naturalisation Residents transform the alleyway behind their houses. In Greater Manchester this is usually facilitated by alley gating. 2 Urban regeneration 2 Tree planting and maintenance 3 Stewarding woodlands 3 Street tree planting and maintenance 3 Woodland/orchard creation in parks 2 Growing food 3 Edible Landscapes e.g. Incredible Edible 2 Youth involvement 1 Partners 2 Housing associations City South Manchester, New Charter, Harvest Homes, Adactus 2 Lancashire Wildlife Trust 2 Groundwork 2 BTCV British Trust for Conservation Volunteers 2 Mersey Forest 0 Interventions Examples of interventions that have rendered landscapes more inviting 1 Launchpads and on-going support 2 Integrated governance and programming Map and integrate the different efforts within a SES 2 Mapping of greening initiatives and inviting landscapes 2 Cared for, managed appearance The site is changed in some way so that it no longer appears neglected or derelict 2 More interesting landscapes Site is rendered more interesting, attracting curiosity and interest 3 Colour (through use of wildflower for example) 3 Providing information about interesting Responding to natural curiosity by communicating what is special and elements interesting about a place 3 Order and chaos (e.g. contrast provided by edges) 2 Initiates change process 2 Complementary skills development Sites should be matched to opportunities for education and skills educational activities development, like Manchester map for schools, bioblitzes, bat walks, etc. 2 Investment mechanisms 1 Starting from where the site is at 2 Responds to biophilic tendencies

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3 Edges Areas of high biodiversity to which people are drawn 2 Use community concerns as an entry When communities galvanise around local issues, this is picked up as point an opportunity and an entry point to engage people in change (in contrast to conventional responses to try to close down that discussion, avoid responsibility, etc.) 2 Different approaches for deprived communities 1 Welcoming citizens 2 Valuing community engagement over Investing in or recognising sites because local communities care about other criteria them even if they are of less obvious ecological significance 2 Creating spaces and activities that Such interaction action can build social capital and social learning and encourage community interaction lead to people talking about the space and what they might do in it. 2 Makes space for "guerrilla interventions" Efforts to deliberately invite or make space for interventions by citizens 2 Inclusive Approaches 2 Communications Strategy to communicate the value of the site and what is being done there 3 Outreach adapted to different sectors 3 Point of contact Informing people how to get involved--as is common in parks in NYC, and some parks in Manchester (often posted by Friends groups) 1 Shifting dominant cultural landscapes 2 Eco-revelatory Revealing both local ecological processes and connections to larger systems 2 Makes visible, interprets and celebrates through inventory (e.g. bioblitz), signposting, writing about or painting the value of everyday nature 2 Urban wildlands Ok to have places that are not inviting to most people but serve as functional habitat; connect those to the networks, inventory them from time to time -- or maybe make some existing green deserts more like urban wildlands 2 Managing for and raising awareness of Both seasonal and over time - current management practices tend to natural change limit the evolution of natural systems and give people the idea that things don't change and make them uncomfortable with change 1 Urban Laboratory 2 Adaptive Management 2 Sharing learning 1 Protecting Gains 2 Budget for on-going management 2 Enforcement Ensuring that fly tipping, etc. does not recommence

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