The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park: Thesis Summary Document Whose Values, Whose Benefits? Background, Research Methods, Findings & Recommendations

A Case Study Exploring the role of Cultural Values in Ethnic Minority Under-Representation in UK Parks.

Bridget Snaith CMLI MSc

Thesis Submitted for the Award of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Sociology, City University Bridget Snaith CMLI PhD

1 2 Introduction to the Summary Abstract

This document is a chapter by chapter summary of the Doctoral Thesis Siting the Olympics in the Lower Lea Valley has been widely represented asa entitled ‘‘The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park: Whose Values, Whose Benefits? means to improve quality of life for the ethnically diverse, deprived communities A Case Study Exploring the role of Cultural Values in Ethnic Minority Under- living there, in part through the creation of a new ‘community parkland’, the Queen Representation in UK Parks’’. The study’s author was awarded a Doctorate in Elizabeth Olympic Park. Sociology from City University in July 2015. Ethnic minorities however, are under-represented as users of parks and other The document sets out a summary of the background to the study, its theoretical green spaces across the UK, at a far greater level than can be explained by income framework, key findings of the empirical research, both quantitative and alone. Little has been done to investigate this phenomenon, despite its implications qualitative, its conclusions, and recommendations for change. The contents are for social justice and public health. Limited research has found examples of ethnic set out below. variations in normative cultural practices, racist and territorial behaviour in the public realm at large, and structural discrimination with less greenspace in the For ease of reading, and brevity, citations are generally removed, and the areas where ethnic minorities live. summary does not include appendices. The full thesis document can be obtained by contacting the author directly via email at [email protected]. It will also Aiming to address a gap in the existing research literature, this case study investigates be available shortly from the British Library. the relationship between the cultural inscription of park spaces, spatial practices of park making by the primarily ‘Anglo’ groups designing this new city space, and the experiences, preferences and values of the ethnically diverse communities who Contents Page currently live around the London Olympic site.

Abstract 3 Using a mixed methods approach, the empirical research finds that while seeking inclusion, exclusionary values are unintentionally embedded in production and Chapter Summaries: 3 management of UK parks. This thesis evidences the cultural values embedded in UK spatial practices, their exclusionary nature, along class and ethnic dimensions, Introduction and reflects on the importance of cultural consciousness in spatial design in our 5 increasingly multicultural cities. Literature Review 5

Wider Theoretical Framework 5

The Case Study Area 6

Methodology 8

Findings: The Park Preference Survey 9

Findings: Focus Groups 11

Findings: Spatial Analysis 12

Findings: Elite Interviews 17

Findings: User Observation 19

Conclusions: Whose Values, Whose Benefits at the Queen Elizabeth 20 Olympic Park 21 Parks for People: Cultural Reflexivity in Park Design and Management Image Reference Sheet 23 24

3 Introduction(Thesis Pages 15-22) Using the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as a case study, the PhD explores the relationship between practices of UK park making by spatial design ‘elites’, and park use by UK ethnic minorities. Minorities have been found to be underrepresented as park users in the UK. The catchment population surrounding the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has one of the highest percentages of people from UK minority ethnic groups anywhere in the country. The park was claimed to be one of the largest built nationally for over 100 years, in a project led by the country’s leading spatial designers. It was intended to be part of a legacy of benefits for local people that would result from staging the 2012 Games in London.

Research has found that all ethnicities in UK cities give an equal value to accessing outdoor green spaces where they live It has been proposed that observed variation in the frequency of visits to parks by ethnicity is mainly a matter of choice, due to cultural variations in leisure patterns. White ‘Anglo’ park use patterns should not be considered normative, and culturally based preferences predispose some groups of people to use parks less. However, internal cultural preferences cannot adequately explain the anomalies in park use patterns seen in different parks. Why would white British people be significantly under-represented as users of some parks compared to the catchment population, and overrepresented in others if it were just a matter of cultural predisposition to use parks in general? Similar anomalies occur in US cities.

While culturally normative use levels may well vary, despite our high hopes for public spaces as places of civil interaction and social integration, public parks and the streets of the city around them are unlikely to be unproblematically and equally open to all According to Doreen Massey, in ‘For Space’

‘public’ space unregulated leaves a heterogeneous urban population to work out for itself who really is going to have the right to be there. All spaces are socially regulated in some way, if not by explicit rules... then by the potentially more competitive ... regulation which exists in the absence of explicit ...... controls. ‘Open Space’ in that particular sense is a dubious concept. (Massey, 2005 : 152 )

The hypothesis of this research is that rights to use urban parks are contested. Parks can become dominated territories, appropriated by particular groups, whose needs, tastes and practices may be incompatible with the preferences and needs of others living locally. Park use is likely to reflect the particular social relations in a locality as well as national social heirarchies, but I argue institutional design and management of park space will tend to reinforce the UK’s dominant social hierarchy and power relations in park space.

I propose there is a strong likelihood that, symbolically and functionally, the design and management of parks by dominant Anglo-European ethnic groups, will largely create spaces that reflect their tastes, preferences, practices and underlying ideologies, diminishing both the ability and the desire of people who are not from the majority culture to claim equal rights to this contested space. Park design and management can reinforce territorial domination of space by the most powerful, marking some practices as more legitimate, negatively impacting on park enjoyment, and therefore use, by minority groups. It is hard to establish what normative use levels might be for less powerful groups in these circumstances.

The study seeks to establish an answer to the following research question

“Could people of minority ethnicities be under-represented as users of British parks because of a failure by those producing and regulating park space to recognise that their own spatial practices / preferences are culturally based, and not universally Fig 2. Urban Context of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park shared, particularly on ethnic dimensions?’’ 4 Literature Review (Thesis pages 23-51)

Through interviews with designers and senior advisors on the Queen Elizabeth The literature review for this interdisciplinary research thesis, includes published them. Parks and play spaces have been reported as among the most intimidating Olympic Park, and through design analysis, I aimed to establish if assumptions works from sociology, geography, social policy, leisure studies, environmental and most avoided spaces in the city. regarding cultural and spatial practices were made I was seeking to understand psychology and from cultural studies. Research was drawn where possible from how effective designers are in spatial formation, their motivation, andwhat the UK, supplemented by European studies, and from the large body of work While there is generally under-representation of BME users in UK parks , people benefits are prioritised in their decision making. exploring issues of ethnicity, park use and landscape preference from the US. of all ethnicities continue to make use of parks, and in some parks there isan overrepresentation of a minority ethnicity, where white British people are Through qualitative and quantitative research with local residents. particularly The first part of the literature review concentrates on research linking ethnicity significantly under-represented in comparison to their numbers in the park those from the larger ethnic groups living in the park catchment, I sought to and the use of urban green space, in particular urban parks. While there is a body catchment. Studies (mainly from the US) have shown that participants consider establish if local lived experiences, and preferences would support any decisions of research investigating leisure use of rural settings by minority communities in some parks ‘belong’ to particular ethnic groups, and that other ethnicities feel that may have been made by designers/design advisors. I was seeking to identify the UK, this review was intentionally focussed on urban contexts, more directly less welcome, echoing findings in UK literature that territories may be established if there were any substantive conflicts at a cultural or ideological level between the relevant to the case study and the research question. within cities along ethno/racial lines. Studies have not been found investigating the tastes and preferences of residents, and the working assumptions of designers/ particular contextual or place factors that result in the establishment of ethnically client advisors. The second part of the literature review critically engages with a further body of dominated territories in some urban parks, with extremes of under-representation empirical research and theory, that continues to be influential within landscape and overrepresentation of particular ethnicities, when compared to the catchment The end stage of the process was to look at early use patterns of the publicly architecture and geography. This literature investigates people’s aesthetic population. accessible areas of the park during what might be considered a time of peak use, landscape preferences, and speculates as to the reasons for them. It includes from its public opening in April 2014, through to the end of the school holidays in Prospect Refuge theory, and psychological studies of landscape perception by There is good evidence from landscape preference research literature that September 2014. From this I would be able to make a preliminary assessment of Rachel & Stephen Kaplan. This literature has relevance in relation to perceived landscape preferences are learned and not innate, that dominant , ‘legitimate’ the ethnic mix of the park’s users, and whether users are ethnically representative park quality, or landscape ‘taste’. western views of beauty in particular formations of nature exist, and that these of the surrounding population. should not be presumed universal. Theories of universal appeal of wild nature, The literature, and recent statistical information linking ethnicity and urban even in images alone, is not supported by empirical studies. Despite the clear greenspace use, confirms that ethnic minorities are generally under-represented evidence within the field to the contrary, landscape preference research shows as users of parks in the UK, when percentages of park users have been compared some persistence of theories of an instinctive basis for universal perceptions of to percentages in the population living in a park’s catchment. In some cases ‘natural’ landscape beauty. The literature makes only limited acknowledgement under-representation is extreme, for example Victoria Park to the west ofthe of embedded cultural assumptions. Theorists in this field persist in separating the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park recently provided statistics showing that while it visual from the social, and assume that man’s and nature’s interests are intrinsically has a resident catchment of approximately 30% of people claiming BME, only 3% separated and oppositional, for everyone. of its users were recorded as BME . Minorities have also been shown to visit parks less frequently than people who claim white British ethnicity, and their reduced While culturally based variations in understandings of and values for nature are frequency of visits is statistically greater than is predicted by income alone. widely evidenced, few links between landscape preferences, and behaviours in space have been explored. The literature review finds there is a focus on people Group activities in public space are found to be part of establishing and reinforcing using spaces, their culture and behaviour, which is disengaged from context in group identity, making parks potentially very important places in people’s cultural physical or symbolic space. There is also a separate body of research looking at lives. Many studies, particularly from the US, have recorded that while different representations of space, devoid of social context. There is a lack of research ethnicities have many shared pleasures in open space, different groups make engagement with places as concrete cultural and social artefacts with particularities different uses of open space, including preferences for making use of different that might be open to different interpretation, and might influence behaviour. parts of large parks. There is no evidence that preferences and behaviours of the majority white Anglo- European ethnicities studied are universally normative. This gap in the literature is the focus of this research. Within any ethnic group, cultural norms have been found to vary from place to place, subject to resistance or reinforcement at individual and group level. Some under-representation due to cultural variation in normative practices is supported in the literature, a result of choice more than some form of exclusion. It has been identified very widely in the literature, however that wilder, less maintained parks appeal a great deal less to some demographic groups than to others, along lines of both ethnicity and educational attainment, (an indicator of social class).

The research literature also indicates however, that under-representation of ethnic minorities is very unlikely to be wholly due to any ‘internal’ cultural norms or preferences, and that exclusionary processes are also at work. Most people value access to green spaces irrespective of race or ethnicity, and studies provide evidence that people from BME groups are inhibited from using parks as much as they would like. Qualitative studies record how people of minority ethnicities have cultural preferences, say for single gender spaces, or for dog free spaces, that conflict with national majority cultural preferences and expectations. People of ethnic minorities also often report wanting to make use of park spaces near where they live, but feeling excluded from them, through fear of abuse, disapproval or suspicion. They are told, or feel, that these spaces are not for them or not safe for

5 Wider Theoretical Framework(Thesis Pages 54-70) This chapter explores how the cultural background of designers might result in their producing park space that is not equally valued by or useful to people of different cultural backgrounds and beliefs. It covers the four main theoretical frameworks for the thesis: theories of space influential in contemporary academic literature, primarily those of Henri Lefebvre & Doreen Massey; theories of the historical development of an aesthetics and ideology of landscape in Britain; theories of ‘legitimate taste’ and exclusion, drawn from Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of legitimate cultural ‘capital’ and ‘habitus’, socially & culturally reproduced by education, and theories of ethnicity, culture, race, and presumptions of white ‘normativity’ primarliy from post-colonial studies. This summary briefly touches on these in turn.

Theories of space explore the relationships between ideology, society, space formation, and interpretation. A reading of space as an entity distinct from social phenomena seems to underpin much of the research reviewed in the previous chapter. Massey, Lefebvre and others discuss the importance of understanding space as a social ‘construct’ that cannot be separated from society. There is of course a material world, but nothing that surrounds us is sensed without our interpreting that sensation and attributing a meaning to it, and people with different backgrounds may interpret the same phenomena very differently. All understanding is framed by the values we have absorbed from our cultural/ social context. In that sense there is no truly objective reality.

In the modern urban world, every society’s spaces are largely created by dominant groups, in directed ways, reinforcing preferred social structures, and approved or legitimate practices. The spaces we make are a concrete expression ofour societies’ values, and can be ‘deciphered’ as such, but singular readings of any space are not realistic. Lefebvre makes a distinction between society’s eveyday ‘lived’ spatial practices, and those ‘representations of space’ - spaces asthey are ‘conceived’ by spatial designers, planners, scientists. He asserts that such Fig 3. View North Across North Park, September 2014 institutional interpreters of space imagine and promote a singular vision of space in line with the dominant views in a society. He claims that designers and scientists imagine their visions of space when built, will ultimately be experienced and understood precisely as they have intended.

An ‘empiricist’ view of space, as part of a verifiable, objective ‘real world’ of knowledge, space as a purely physical entity, devoid of theoretical, symbolic or social meaning, is claimed to be a view supported in Britain over centuries of cultural and ideological development, both by the European Enlightenment, and before that, by the processes of secularisation that began in the English Reformation of the 16th Century. An asserted objectivity of space, and its theoretical separation from society and social practices then can be viewed as part of an ideological construction, and one likely to be found in Anglo-European thinking. This body of work indicates there is a strong possibility that British spatial design experts could, in part due to culturally constructed understandings of space, fail to recognise their interpretation of new park space may not be one that is universally shared.

The second theoretical framework underpinning the thesis engages with evolution of ideas that inform contemporary British landscape space. These ideas about freedom, landscape, nature , the city and the country, have developed in Britain particularly, but are common to some extent across the Anglo-European ‘Western’ world.

The landscape ‘style’ of the original UK public parks - large areas of mown grass, glades and avenues of ornamental trees, sinuous paths to walk along, and a lake or ponds to enjoy scenically, is a predominantly pastoral ‘English Landscape’ style, and remains broadly normative in many countries . The ‘English Landscape School’, first developed an approach to landscape design in the 18th Century that was overtly Fig 4. View South Across South Park, Sptember 2014 6 political and ideological in its intent. Designers reshaped the existing landscape, The ecological aesthetic has since the 1990s also been linked to ideas of sustainable The interests of those who hold legitimate cultural capital lie in ensuring that its setting up contrived scenes, as settings for country homes, for the leisure of the urban development. It is a less intensive and seemingly ‘self sustaining’ landscape value is maintained so it can be exchanged for economic or symbolic capital that cultured; views to enjoy while strolling or driving, of a ‘natural’ landscape to style, and has the dual appeal of ‘moral’ environmental justification, and relatively is money and/ or status. Educational practice is led by those who hold, and also be intellectually admired. The new vision of landscape was allied to Protestant low long term maintenance cost, compared with other more labour demanding define, legitimate knowledge and taste, and so tends to support and reproduce discourses of the ‘natural order’ of individual liberty and mercantile capitalism. It landscape management regimes. Although an ecological approach can be justified dominant social norms. Education can in this framing be seen as tending towards was devised in direct stylistic opposition to Catholic France’s powerful monarchy, in many ways, it has been recognised even by its design advocates, that as an conservative processes reproducing and valorising values of the powerful in and the highly controlled landscapes of geometric formalism. This thinking informed amenity landscape style, the ecological aesthetic is quite widely disliked, including society, even where it may appear to produce challenge. Despite the ‘promise’ of both the ‘beautiful’ rolling pastoral parklands, sinuous lakes and wooded glades of by many from BME groups. Why this might be has not been well explored, though education being open to all cultural backgrounds or social classes, in part because ‘Capability’ Brown and Repton, and the more dramatic visions of the ‘Picturesque’ several speculative theories are presented within landscape perception literature of habitus, success in any field is not equally available to everyone. Those with less movement, whose ideals of beauty and the ‘sublime’, saw follies, and elements and tested in the empirical research here. ‘legitimate’ cultural capital at the start of the educational process are less likely of wildness, roughness, and danger adding a thrilling pleasure to the calmer to succeed than those, who by dint of their upbringing, are already fluent in the pastoral ideal. Advocates of the English Landscape style mocked formally arranged Alongside the increasing prominence of the ecological aesthetic, there has been language, preferences and values of the elite, the “fish in water” who will find it landscapes. They made truth claims that their preferred designs were intrinsically a recent rise in popularity of herbaceous perennial amenity planting, a style less of a struggle to conform to and reflect legitimate tastes in speech, manner, ‘correct’, derived from both the ‘genius locii’ - the spirit of the place - and beautiful reminiscent of the English Romantic ‘cottage garden’, or a wilder version of the forms of expression and so on. at a deep biological level, though only to those refined enough to be sensitive to herbaceous borders of the British stately home. This ‘naturalistic’, rather than those feelings. A taste for the sublime and the picturesque in particular was seen ecological style has been popularised notably by world renowned designer & Within the field of landscape architecture, and spatial production more widely, as exclusive to the wealthy, the lower classes being represented as too coarse and plantsman Piet Oudolf. Speaking at a lecture at The University of Sheffield in 2014 processes exist then that can establish and reproduce legitimate tastes, ways of vulgar to understand. The normative predominantly pastoral style of parks in most he remarks that in the early 1990s, people looking at images of his planting would thinking, that become the ‘rules of the game’ for those seeking to exchange their UK cities can be seen then, as a referent for an aspirational landscape, within a ask him what had gone wrong. They thought the garden was dying. He says now, cultural capital for economic and symbolic capital. The identity of legitimate taste specific class based discourse, and as part of a particular economic, cultural and after more than twenty years, lies with spatial designers to some extent, but also with the consumers of landscape ideological context. While widespread and influential globally, familiar to many architecture and spatial production, who provide economic and symbolic capital and open to multiple interpretations, it is a vision of beauty, that will clearly speak “..people see, recognise, something deeper than just the decorative side of (money & status) for the designers’ cultural capital. For landscape architecture, more to some. gardening” the consumer for design services is institutional, represented by officers of local (University of Sheffield, 2013) authorities or government bodies and professional clients. These institutional After the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the wild landscapes valorised in the consumers are trained in many of the same educational establishments, and in Picturesque were used to signify and became symbolic of freedom. Rugged and Like early advocates of the Picturesque movement then, contemporary designers the same values as the cultural producers. The process of spatial production then remote landscape was no longer simply an aesthetic preference. It symbolised understand their tastes are not shared, or perhaps ‘understood’ by everyone. could be argued to be producing Bourdieu’s ‘fish in water’. the independent individuality that was considered the highest moral state of man. Appreciation has to be, and can be learned. Aspects of the sublime were incorporated into English Romanticism, and there was The preferences of those outside the institutionalised processes of taste formation growing identification of the ‘free soul’ with the solitude of ‘wild ‘places. In the How tastes are learned, and by whom, is also explored theoretically in this chapter. or value exchange, the ‘ordinary’ people, especially those outside dominant nineteenth century, critique of the city by Ruskin and others helped absorb a new According to sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, social power structures are maintained groups, who will be making use of the spaces designed for them, have little scope urban industrialist class into the conservative values and practices of the rural elites. partly through processes of cultural reproduction, including education, where to impact in the current system. As cities grew, and fewer people actually lived and worked in the countryside, the ‘legitimate’ tastes, forms of cultural ‘capital’ such as knowledge of preferred rural landscape in general came to be understood as scenery and views, a kind of literature, or art for example, are learned. The values transmitted and ‘truths’ If, as the literature on landscape preference and park use to date indicates, there ‘visual refreshment’, and emblematic of historic British values. Towns were (and still legitimated by dominant groups are arbitrary to the culture, though this does not are differing practices or preferences in park use and design, in understandings of are) conceived as threatening to engulf ‘unspoilt’ and ‘true’ historic British values mean they are without merit. city, country and nature along social class or ethnic lines then, well intentioned that were found in an imagined historic rural life. The continued importance of the processes of landscape taste transformation enacted through the media, or as a countryside as the aspirational home of the English, in preference to the perceived Bourdieu uses the term ‘habitus’ to describe how each individual’s minds, ideas matter of course at educational institutions across the UK, could be experienced grime and depravity of the city, must be contrasted with other European cultures and even bodies are socially structured in and by their social context, the cultural by park users or minority students , who value different forms of cultural capital, (and those further afield) who more typically associate the countryside with setting in which they are ‘situated’ . The habitus - the way we talk, stand or dress is who have different priorities for spaces, different readings of nature or the city, as backwardness, and view the city as the centre of culture, power and sophistication. a mark of belonging to a particular social group. It can be read by others, placing us a kind of invalidation and disempowerment. in relation to them. When we are surrounded by the social context or field of our Nostalgia and loss that is argued to suffuse the UK’s ideological relationship formation, with people who are like us, we are less aware of our habitus. We find it Many theorists in post-colonial, cultural, ethnic and race studies have explored the between city and country is seen too in contemporary discourses of urban planning. easy to ‘naturalise’ our views, imagine them universal truths. Bourdieu describes idea of white cultural normativity being claimed by Westerners as ‘universal truth’, Universal style & uniformity, hallmarks of modernism blamed for the 80s ‘crisis’ of this as being like a “fish in water”. framed as reality; rationality, rather than ideology. In some way, white cultures are the inner city, are replaced by recovering a ‘lost’ sense of territorial ‘place’ identity, represented by white people as not there, absent, and unquestionable. The final urban ‘community’, and public space. The city is re-imagined into urban villages - Outside our formative context though, it can feel hard to fit in - critiques for section of this research’s theoretical framework focusses on theories of power and a kind of return to (mythical) origins, that legitimises the commodification of place exhibiting the incorrect values or unacceptable behaviours can be harsh. Our cultural relationships as they intersect with race, ethnicity and identity. identity in ways that are claimed authentic, even where new development entirely tastes or ideals may be denigrated, deemed illegitimate. Bourdieu calls verbal acts obliterates the previous land uses. of correction ‘symbolic violence’ and theorises that constant critique of incorrect Race & ethnicity are contested terms. Within the context of this research, I have thinking, alongside valorisation of legitimate tastes, is an ongoing process of social linked the terms ethnicity, and culture, and defined culture as ‘’ a learned complex The the rise of a new ‘ecological’ aesthetic, in North American, British and Northern formation throughout our lives. We can be concious of, and change aspects of our of knowledge, belief, art, morals, law and custom’’ . I argue there is good reason to European culture, promoting wilder spaces in the city, and in some instances habitus, learn new forms of capital, but it is not an easy or painless process. It look for meaningful cultural (or sub cultural) group norms that are linked to some celebrating biodiverse marginal land, combines the Romantic aesthetic appeal of requires motivation, as it can mean losing membership of formative social groups. ethnic categorisations, however I do not imagine these will be individually defining, contact with wild ‘natural’ landscapes , and offers opportunities to ‘authentically’ Spatial design education relishes its ritual of public praise or shaming, in the ‘crit’, or fixed either for all time or across all spaces. Cultures do evolve and vary. differentiate place. Through a collective imagination of an idealised rural past, and or critique of students’ design work, but changing tastes in the context of a group emblematic of the power of nature to resist domination by man, the incorporation who wish to learn and can see the potential reward is easier than changing tastes Can culture really be mapped meaningfully on to ethnicity? Ethnicity in the UK of ecological landscape into contemporary urbanism arguably offers a means of or ideologies outside an institutional setting. People may be able to learn new census is inconsistently detailed, and in some instances only racially identified. For evoking continuity, scientifically ‘restoring ‘ a symbolic connection with earlier tastes, but they may be more motivated not to. instance, the classifications ‘Other White’ and ‘Black African’ are not measures in times. 7 The Case Study Area (Thesis Pages 71-91) any sense of a single culture. Geographically based national identity which would unknowable, however, while there is great diversity, there are also very large have some kind of cultural validity, such as white British, or British Bangladeshi, also This chapter defines & justifies the size of the case study area, which isthe numbers of people claiming to belong to ethnic groups that are arguably culturally seems extremely unlikely to be able to determine the tastes or ideals of everyone speculative catchment area of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park from the time of coherent, and longstanding in their neighbourhoods. To illustrate this point, of in that grouping, irrespective of gender, social class, caste, language , education, the competition site’s identification. This is the theoretical scope of the park’s long the106 community languages in the Tower Hamlets survey mentioned previously or individual life story. term residential catchment, from the start of the process of design. The chapter only three were spoken by more than 1 % of pupils: Bengali - 59.28%, English also explores various aspects of the case study context, including demography and – 28.30%, Somali – 2.42%. All other languages included in the total of 106 were At the same time though I argue the hegemonic discourse of the powerful in any economy, and the case itself as an example of UK park production. It examines spoken by less than 1% of the population. society or group will have influence. Even if we live or work in a very ethnically the processes of park development, the decision making and political context, mixed neighbourhood, with access to many cultures, and many social classes, the Olympic context, the processes of design team selection, of consultation, and In most of the 11 wards within the inner study area, (Fig 5) the most frequently to global media and so on, we may not be exposed to, or open to, all available funding. It sets the scene for the empirical strategy, and the research findings that claimed ethnicity recorded in the 2011 Census, is white British on average 27% of influences. As children, our parents are likely to seek to ensure the reproduction follow. the population. The majority population, the other 73%, is therefore of people who of their values, speaking in a particular ways, controlling our access to space, do not consider themselves ethnically white British. In two wards, Bromley by Bow sending us to particular schools, religious and cultural institutions or ensuring our The catchment population’s ethnic mix was identified using ward level statistics and Mile End East, the most frequently claimed ethnicity is British Bangladeshi/ participation in approved social events and activities. If we are exposed mainly to based on UK Census data initially from 2004 then from 2011. An inner catchment, Bangladeshi, though again at under 45% this is not a majority, and these wards still culturally and ideologically homogenous environments, we may be exposed only identified as the area in reasonable walking distance of the Olympic site boundary, house a very culturally mixed population. to hegemonic discourse and practice, from which we will doubtless find significant from which most frequent visitors might be drawn (1.6km), and the London influence. We may also be shaped by our exclusion by others, and we may feel Plan identified catchment for the park (3.2km) were both recorded. Ethnicity Nevertheless the larger cultural groups I argue would be worthy of consideration most comfortable with or find more emotional support from friends who share our statistics using census classifications were tabulated, to identify any large ethnic in the design of the Olympic Park if it were to be locally responsive. Of the ethnic experiences and values, or endure similar exclusion. In these ways, sub cultures populations present, that might arguably be culturally distinctive. These would groups that are arguably likely to have some cultural coherence, people claiming can be protected, reinforced and reproduced, even in multicultural and highly represent a cultural demography of the park’s potential audience that would have British white, British Bangladeshi, and British Caribbean ethnicities are more than mobile societies. Viewed in this way, I argue that there is good reason to look for been identifiable to the design team prior to design and construction, and also 10% of the catchment population within the wider 3.2km catchment, more than meaningful cultural (or sub cultural) group norms in some census ethnic groupings. those that might reasonably be expected to wish to use the park most often, after 50,000 people would claim each ethnicity. At ward level, a 10% population in any Cultural effects on behaviour will not be universal, but this does not mean that its opening. typical ward represents roughly between 1100 and 1700 people, in an area which there are no meaningful collectivities, no ways of thinking that are shared, that would take less than 20 minutes to walk across. People claiming white British , influence many. Nor does it preclude the existence of any widespread practices or The total population is over one hundred and fifty thousand people in the inner British Bangladeshi, British Pakistani, and British Caribbean ethnicity, are all from understandings of space across many collectivities, for example those allied with a area, and almost five hundred thousand people in the wider catchment. The area groups that form more than 10% of the population in some wards within the inner particular religion. Although these cultural understandings will not be temporally has one of the most ethnically diverse populations in the UK. For example, a study catchment area. British Indian residents form more than 10% of the population in or spatially fixed, or individually defining, some ethnic groups as described in the by Tower Hamlets in 2008 reported a total of 106 languages being spoken within 4 wards in the outer catchment (See thesis p75) . census then, can arguably ‘map’ onto cultural differences at least at a normative its school population. This might encourage a view that the values or cultural level, and for some individuals but not for all. preferences of the catchment population would be so heterogeneous as to be In racial terms only, other significant populations are those claiming to be of ‘other white’ ethnicities, on average 13% of the inner catchment, and those claiming African or other Black ethnicities, also on average 13% of the inner catchment (more than 15,000 people within each group). There is some variation in the wider catchment. This statistical information does not have cultural content, but is pertinent to measures of park use gathered typically, as physical indicators are Ward with over 50% developed area inside 1.6km radius Bow East East Bow West Bow Bow By Bromley Cathall Green Grove Park King's Leyton East End Mile & New Stratford Town Wick Ham West 1.6km TOTALS often used as a proxy for ethnic representation. However if park use here is to be All Usual Residents (Persons)1 14,781 12,939 14,480 12,700 14,604 11,098 14,184 13,354 17,768 11,734 15,551 153,193 representative of the catchment population, for both inner and outer catchments, 1 %White; English/ Welsh/ Scottish/ Northern Irish /British (Persons) 47.7 47.7 21.5 20.3 22.6 23.5 18.8 24.1 20.9 34.8 19.1 27% using physical indicators asa proxy, one would anticipate around 40% of users to 1 %White; Irish (Persons) 1.9 2 0.9 1.3 1.7 1.8 1.3 1.1 1.3 2 0.8 1% be from white ethnicities, 60% from non white ethnicities. (User statisitics are 1 %White; Gypsy or Irish Traveller (Persons) 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.3 0.7 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0 0% discussed in more detail in this summary p21, and in thesis Chapter 10 ). 1 %White; Other White (Persons) 10.4 9.5 7.1 17.3 22.2 11.9 16.2 8.6 18.2 11.1 14.6 13% 1 %Mixed/Multiple Ethnic Groups; White and Black Caribbean (Persons) 2 1.6 1.3 1.9 1.1 2.4 1.7 1.4 1.5 2.9 2.2 2% 1 %Mixed/Multiple Ethnic Groups; White and Black African (Persons) 0.7 0.6 0.6 1.2 1 1.3 1.1 0.3 1.4 1.2 1.1 1% 1 %Mixed/Multiple Ethnic Groups; White and Asian (Persons) 1.2 1.3 0.9 0.8 1 0.9 0.8 0.8 1 0.9 1.1 1% 1 %Mixed/Multiple Ethnic Groups; Other Mixed (Persons) 1.5 1.4 1.1 1.6 2.2 2.1 1.5 1 1.6 1.8 2.2 2% 1 %Asian/Asian British; Indian (Persons) 2 1.7 1.5 4.6 5 2.9 3.7 1.9 8 1.4 6.4 4% 1 %Asian/Asian British; Pakistani (Persons) 0.6 0.5 1 11 11.9 1.3 13.7 1 4.2 0.6 3.6 4% 1 %Asian/Asian British; Bangladeshi (Persons) 17.1 21.2 44.9 4.3 3.3 2.8 2.8 43.2 8.1 2.6 11.3 15% 1 %Asian/Asian British; Chinese (Persons) 1.5 1.8 2.5 1.2 1.5 1.1 1.3 1.9 3.1 1.3 1.5 2% 1 %Asian/Asian British; Other Asian (Persons) 1.6 1.7 2.2 4.3 5.2 2.4 4.8 2.1 4.8 2.8 6.5 3% 1 %Black/African/Caribbean/Black British; African (Persons) 3.9 2.9 5.7 12.4 6.3 20.1 12.2 5.4 12.8 16.2 15.5 10% 1 %Black/African/Caribbean/Black British; Caribbean (Persons) 3.9 2.8 3.5 9.2 7.2 13.2 10.5 3.3 6 10.4 6.9 7% 1 %Black/African/Caribbean/Black British; Other Black (Persons) 1.8 1.5 2.8 3.6 2.3 6.6 4.5 1.6 2.5 5.2 3.5 3% 1 %Other Ethnic Group; Arab (Persons) 0.8 0.6 1.1 2.2 1.9 0.9 1.8 0.9 1.9 0.9 1.5 1% 1 %Other Ethnic Group; Any Other Ethnic Group (Persons) 1.2 1.1 1.4 2.7 3.2 4 3.1 1.1 2.1 3.4 2.2 2% 99.9 100 100.1 100 99.9 99.9 99.9 99.9 99.7 99.9 100 100%

Fig 5. Inner catchment Ward Level statistics: ethnicity, ONS 2011 8 Methodology (Thesis Pages 93-102)

The case study in social research typically uses a mixed methods approach. This case study is no exception. No single method could identify whether there is any relationship between landscape style and use, culturally based preferences for landscape, spatial practices and underlying values of residents and designers at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Sub questions were devised to assist in operationalising the primary question

• What values and tastes for parks are expressed by people of different ethnicities within the catchment of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park? • What values and tastes are represented in the park spaces as built, and described by spatial producers? • Who has been responsible for the spatial configuration of the new park spaces? • What influences are represented, beyond the control of designers? • Are spatial designers aware of their own culturally situated or partial thinking? • Who benefits most from the spaces created?

To identify the potential benefits of the park design, in terms of likely spatial preference, and actual use, quantitative methods, namely questionnaire survey and user counts have been undertaken. To understand the possible reasons for park consumers preferences and use patterns, and park producers influences, intentions and concerns, qualitative methods that can delve into the motivation for actions were deemed most applicable. Focus groups were conducted with community members, interviews with spatial producers, and a basic spatial analysis of the built spaces was carried out, (focussed on factors that might influence of BME under-representation), with reference to empirical spatial research, and to landscape design history. Assumptions regarding landscape style were verified by two independent landscape architects. Other research methods employed were validated in accordance with methodological and ethical standards for social research applied within a UK academic context.

Claimed Ethnicity Frequency Percent Valid Cumulative Percent Percent

white British 40 17.2 17.3 17.3

British Asian/ Bangladeshi/Bangladeshi 37 15.9 16.0 33.3

British Asian Pakistani/Pakistani 22 9.5 9.5 42.9

British Asian Indian/ Indian 13 5.6 5.6 48.5

British Asian (south Asian) 11 4.7 4.8 53.2

British black African/African 22 9.5 9.5 62.8

British black Caribbean/Caribbean 34 14.7 14.7 77.5

British mixed heritage 16 6.9 6.9 84.4

Other European 14 6.0 6.1 90.5

Other Australasian 1 .4 .4 90.9

Other North American 1 .4 .4 91.3

Other South American 1 .4 .4 91.8

Other Middle Eastern 4 1.7 1.7 93.5

Other Asian (Pacific Rim) 2 .9 .9 94.4

Other 4 1.7 1.7 96.1

British English black 9 3.9 3.9 100.0

Total 231 99.6 100.0

Missing 1 .4

Total 232 100.0

Table 6.1 Respondents Ethnic/ Cultural Background Fig 6. Potential Inner Catchment & Outer Catchment, 2003. Built Inner Catchment 2012 9 Fig 7. Survey Respondents Claimed Ethnicity These pictures are of parks in the UK, including some in London. If they were all within 10 minutes walk of your house, which do you think you’d want to visit the most? You can mark more than one.

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

Fig 8. Park Preference Survey, Image Sheet 10 Findings: Park Preference Survey (Thesis Pages 103-116) Data gathered alongside park preferences included age, gender, educational popular selections were of parks with ‘natural’ unmodified plant forms. The park Photographic representation of landscape is a technique that has been used background, languages spoken at home, employment status, home responsibilities closest to an ecological aesthetic (Fig 8 Image 8), called ‘Wildflower/Wasteland’ or particularly in establishing landscape preference. The survey used photographic and claimed ethnicity /cultural heritage. The demographic factors recorded had ‘Meadow’ in the analysis, was the least popular, selected by 15%, only 35 of the images of parks chosen as representations of particular landscape design styles, been found influential in previous studies , and would also provide an indication of 232 respondents. with characteristics thought to influence preference based on the literature review. forms of capital likely to be available to individuals. The demographic information In order to address my own critique of preference research more generally, where sheet accompanying the image sheet is on thesis p258. Following on from the overall preference analysis, results were further analysed to decontextualised landscapes are presented for judgement of beauty, prioritising look for patterns of association between park image preferences, and a range of the visual, this survey presents a very clear social /use context. The question posed Quota sampling was used to gain enough participants of the identified ethnic demographic factors - age, gender, education and ethncity (Thesis pages 105 -116). was carefully phrased: ‘’If all these parks were within a 10 minute walk of your groups for statistical analysis. Although the sample was not based on probability Where sample sizes allowed, analysis of the intersectional (or combined) effects of home, which would you want to visit most?’’ sampling techniques, steps were taken, in accordance with approved social ethnicity and education, and ethnicity and gender was also carried out. research methods, to ensure that the achieved sample represented diversity All images are of publicly accessible landscapes in the UK, to ensure appropriateness within the main ethnic groups. Age seems to have some small influence, but gender , and whether or not the in terms of plant growth and weather conditions. Three of the parks were in respondents have attended university are associated more strongly than age, London, but photographic editing was used, (notably at Thames Barrier Park) Survey activities took place through ‘gatekeeper’ organisations - schools, with choice or rejection of particular images, supporting findings of landscape to remove all easily recognised landmarks, and allow the parks to be somewhat community centres - away from the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park or other large preference studies included in the literature review. The impact of University generic. No identifying names or other titles for the images were given onthe parks in the catchment. It was important to gain views from residents who might education was not consistent when controlled for ethnicity, and this is discussed in be considered representative of the surrounding population, but had no known more detail below. questionnaire. perennial disposition towards or against the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and no already 80 Images were selected to assess preferences across a range of content and style identified preferences towards parks and green spaces. Additionally, itwas The claimed ethnicity of the respondents was found to have the greatest influence intended that the survey should be 70completed by participants across a range of on park image preferences, affecting the selection of seven out of nine images factors. geometric richmond ethnic backgrounds, but with similar60 educational levels, similar gender balance, to a greater than 95% certainty that this association could be generalised to the and similar age range in each group, as these demographic factors might impact • pastoral vs picturesque (anthropocentric / ecocentric) 50 wider population, and with a stronger effect on behaviour than for any ofthe • ecological vs ornamental / gardenesque planting style preferences. The effects observed must reasonably be attributable to claimed other demographic attributes tested. The analysis included only participants 40 • formal /geometric park layout vs naturalistic / romantic layout ethnic/cultural background. who had claimed an ethnicity that might be argued to be culturally coherent, and • ‘manicured’ plants vs natural plant forms (controlled versus romantic) 30 represented all the main ethnic groups in the catchment area, identified through • buildings vs no buildings Two hundred and thirty two valid 20 questionnaire surveys were included in the the ward level statistics. Percentage preferences by ethnicity are set out in a spider • enclosed vs expansive views thamesanalysis, barrier completed by people living and/or working in the catchmentmarsh area of diagram below, visually representing a kind of ‘field’ of landscape tastes (Fig 10). 10 • colour/ flowers vs greens / browns the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park between May 2012 and October 2013. The Although a range of planting and spatial qualities were included in the park images • paths /seating vs no clear paths or seats participants ethnic/cultural backgrounds0 were grouped based on their claimed for preference testing, the common features of park spaces most preferred by ethnicity, and are set out in Figure 7. Most participants had been educated white British people are those containing naturalistic plant forms, and informal The questionnaire placed the images in the context of parks for use, and also brought entirely in the UK (72%), a further 7% had been partly educated here. Therefore or naturalistic spatial arrangements. For the other ethnic groups included in the together the idea of a ‘most’ favourite park space, with the notion of likelihood the majority of respondents have spent most of their childhood years here, and study, parks displaying naturalistic plant forms are generally least popular, but both of frequent visits. The survey was intended to be attractive, straightforward, consequently have had opportunity to experience the parks, wider landscape, naturalistic and formal layouts are among the most preferred selections. The vegetation, customs and climate of the UK over many years. A little overhalf enjoyable, and quick to complete. It gathered preferences in ways that did not neoclassical meadow the participants speak only English at home, and despite living in an areawith require participants to spend time understanding rankings or in choosing a single white british perennial high indices of deprivation and low educational attainment, through purposive preference. Participants could mark as many of the images as they wished, and 80 marked a cross or tick on the chosen images directly. The aim was to maximise sampling 45% of respondents had attended (and a small number were attending) pakistani university. This compares with reported national levels of between 26% and 35%. 70 returns and minimise participant confusion or differing interpretations of complex indian geometric richmond instructions. The images sheet of the questionnaire was provided at A3 paper size 70% of surveys includedst james in the sample were completedbrownian by female participants. 60 caribbean to participants, and is illustrated in Fig 8. This gender balance was fairly consistent across all ethnic groups, though there 50 were exceptions. Those claiming Bangladeshi ethnicity were almost equally men bangladeshi and women; those who claimed British Asian (south Asian) ethnicity were 90% 40 women. The implications of gender were explored in the analysis. Over 80% of the 30 Image reference No. Frequency selected not selected frequency frequency ranking by % by % selected respondents were aged between 18 and 50, with the remainder fairly equally split 20 not selected between under 18s, and over 50s. Only two participants included in the analysis thames barrier marsh 10 St James's Park (4) 1 58 42 134 98 were aged over 65. 0 Geometric garden (6) 2 51 49 118 114 The results were entered into SPSS software, and Chi-square tests were carried Brownian (1) 3 44 56 103 129 out, to assess whether there were any significant relationships between variables, Thames Barrier Park 4 38 62 89 143 for example age of participants, and their landscape preferences, or whether the (2) pattern of results was due to chance alone. Where a Chi-square value of less than Neoclassical 5 25 75 59 173 0.05 showed there was a greater than 95% chance that the relationships observed (9) neoclassical meadow would be seen in the area population generally, these were further tested to assess Richmond Park (5) 6 23 77 54 178 white british the strength of the association using Cramers V values. The average respondent Perennial flower garden (3) 7 22 78 51 181 across the sample selected 3 images, rejecting 6. If all landscape styles were equally pakistani Marsh 8 20 80 47 185 popular, one might expect then that 33% of respondents or 77 people would choose (7) indian any individual image. Figure 9 summarises the overall preferences of the sample. Wildflower/Wasteland 9 15 85 35 197 st james brownian (8) St James’s Park (Fig 8, Image 4) and the ‘Geometric Garden’ (Fig 8 Image 6) were caribbean the most popular selections, chosen by more than 50% of respondents. The least Fig 9. Overall Park Preference Survey Result Fig 10. Percentage Park Preference by Claimed Ethnicity bangladeshi Table 6.2 Overall Sample Park Preferences 11

Findings: Focus Groups (Thesis Pages 118-157) finding that a taste for ‘wilder’ more romantic landscapes is not shared byall wintry aspect, tending towards the romantic and sublime. It is the most popular the UK’s ethnic groups supports findings of many previous studies in the UK selection for university attendees/graduates claiming white British ethnicity, and The focus groups each comprised between four and ten people. In any group most included in the literature review. .The presence of buildings, does not seem to be second most popular selection for all white British respondents. It is among the participants knew each other, and some were friends. The groups were formed in a major determining preference factor for any group. There is no support found least popular images selected by almost all other groups, and particularly among of participants claiming mainly British Bangladeshi heritage (Poplar, Bromley by for Appleton’s Prospect Refuge theory nor the Kaplan’s abstracted landscape Bangladeshis. The likelihood that this preference’s association with ethnicity Bow), white British heritage (Lower Clapton), British Caribbean heritage (Hackney), preference matrix The presence of paths leading around the corner, or a rough would not be found in the wider population is less than 1 in a million. British Somali heritage (Victoria Park), and one group of mixed British Asian heritage ground surface has no consistent impact on park image preference. (Leyton). No participant had lived in the UK for less than 15 years. All the groups had Returning to other demographic factors, university attendance is generally at least some participants who were in work, and from working households, with A The image which shows the greatest variation in selection across different groupings associated with more frequent selection of images of a less ‘manicured’ or more level, higher vocational or academic qualifications, and all participants could speak is Richmond Park, (Fig 7 Image 5). Stylistically representing a ‘picturesque’ ‘romantic’ landscapes. However, when intersectionality between university English well enough to participate actively in the discussions. All groups had an landscape image, the photograph was purposely chosen for the landscape’s bleak, education and ethnicity was investigated, the association between a preference ethnic ‘focus’ but the Leyton & Bromley By Bow groups included both Bangladeshi for wilder landscapes was found to be significant only in white British participants, and Pakistani heritage British Asians. white British for whom there was a far stronger effect on behaviour than had been seen in the 80% whole sample (Fig 11 ) . More graduates in the British Caribbean sample chose the The most open and effective focus groups are similar across demographic variables 70% Brownian landscape than non graduates, but this was not statistically significant. that are also shared with the moderator. To this end, all the groups were planned 60% to be single gender, of working age, and all but one of the groups (Poplar) was 50% The most consistently rejected image across all the analysis is that of the Wildflower/ formed of women with pre and primary school age children or grandchildren in 40% Wasteland or Meadow (Fig 8, Image 8), representing the contemporary ‘ecological their care. The size of the focus groups meant the views of participants might 30% aesthetic’, with artwork in corten steel referencing post-industrial sublime. It is the not be representative of wider culturally based views and practices in the locality. 20% least frequently selected image overall, selected by 15% of respondents, by 14% However the benefit of case study research method is it allows triangulation (or 10% of women, by only 8% of people who have not attended university, 9% of people cross comparison) of results. Findings could be triangulated not only between claiming British Caribbean ethnicity and 5% of people claiming British Bangladeshi 0% focus groups, but with preference survey and park use observation data, as well ethnicity. It is however equal in popularity to St James’s Park among white British with previous research, supporting claims made for culturally normative ideologies people who have attended university, being selected by 50% of this group. The and behaviours I argue that while any view represented as normative would be strength of this latter association is the strongest found in the data. widely known, and typically supported, there would be individual variation and contestation around it. There was no presumption in looking for group norms that uni (24) non uni (16) This finding, allied with findings of other European studies cited in the thesis, these ideas would be fixed for all time or in all places. supports a theory that the most educated and powerful groups in Anglo European British Caribbean cultures have tended to valorise as normative a ‘romantic’ or ecocentric taste in The meetings were around an hour in length, and discussions were semi structured. 80% landscape. This ontology is not universally shared, even within the white majority Primary topic questions included the purpose of parks, childhood experiences 70% culture . The finding indicates a greater likelihood that landscape preferences in outside space, memories of being in beautiful places, culturally important 60% particularly for ‘ecological’ landscapes are learned, socially constructed, and landscapes, preferences in sport and leisure, self reported freedom of movement 50% not universal or instinctive as has been claimed. This finding also challenges an in the city, and perceived freedom to use park space. At the end of the discussion 40% assumption made in Community Green and Urban Green Nation that ‘biodiversity’ photographic images of parks were discussed, including the survey images, to 30% can be a wholly objective measure of park quality, if the purpose of parks is primarily try to understand more about possible motivations behind survey choices. The 20% to provide attractive outdoor space for the enjoyment of people, irrespective of discussions were transcribed, and analysed thematically using NVIVO software, 10% background. using a theoretical framework drawn from Bourdieu which identified forms of 0% capital, (cultural, economic and social), and identified use of symbolic violence or There is clearly individual variation within the survey results, however the approval within the group, to identify arguably culturally normative understandings significant associations in the findings indicate strongly that there are preferences of nature and landscape. The coding frame is included in the thesis (Thesis p270). for park landscape styles that are not wholly idiosyncratic, but associated with cultural background. They are identifiable, and different Ethnicity has a greater uni (15) non uni (18) All participants had used, and spoke positively about parks. There were common role in landscape taste than age, gender or education. The findings support a areas of agreement and common spatial practices described across all groups. hypothesis that landscape style might play a role in the under-representation of There were also individual variations and preferences, and importantly, there were British Bangladeshi people from minority ethnicities in UK parks, particularly landscapes with more discernably different ways of representing parks and their role in everyday life 80% naturalistic planting management regimes. within the different groups, providing evidence to support an hypothesis of varying 70% ethnically based ‘legitimate’ tastes. 60% The most consistently preferred image across all the different analyses is that of 50% St James’s Park, stylistically representing a Victorian park with some ‘gardenesque’ 40% styling. It is among the most frequently selected park images across the whole What Parks are For. 30% sample, and only falls outside the top three for one group - people claiming One of the primary questions used to stimulate discussion in all groups was “What 20% white British ethnicity who have attended university, for whom it drops to fourth are parks for?”, a deliberately open and slightly provocative question that allowed 10% place. However if stylistic preferences were proposed to be the only significant consideration of practical, social or symbolic functions of parks. 0% determining factor in park use, the similarly styled Victoria Park’s ethnically skewed visitor numbers would be difficult to explain, . Focus groups and spatial analysis There was some commonality in discussions on the functional role of parks in were subsequently employed to establish why people chose images as they did, spatial practices across all groups, though the emphasis of these functions in the if these preferences seem likely to impact on use at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic discussion varied from group to group. Many different parks were known, and Park , and what other aspects of park design or management might affect park uni (12) non uni (25) parks were used by all participants. All agreed that parks were there to provide preferences and use. places outside for children to play, for regular nuclear family activities, for occasional Fig 11. Percentage Park Preference by Ethnicity & Education 12 extended family activities, for recreation and sports, and for eating outside.

There was a kind of commonly understood hierarchy of urban park typologies that many participants referenced when asked what they considered parks were for. It constituted the ‘typical’ neighbourhood park, with a limited range of spaces and facilities, and a larger scale urban park that would perhaps be more distant, and used for more special occasions. The groups in Leyton and Clapton also made frequent use of a third type of park space that could be characterised as a ‘country park’. One group, the Hackney group, generally had strongly negative views of this type of space.

Different experiences had influenced different representations of the same parks, even within the same groups, leading to some contestation particulalry of spaces in the Lea Valley where the Olympics are sited - an area of species rich grassland, old industrial infrastructure, marshes and canals. There was evidence of strongly negative feelings and some controversy in all groups regarding provision for dogs in parks, discussed in greater detail below.

Beyond the programmatic or functional purpose of park spaces, there were subtle but identifiable differences in how the groups accepted or challenged views of a more abstract role for parks in city life. For most Islamic participants, the park was represented both as a place for active recreation, for and with children, and as a restorative space to relax, to not work, or ‘do’ anything. Parents used it for ‘time off’ while children were safely occupied. Those without children could find a place to just be Fig 12 Fountains Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, South Park April 2014 ‘’Open spaces ...., for you to enjoy, to unwind, especially in Tower Hamlets, big blocks, it’s a very overcrowded situation. It’s your escape place,..... it is a place In contrast, the Hackney group, a group of British women of Caribbean heritage, distinctive discourses on nature and landscape developed in Europe and North to socialise, to have fun, get fresh air, yeah. Even for myself. I see other mums. mostly did not find green space or nature restorative. They only supported America in the 18th and 19th Century. One is the ‘Romantic’ discourse of reverence It’s good!’’ representations of parks as a place for active recreation and sociability for adults or for wildness and ‘untouched’ wilderness, where ‘pure’ nature was first represented (Victoria Park) young people, and as play places for children. Calmness was not required, British as a direct revelation of God’s Glory to be marvelled at, informing a taste for nature was not valorised, walking and admiring views were seen as pointless. Parks ‘sublime’ awe-inspiring landscapes expressing the power and forces of nature. The The absence of other people was not desired, or required for this type of ‘escape’ were not represented as useful places for replenishment or spiritual refreshment. other represents an ‘enlightenment mentality’ where nature is revered, but man and for most participants in these groups, an opportunity for sociability wasa has a responsibility to improve and control it, a view allied with a more ‘pastoral’ component of a park’s attractiveness. This type of use was typically close to home, “ I would go..., with a bunch of friends, if they have barbie or something, and I visions of landscape beauty. In recent landscape preference research these views the amount of space required was not large, and being physically still was part of will come and meet you, but me personally to say I’m going to do something, to correspond broadly with positions termed ‘Ecocentric’ and ‘Anthropocentric’. the objective. In mainly British Bangladeshi groups, and the Victoria Park group, the say “Oh yes let’s go to the park” No I wouldn’t” green-ness and ‘’freshness’’ of an outdoor space, was not just a visual but a more (Hackney) Then, there are discourses of country and city: The historically English cultural ‘pro embodied physical sensation, associated with differences in colour, temperature, - countryside’ norm, where the countryside (both wild and/or pastoral) is imagined humidity and air quality. These characteristics were frequently represented as a key Only one participant in Hackney identified they would think of visiting a park as as desirable place, away from the crowds, squalor and depravity of the city, where aspect of beauty and attraction in landscapes, and were themselves represented place just to relax and be calm. She represented herself as distinct from group rural landscapes are experienced as a visual spectacle and leisure resource. This as restorative. A strong association between freshness, greenness (specifically as norms, and adopted a slightly theatrical comic attitude to recount her enjoyment contrasts with a more typical ‘pro - city’ view from other cultures, of city life as opposed to browner dry or dead vegetation) and a place of beauty were present of green spaces. Contributions on these lines from this individual were contested, sophisticated, cultured and civilised, the countryside less attractive, its brutish way in all discussions with British Bangladeshi participants. Whether greenness was met with raucous laughter and expressions of disagreement or disbelief. of life representing ignorance or basic existence. needed for beauty, or if it looked ‘un-natural’ was a focus of prolonged contestation between the lone British Bangladeshi participant and three British Pakistani The Clapton group also strongly emphasised the role of parks as spaces of active These discourses indicate there are likely to be many different ideologies or women in the Leyton group. This was one of several strongly marked differences in recreation. As with all the other focus groups , when visiting parks with the family ontologies that inform thinking on parks and nature in contemporary multicultural landscape taste between British Bangladeshi and British Pakistani participants that finding things for everyone to do was clearly important. The parks with the best London. I used them as a kind of preliminary framework within which to attempt emerged through the focus groups, and were echoed in the findings of the park play facilities for different age groups and leisure space for parents had the greatest to locate ontological ‘norms’ that emerge from focus group discussion. Subject preference survey. appeal. However this group also saw some parks or urban landscapes as potential prompts were developed from them to try to understand what landscape ideals, if places of escape, but unlike the groups at Victoria Park, Bromley by Bow and Poplar, any, might inform the participants preferences and spatial practices in park space. Although nature, in some form, was a restorative for all these groups, for all Islamic the escape being sought was more a prolonged, into extensive, less maintained participants, many experiences of green or park spaces were far from restorative spaces that arguably offered a simalcrum of rural experiences, represented as not Two groups, Leyton and Lower Clapton, seemed to support a view of the countryside or calm. Discussion frequently moved to problematic aspects of sharing park space really ‘of’ the city. A place with freedom to roam. as pleasurable leisure resource. They referenced multiple uses of the ‘country park’ with others. Through this process, a kind of ‘ideal’ typology of urban landscape, one space typology discussed in the previous section, and also represented visits to not currently available locally to these participants, was proposed independently visually ‘spectacular’ picturesque landscapes for leisure; enjoyment of scenery as in Bromley By Bow, Victoria Park, and Leyton: a peaceful, access controlled or Do We All Find Beauty in Nature and Countryside? visual refreshment . The Pakistani heritage members of the Leyton group displayed managed, dog free space. In the chapter on wider theoretical perspectives there is a discussion of discourses a very wide knowledge of British National Parks, citing visits to at least five different allied with particular landscape tastes, ideals and aesthetics. Two similar but National Parks - Snowdonia, Yorkshire Dales, Peak District, Brecon Beacons and 13 the Lake District. A summer trip to Snowdonia National Park was referenced in answer to the same question by the mixed British Pakistani/ Bangladeshi heritage participant at Bromley by Bow, as were picturesque landscapes of the Swiss Alps or the Swat Valley by another Pakistani born participant. The Clapton group too mentioned the picturesque landscapes of the Swiss Alps, but added moorland in Yorkshire, and coastal landscapes - the Atlantic coast of Biarritz, and beaches in Norfolk There was a contrast between participants in Clapton and Leyton with regard to feelings for and use of the Lea Valley. While the Lower Clapton group made extensive and frequent use of the Lea and Marshes, the Leyton group did not really consider this space an appealing leisure destination.

L1: “I have gone past the Lea but it just doesn’t have the same...” L2: “It seems quite dirty as well” L3:”Is it dirty?” L2:”The Lea seems quite dirty as well you know” (Leyton)

They were familiar with it, particularly Hackney Marshes just to the north of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, and had used it in the past, but considered it a dirty and unsafe space. British Pakistani group members preferred to visit other ‘country’ parks like Wanstead Flats, or Hollow Ponds (Fig 2), for family walks or cycling at the weekends, and for paid leisure activities in the school holidays. These spaces were felt to be valuable as an educational resource for children, a safe space for active family leisure, and provided an opportunity to interact with wildlife - to feed ducks or look for insects with children -in a ‘natural’ setting. However country park spaces were also perceived as problematic, for reasons of increased dog fouling, and constant conflict with dogs off the lead. Both Clapton and Leyton participants also described urban landscapes they found beautiful - the view from Waterloo Bridge especially at sunset, or St Katherine’s Docks, but while these preferences were not contested by other group members, they did not lead to the flurry of additional representations evoked by discussion of scenic rural landscapes as places of beauty. From these exchanges and others, it seems the British Pakistani participants and the white British group shared a normative ‘pro country’ taste for rural and other picturesque landscapes as a scenic leisure resource.

In contrast, the Hackney group in particular evidenced a ‘pro - city’ ontology. Fig 13 Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, North Park April 2014 Participants in this group mentioned some English landscapes during discussions of landscapes that might be ‘culturally important’ for people of their ethnic background (British Caribbean), indicating a stronger identification as a UK, rather urban life in the UK was represented as preferable. These participants represented Green-ness and freshness have been mentioned as key components of landscape than Caribbean cultural group. They showed a familiarity with countryside in the a normative view where the best outdoor spaces provided sociability, activities, beauty mentioned by many British Bangladeshi participants. There were almost no UK, but there was no real enthusiasm shown in these representations. There was far and attractions associated with city life. Even participants in the group who stated references to beautiful rural spaces in the UK made by any Bangladeshi participant. lengthier description of urban scenes, and mediated or ‘improved’ natural beauty some enjoyment of less crowded or pastoral settings, (both were graduates) As with the Hackney group, natural beauty was found outside the UK, though - City skylines; the view over the Thames at sunset from a riverside penthouse; referenced city farms, or adventure playgrounds- activated, sociable places, spaces unlike in Hackney, there was no discussion among British Bangladeshi participants city lights over water seen from an aeroplane; Niagara Falls but especially when aligned with a ‘pro city’ ontology. Rural lifestyles or UK wild spaces were generally of UK rural spaces to evidence familiarity. Their representations of beautiful places lit at night. Some ‘natural’ landscapes overseas were represented passionately, as represented with little romance. were generally of highly mediated, highly maintained, controlled landscapes and embodied and visual memories of spectacular natural phenomena, but desirable new structures in the UK. Some Bangladeshi heritage men had interest in animals natural landscapes, were not located in the UK. In general, nature in the UK was and wildlife - deer from a fondly remembered summer trip to Richmond Park, or represented as not being up to the standards found elsewhere. What Makes Places Beautiful? wildlife in rural Bangladesh were spoken of positively, but most British Bangladeshi All participants were asked during focus group discussion to talk about a memory participants of either gender found less maintained or ‘overgrown’ spaces, and ‘’In England you don’t normally see the stars in England I’m sorry” of being in a beautiful place, and whether there was any landscape that might be associated animals problematic - rats, foxes, bees, and dogs were all negatively (Hackney) considered as an ideal of beauty by people of their ethnicity or cultural background. portrayed by participants. As with the Hackney group, it was acceptable in Poplar, Some of the responses to these questions have been captured above. Participants or Bromley By Bow to not like nature, at least uncontrolled nature, and to represent Contact with wildlife generally was represented as undesirable. Hedgehogs, foxes, at Leyton and Clapton tended to respond in terms of visual scenes, with some wilder areas as filled with weeds, pests or vermin. This representation was strongly pigeons and rats were grouped together and described negatively, with some reference to atmospheric or phenomenological conditions (mist, sunset). At contested by the British Pakistanis in the Leyton group. British Bangladeshi horror. This revulsion at proximity to many animals was represented by the group Hackney as described these included embodied aspects. Bangladeshi and Somalian participants found restorative relaxation, refreshment and pleasure in maintained as a collective rather than individual view. Habitat, like marshes in the Lea Valley, heritage participants descriptions of beautiful places made reference not only to green spaces, were keen to support their children’s enjoyment of outdoor space, where such animals might be encountered, were represented as space to avoid. visual beauty, phenomenological and embodied experiences, but also intellectual but did not share a picturesque ideal of beauty and had no romantic desire to and social components of the experience of beauty and place, and were not escape to untouched wild spaces. They, like many in the Hackney group had visited While the British outdoor experiences did not live up to other places, ‘civilized’ restricted to beauty in landscape or nature. Lea Valley and its biodiverse spaces while at school, and lived near them. They 14 the Hackney group members, had had extensive engagement in their childhood with park spaces. They ‘lived‘ in the park as children, and the Hackney group in particular recalled spending a great deal of time there unaccompanied. Hackney and Leyton participants had been taken to environmental education centres in the Marshes and Epping Forest as part of their schooling, but only participants in Leyton recalled these experiences positively.

While some Leyton group members had often visited the park alone as children or teenagers, most had frequently been taken there by either parent. The Hackney group expressed variable parental support in their relationship with outside space. Though all had gone to the park and played outside a great deal as children, half the participants felt their parents had never taken them to the park at all, which they identified as being a Caribbean characteristic. The Clapton group members too had largely played outside unsupervised. Three of the group had had a suburban upbringing, and one had grown up in the country. Only one had made frequent use of a formal park space, which she accessed through her back garden. Two had been to parks occasionally, but spent more time unaccompanied in marginal urban land - allotments, building sites, peripheral industrial land, railway access tracks and urban woodlands, arguably similar in character to the Lea Valley around Walthamstow Marshes.

From the discussions, it seemed that many participants had taken on the values and behaviours of their parents regarding the use and attraction of park space -most of the Clapton group had been taken for long rural walks by parents and enjoyed being able to re-create a similar experience for their children in the Lea Valley. Unlike the urban park landscapes frequented by the Caribbean or Pakistani heritage participants, the Clapton group had experienced unsupervised play in in UK countryside spaces and urban fringe landscapes that would typically have had low levels of plant maintenance. It is possible that associations of marginal land with positive childhood memories also inform a more positive attitude to an ‘ecological’ aesthetic now, irrespective of values acquired in adulthood.

Social Capital: Sharing Space With ‘Others’ The focus groups provided significant evidence of tolerance and acceptance of Fig 14 Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, South Park April 2014 ‘difference’ in London’s multi ethnic spaces. Participants represented efforts to see others viewpoints, even in the context of what might be seen as antagonistic behaviour, and tried to accommodate remarks or behaviour sympathetically. found these places unsafe and completely unappealing. generally attracted by the Richmond Park image, because , they said, it reminded Children’s gauche comments were mentioned but felt to be generally harmless. them of the bush. While they enjoyed green fresh spaces, they were less concerned There was some variation in the extent to which the Islamic women in different The Victoria Park group, whose participants had Somalian or Britiah Somalian about levels of maintenance or cleanliness than either the Hackney or Leyton groups felt inhibited or embarrassed by other people’s ‘lack of modesty’ in park background, did not specifically associate beautiful places with outdoor experiences groups. space Many of the women in the focus groups were dressed to cover their body, at all. They described only urban experiences with emotional and social content in accordance with Islamic custom, and several were veiled outside and in mixed when asked to recall being in a beautiful place. The countryside both in Somalia gender settings. There was a great deal of enthusiasm expressed at Leyton for the and in the UK was generally represented positively, though one participant had Childhood Experiences idea of single gender outdoor spaces, as found on holiday in Islamic countries at found country holidays in her teens dull and constraining. Several participants in All participants had played outside as children, but not all had been encouraged the beach or in urban parks. There they might enjoy the sunshine ‘uncovered’, or Victoria Park described annual trips with their community centre to Devon, and to to do so, or been encouraged to value outdoor space or experiences of nature. exercise without being very restricted by clothing. The lack of such spaces was Kent for fruit picking as beautiful, however they were content in the city, as long as In some groups participants felt adults had not supported outdoor play. British not represented as a primary barrier to use of open space however, and nor was some green space was available. They identified themselves as positively urban, Bangladeshi participants in all groups, and the Victoria Park group’s accounts others sunbathing, or drinking in parks, up to a point. Generally all the participants distinguishing qualities of urban and rural life. showed the greatest restrictions in opportunity to play outside in spaces away seemed to operate a live and let live policy, from home, or to play unsupervised in childhood. Somalian participants linked this “(The countryside) is good, it’s fun. When you live in the city, the country it’s fun, restriction to differences in cultural practices for girls and boys. Unlike the other “we just kind of stick to ourselves and even though there are other people there, is fun, but the people they have a different way. Is two different ways.” groups Somalian participants permitted their own children greater freedom than they are welcome to do what they want. We do our thing, and nobody is really (Victoria Park) they had experienced in accessing park and outdoor spaces near home. British imposing on anyone else” Bangladeshi participants of both genders who had been raised in London were (Bromley by Bow) Although parks were mostly not part of their own upbringing, the group were greatly restricted in their unaccompanied access to outside space, for their own positive about the role of parks in London Landscape image preferences of the ‘protection’ and were very concerned for their children’s safety too. However not all issues of difference were as easily managed, and racist / ethnically Victoria Park group tended towards parks with ‘garden’ like quality - more exotic motivated antagonistic encounters did constrain behaviour. Islamic women shrubs and flowers, smaller very green enclosed spaces. However they were The Leyton group generally, (aside from the Bangladeshi heritage participant), and particularly described many exchanges, that might be termed ‘everyday racism’, 15 small acts of harassment or disapproval incidental to daily life, repeated frequently where this happened. This was an issue for both groups using Victoria Park. to avoid spaces that they found most problematic. More than half of all the and acting as a reminder of possible victimisation or violence . Some incidents ‘Gangs’ were claimed to be present in several local parks at Leyton and Poplar, participants in the focus groups represented some negative attitudes towards dogs were represented as being typical of particular London neighbourhoods, where which resulted in Leyton participants staying away from several local park spaces, in park space. Even those who liked dogs, and had personally owned dogs, were in participants felt themselves to be, or were told they were, an ethnic minority. and making trips to distant safer parks. agreement with some concerns of others in their group who did not. Such incidents were also represented as typical, or generalised, in the less racially / ethnically mixed spaces outside London, a factor identified as a deterring people The Hackney group evidenced a more confrontational approach to groups who Participants in Leyton described frequently going miles across London touse from ethnic minority backgrounds from visiting the countryside . The participants considered themselves ‘gangs’ . Regents Park in preference to nearby large parks, and not just on the occasions sought relative safety in what they considered more mixed multicultural London when they planned to be with ‘big family’. They enjoyed the space behind the settings. However even in multicultural London environments, xenophobic H2: “ “What’s your post code ?”(with scorn) You don’t own anything!” mosque there, which as I later discovered, is a large designated dog free area. The incidents were routinely endured in public space, patterns of behaviour participants H3: “That’s what I say! “ When you die, look at Holly Street. The government group described growing problems with dogs off the lead and dog faeces in the felt were encouraged by the media. just mash it up and name it something else, then what you been fighting for?” “ country parks they used locally. A recent tendency to remove dog proof railings H2: “Until you pay council tax, you don’t tell me nothing.” from play areas in smaller local parks in Waltham Forest was also noted negatively For everyone, unknown men generally presented a threat, and were perceived to (Hackney) by the Leyton group, who felt such action was removing a last bastion of protection have greatest power in the social field. The presence of men drinking, groups of in their local green space. This may seem a small point, but is worth noting. men, or predominantly male teenage ‘gangs’, irrespective of ethnicity were felt to This confidence points to acceptability within this group of assertive female Unfenced play areas have been promoted widely across the UK’s local authorities be physically threatening. The Clapton group and the Victoria Park group described behaviour in public space, and some expectation amongst participants that women as part of the ‘natural play’ ‘best practice guidance’ . feeling unsafe near men drinking in public parks, and would avoid or leave spaces would and could contest rights to space for themselves, that others’ threats were exaggerated, rights to power unsubstantiated, and capable of challenge. Of the large parks accessible to participants, Victoria Park, which has no dog free The Leyton group however felt anything they said in order to moderate others park space, aside from the designated children’s play areas, was most frequently behaviour would be entirely futile. cited as being dominated by inconsiderate dog owners.

Fear of personal attack, fear of muggings to older children or abduction of young “I hate Victoria Park. It is possibly the worst park for me. There are so many dogs children constrained most women participants and their children’s movement in in Victoria Park. If you go there, there are dogs and they aren’t on leads. They’re park spaces. For many people in all the groups, in day time, a park busy with other just running round. I can’t handle it. It’s my worst nightmare. It’s going to hell acceptable users, was generally felt to be a safe place to visit unaccompanied, or for me. Victoria Park is like going to hell!” to take children. If there were conflicts with those who appeared threatening, or (Bromley by Bow) morally deviant, then moving further away, rather than leaving the park would often be sufficient to manage concerns. All the female participants, even those who used For many Islamic people, dogs are unclean, and being touched by their mouthparts park spaces alone occasionally, expressed that they would not want to visit parks requires washing seven times, including clothing, before prayers, which are said alone at some times of day, for fear of personal attack. Parks with poor visibility five times each day. The amount of work entailed through contact with dogs, and high /overgrown vegetation were generally most avoided. Three Mills Park irrespective of any feeling of liking or dislike of the animals themselves, would described by Bromley by Bow participants as highly enjoyable, a favourite space, therefore be a significant motivator to avoid physical contact. Many incidents created some anxiety through its design, because the children’s play space was described in the focus groups portrayed a kind of unintentional misunderstanding spread out and unfenced in long vegetation. Children could not be seen without on the part of dog owners, who fail to see any real need to keep their dogs away being closely followed, which reduced the parents enjoyment of the space, making from others, imagining the only issue of note is the fear of being bitten. Dog their use of it a little stressful. owners generally, it seems from these accounts, do not recognise other people’s right to enjoy a park space without interaction with dogs. While fears for children’s safety were generalised in all focus groups, South Asian participants spoke of fears for children more than any of the other participants, “I know everyone says “It’s alright, he’s friendly.” Yeah but I’m not friendly with a finding supported by other studies in the literature review. Level of fear may it, and the children are scared! Hollow Ponds , there’s just too many dogs. They’re be a matter of perception of threat, rather than based on a real level of risk, as not even on any leads, they just let them loose!” has historically been claimed for women’s fear of crime outside the home more (Leyton) generally. Many accounts in the focus groups indicated that these women’s fears were based on actual incidents involving themselves and their family members, It was clear from some representations though, that not all incidents with dogs rather than anecdotal accounts or news reports. The level of fear seemed were misunderstandings. Fearful reactions were treated by some dog owners with indicative of South Asian women and children’s relatively low “social capital”, or contempt, and understood by participants as an opportunity to victimise Islamic power, in public space, within some ethnically mixed settings or neighbourhoods. people and exert spatial and social dominance.

Fears of entering park spaces alone were not reflected in fears of movement alone “Oh I hate dogs, I’m sorry. I don’t know if you are a dog lover, but I don’t like in the wider urban fabric, though children were still constrained. Most participants dogs, especially when they let it go, and they see you are afraid, or the children said they felt safe to move around alone in their neighbourhoods, and in London are afraid. .... Some, as soon as they see the fear in your eyes they just let it go! generally in daylight, and had no specific fears of other neighbourhoods. Some did A dog attacked me in Meath Gardens. It just grabbed me on the back when I was express disliking specific areas that they had visited or had lived in, in the course pushing my daughter on the swing, and the owner, she is on the phone, ... two of other discussion of my children, they just run away, and they are screaming, and the one I was swinging, was screaming and crying, and the woman, she wouldn’t even get off the phone! I just couldn’t believe it.” Social Capital: Dogs and Incivility in East London’s Urban Parks. (Victoria Park) Every group had at least some participants who had problems with the numbers of dogs in the parks and green spaces they used, and several had changed behaviour The disjunction between these lived experiences of chaos, fear and oppression Fig 15 Public Access Climbing Wall, South Park April 2014 16 Findings: Spatial Analysis(Thesis Pages 158-172) in park space, and the restorative serene green spaces idealised by many Islamic major factor in use of park space, and spaces can become dominated by groups participants in earlier discussion is stark. There were many such anecdotes, to the detriment of others equitable enjoyment. From the focus groups, while This thesis does not comment on all aspects of design at the Queen Elizabeth followed by supportive comments or further similar accounts in the majority of other concerns over lack of regulation in Victoria Park were raised, it appeared Olympic Park, a complex project which has been widely recognised for its strengths the focus groups. It is clear, both from the extracts of discussion here, and as percieved domination of the space by dogs may be the main determinant in BME across a range of design aspects, and which was the setting for a very successful illustrated in the ‘elite’ interviews that a positive view of dog owners rights to under-representation. The catchment population has very high numbers of people Olympic Games. It is focussed only on those criteria that have been found exercise dogs with almost total freedom in park space is normative in London of Islamic faith. In general, while all participants were constrained to some extent empirically to impact on access to urban parks, particularly by BME groups,. The parks. Dog owners / dog lovers then have greater power or ‘social capital’ than by fear, examples of symbolic violence, and actual incidents of oppression meted distance, complexity, and quality of the journey required to get to a destination has those who are threatened by their uncontrolled presence, and consequently dogs out by strangers were most frequently represented by Islamic women participants. been theorised to have an impact on its use by minority groups, as have the social could be argued to have far greater rights to the majority of park space than some They portrayed themselves most often as powerless in the face of this behaviour, mix of the neighbourhoods through which users must travel, and the attractiveness, people. It was evident from the focus groups that many people are being deterred a belief perhaps exacerbated, or simply evidenced, by an awareness that their or value of the park as a destination. from making more use of parks because they do not wish to interact with, dislike, views would not be supported by institutions. Local authorities and park managers, or fear dogs, and many of those people are from religious or ethnic minorities. sanction, or fail to manage, space dominated by dogs. The media are accused In terms of accessibility, the site chosen for the 2012 London Olympics in the Lower This dynamic has been reported time and again in social research, (CABE Space, (with some justification) of fuelling Islamophobic attitudes. Lea Valley was, at the project’s inception, bounded on all sides by infrastructure. 2010; Bell, 2005; Morris, 2003; DTLR, 2002; Dunnett, et al., 2002; Madge, 1997). Urban motorways, and railways, on embankments and in cuttings largely blocked That is paid so little regard, particularly in multicultural London contexts should be In the next section, the spaces of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as built the site off from adjacent residential neighbourhoods to east and west and challenged. by Summer 2014 are reviewed, and some conclusions then drawn about the subdivided it across the centre. Within this infrastructure, a network of canalised extent to which the preferences expressed in the park’s catchment have been rivers, further sub-divided the landscape into a series of islands. There has been accommodated or found concrete expression. no change to the major severance caused by peripheral infrastructure as yet, (Fig Summary 16) though internally many new bridges have improved connectivity. The site The focus groups provide further evidence in support of the park image preference survey, and a body of empirical findings described in the literature review, that preferences for landscapes and nature are neither universal, or completely idiosyncratic. Whether these views are more widely normative within the study area is debatable, especially for groups where there was limited triangulation possible. The Somali group’s findings cannot be triangulated with the preference survey or other studies for example. However, in general, where groups were stimulated by each others accounts to share similar viewpoints, and common experiences, and were highly supportive of each other, I argue this is a strong indication from participants that these constitute norms, legitimate tastes, that operate to participants’ knowledge beyond the group. Some participants claimed themselves that certain actions chimed with an ethnic identity. Not all viewpoints were shared. Some were discussed politely or not followed up, treated as a reasonable personal choice. Where views were treated as entirely wrong, and mocked or challenged strongly by many in a group however, I argue this ‘symbolic violence’ is intended to moderate behaviour, and the challenged views probably go against accepted norms.

Different discourses of nature and city appear to underpin the different ‘legitimate’ tastes. Several were represented by participants of the same ethnicity across geographically distant groups, and are consistent with findings in the park preference survey. These values are undoubtedly learned, though this is not to say they are so flexible as to be easily altered.

The park preference survey found the most consistently preferred image across all the different analyses is that of St James’s Park, stylistically representing a Victorian park with some ‘gardenesque’ styling. The ‘traditional’ London Park like St James’s Park offers a variety of spaces. From the focus group evidence and discussion, it is likely that multiple meanings are projected onto this representation of a single physical space, informed by different personal and culturally based ontologies. The same argument can be made for the geometric garden image which was seen as representing a green, highly controlled, garden space in Leyton and Victoria Park and as a maze indicating programmed, activated space in Hackney. The Wildflower/ Residential pre 2012 Major roads Wasteland image elicited a negative reaction from different focus groups for Transition to mixed use Railways different reasons, not just for an association with neglect and danger, but for Retail its lack of evident purpose or activity, reflecting the groups different functional, Waterways Industrial /rail yard ideological and social preferences for recreation space in urban contexts. Park / sports eld

Doreen Massey’s assertion that the rights to public space are socially regulated and competitive is borne out by the focus group discussions. This is clearly a Fig16 Edges 2014 Fig 17 Land Use 2014 17 is still challenging to access for many people, and there is major infrastrucutre separating north and south parks. The park as a whole has few movement routes L that are direct, continuous and well integrated with the surrounding urban ea Na viga ‘grain’ predating the 2012 Games. Due to the continued severance particularly tion by peripheral infrastructure, frequent casual use of the new facilities is unlikely to be an option for many, other than for residents of the new housing that will eventually surround the park.

Placing the new park space oriented north to south, at the centre of the available North site, and planning new building developments to east and west arguably compounds Park the issues of severance for potential park users in pre-existing deprived residential areas. By putting the park beyond new neighbourhoods, (Fig 17) many may feel A12 excluded from it, an argument made for BME under-representation in other studies.

In the UK, disproportionately high numbers of the poorest people are from black and minority ethnic groups. The distance and difficulty of accessing new park West eld spaces at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park on foot from surrounding housing Hackney Wick (Overground) areas beyond the Olympic site boundary is likely to affect those with the least Stratford economic capital most, as they have limited resources to pay for transport to take (Overground, Fig 19 North Park Sept 2014 Views Across Play Space from Seating Lawn South Underground them nearer. Design decisions affecting location and access may therefore result Park Bus Interchange) in some under-representation of BME groups generally as park users. There is evidence that British Bangladeshi people are less likely to travel far to use park spaces than other groups. Location and access decisions may result in greater under-representation of British Bangladeshi people in particular, who with over 50,000 people claiming the ethnicity within the wider park catchment are the largest non - white ethnic group living locally.

Both the north & south of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park park offer spectacular children’s play facilities, cafes and toilets, all of which were important to local people, however North Park has fewer movement generating ‘attractions’ than the South Park, (Fig 18) and limited seating along main movement routes, which have been shown to be those most used. In the North Park, movement routes are at upper levels, with large areas of lawn, habitat and seating 5m below. Empirical Long distance paths research indicates spaces that are significantly lower relative to pedestrian Main connecting routes movement are likely to be less well used. Generally the North Park because of Retail footfall generator its design is likely be less activated or sociable overall than South Park. South Park attraction/landmark Park has many spectacular attractions generally on the higher movement level, plenty of seats along its main movement routes, and a relatively direct connection from Stratford’s stations, via Westfield shopping centre. Research indicates these Fig 18 Movement Generators & Connections 2014 Fig 20 North Park Sept 2014 Views & Multiple Routes within Play Space features are likely to encourage greater use of the South Park, relative to the North. in one location must be prepared to trust that unwatched, their children will not with the preferences of almost all groups in the park preference survey, as well Space in the North Park has an ecological, arguably picturesque aesthetic, a leave the playground, will not be hurt, will stay where they can be found, and will as many of the needs of the people who took part in focus groups, irrespective of functional focus on lawns for sitting, admiring scenic views, opportunities for return when they are meant to. Alternatively parents can follow their children ethnicity. If the park preference survey and focus groups findings are, as I argue, contact with ‘nature’, and a relative lack of programmed activity (Fig 3, Fig 13) as they move through the play space, presenting logistical issues for parents who indicators of likely behaviours, South Park’s users would quite closely resemble This would tend to fit most with the park preferences expressed in both focus have more than one child. It is likely to limit the amount of time parents will allow the surrounding population in user demography, albeit with the caveat that low groups and survey, by white British participants. The very well maintained and children to play if they themselves cannot really relax or socialise. income groups in general, and British Bangladeshis in particular may be under- highly controlled framing of the ecological spaces, their evident maintenance, represented, due to distance from home and difficulty in accessing these spaces cleanliness, and the presence of park wardens and other staff also overlaps to a The dogs on leads policy if it is unknown and/or or unenforced could also influence on foot. great extent with normative preferences expressed by British Pakistani participants use by Islamic groups particularly. in the focus groups. Understanding the processes that have driven the creation of these spaces as South Park has plenty to do, particularly for children. It provides lots of built, can help to identify the extent to which designers cultural preferences or The play area design however, may limit North Park’s appeal to British Pakistanis opportunities to socialise and people watch. It also has green and planted quiet assumptionshave influenced space formation at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and parents from South Asian groups more generally, as these participants were spaces to relax. There are gardens and flowers, plenty of places to sit on or off the itself. The next chapter uses ‘elite interview’ methods to do just that. found to be the most concerned to ensure close visual supervision of children’s grass, and although it offers some spaces that feel private, it has excellent visibility play in public space. The play area is spread out in a linear arrangement, with throughout. Like North Park it is clean, well maintained, and visibly staffed. The features set into raised planted embankments and connected by multiple winding aesthetic is closest to a traditional urban park in the gardenesque style, which was paths through vegetation (Fig 19, 20).. It is unfenced, and, due to its layout and most popular in the park preference survey, but with modern and spectacular planting design, has very limited visual connection either to adjacent lawn areas use of materials, an ordered approach to spatial arrangements, all mixed with a or between the many different play elements Parents who wish to sit and relax romantic planting pallette (Fig 4, 12, 14). These factors combined mean it meets 18 Findings: Elite Interviews (Thesis Pages 173-202) The research interviews were supplemented by material from an online interview River rather than the Navigation, EDAW Aecom were better able to evoke what (Landscape Institute, 2012 ) with John Hopkins, the ‘project sponsor’ for landscape I argue is a culturally situated ‘romantic’ future vision of a ‘natural’ landscape The purpose of elite interviews was to gain an insight into and public realm at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park appointed in 2007. (Hopkins setting ‘restored’ and recovered from industrial ‘wastes’. The Navigation is still left the project after the Games landscape was completed in 2011, and died in a working water way. The river offered most scope in Prior’s view for this type of • how much and in what way individual built environment professionals in 2013). John Hopkins interview was recorded while the Olympics were underway. transformation, and was therefore the best vehicle for professional, and national relatively senior positions had been able to influence the location, accessibility, All the others were held in the period after the North Park had been opened, and expression. This narrative proved a powerful, persuasive representation of space, content and style of the park; and what external constraints have limited while the South Park was undergoing ‘transformation’ prior to its opening in April a strong selling point to the jury for the original commission, to the political elites, options available 2014. and to the IOC who awarded the Olympics to London. • what strategies they took to achieve their goals, (in order to understand how they perceived the ‘rules of the game’ , and the relative importance of different The interviews were transcribed and analysed by thematic analysis using NVIVO With the park distant and somewhat difficult to reach for most existing residents, fields or different forms of capital at their disposal) software. A loosely Bourdieusian theoretical frame was used, identifying forms of its attractiveness, in competition with other leisure offers and park spaces might • how much , consciously or otherwise, their ideologies and ‘cultural capital’ capital evidenced, influence of other fields, and players, and evidenced rules of arguably be of increased importance in determining future use. Unlike the location, reflect identified ‘legitimate’ white British tastes the game. The accounts of events were not always consistent. aesthetic / stylistic representations of the intended park design changed a great • whether that might be at odds with the tastes identified in the wider community deal between 2003 when EDAW consortium won the commission to lead the bid, Any role that designers had, in locating the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park within and 2009 when park building commenced. As one interviewee claimed, the built All participants were aware of the topic of my PhD and had received some the wider Olympic site, determining its accessibility, appearance, character and the park was the second one designed. The changing vision for the park landscape is biographical information and summary information. They were all interested possible activities that can take place within it, will be likely to influence who uses captured in two contrasting representations. in the topic of BME under representation, and keen to understand it more. The it. All interviewees accounts stated that the eventual location, size and orientation participants were generally time limited, and topics of discussion were to some of the park had been established by the EDAW consortium, long before the UK ‘’the environment, the quality of the river, the provision of open space, the idea extent led by them, but as far as possible, interviews were semi-structured, and Olympic bid had been declared successful. Despite a stated end use of the park, of a sort of Royal Park was writ fairly early on in the script.’’ prompts were used to provide insight into the areas described above. amongst other things, as an asset to benefit existing deprived communities in east London, and a relatively free choice of site, the interviewees presented evidence ‘’This is not Hyde Park or a virgin piece of countryside in the city. We shouldn’t In the case of one participant, a series of questions were sent in advance of meeting, that, as has been found in the spatial analysis the eventual location does not want it to be like that. It’s a post industrial park. It’s a sort of very different feel and are included in the appendix (thesis p259), though not all were answered as actually lend itself to easy use by many of the surrounding population. than I think what a lot of people... It was always talked about ‘’the same size as the available time was limited to one hour. The following topics were raised with St James Park’’. It was being presented as part of a tradition of design, which interviewees. ‘’We did quite a lot of mapping work , 15 minutes for a local park. We looked actually it was very different from.’’ at how many people live within 15 minutes of a lot of London parks. It’s around • general background to interviewee involvement with the project 100,000 generally. We looked at our park and we had 15,000. We started to look The shift to a post industrial landscape vision was accompanied by a change from at 3.1km catchment area, about a 45minute journey, and that felt right. You’d Royal Park to ecological aesthetic, at least for the North Park, a move attributed • how the park spaces now built had been arrived at, narrative of the process want those people to be going to the Olympic Park when it was a sunny day, most often to, and claimed most strongly by John Hopkins. The South Park was from earliest conception to built space including orientation, location, general but you have to give them a reason to get on their bike or car or get on the bus, too far advanced in its implementation to undergo the same transformation in stylistic /functional approach ‘cause they aren’t going to walk for an hour and half ‘’ approach as the North Park. It is represented in some interviews as having ‘got • how the Olympic context made the project different to ‘ideal’ or typical process away’ from the final design team. - impacts of time pressure, financial constraint etc Priorities that established this location and orientation must therefore lie elsewhere. • reaction to some culturally specific preferences found in survey and focus The original competition entry submission, that won EDAW consortium their chance ‘’John’s passions were sustainability in particular, climate change and effects and groups to develop a British Olympic bid, can be understood as not just an expression of things like that, and so he was very sure the park wasn’t managing those...and he the designers’ ideals, but of the designers’ understanding of the Jury’s preferences. just felt it wasn’t ambitious enough in terms of design and..... he was concerned Participants in elite interviews were selected to include people who had been it was all bitty, there were bits and pieces all over the place.’’ involved in the early stages of the process, and those still engaged in delivering A ‘representation of space’ first proposed in Abercrombie’s influential London Plan Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park space in Legacy. Two individual interviews and one of 1943, before much of the infrastructure was built, was important here. The This quotation (and others in the thesis) alludes to what I argue is one of ‘the rules group interview were held. The interviewees were Olympic bid is represented as a chance to ‘complete’ the Lee Valley Regional Park, of the game’ for landscape and spatial design in a UK context. While variation and from the country in Hertfordshire to the Thames. A north south orientation for multiple authorship are valued in architectural projects on a large scale, landscape Jason Prior, Director of EDAW in 2003, now Chief Executive of Buildings + Places green spaces in the Olympic Park was described as an a priori assumption about is required to function primarliy as a setting, a continuous backdrop. Uniformity is for AECOM. Jason Prior personally led the design consortium for London’s Olympic the place, and how it should be responded to. However, even accepting a north valued, rather than variety, and distinctiveness. The value of uniformity/consistency bid, and subsequently led EDAW/ AECOM ‘s London Olympic site’s masterplanning south orientation, the primary connecting walking and cycling route through the in landscape style is one of four characteristics that from the interviews arguably team; 26 mile Lee Valley Regional Park, and most of its green space, lies continuously constitute ‘legitimate’ landscape taste in a UK context - the ‘rules of the game’. alongside the Lea Navigation, a working canal to the west of the current park site. Reviews in the press on the opening of the South Park support this reading. Rowan Ralph Ward was planning advisor to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister for The Lea /Lee river, which has instead been made the central feature of the Queen Moore the architectural critic writing in the Observer in April 2014 expresses his the Olympics and Olympic Legacy. Elizabeth Olympic Park, lies in a hidden, inaccessible channel for most of its journey view that Paul Brickell, Executive Director of Regeneration and Community Partnerships for through London , and is almost invisible within much of the Regional Park to the LLDC who has led on ‘transformation’ from the park’s Games design to its ‘Legacy’ north. Locating expansive park spaces along the Lea Navigation would have placed ‘’…. the best places are in the more serene North Park. There is something noble configuration since October 2011. the new park on the main strategic cycling and walking routes north south, and about this big space, with the sporting monuments around it.’’ Phil Askew, LLDC lead ‘client’ for the park in ‘transformation’ since 2011 . From created a straightforward strategic walking and cycling connection from it to the 2008 he was the ODA’s assistant ‘client’ for the park landscape, supporting John whole of west London via the Regent’s canal. The park could have been in sight , South Park, on the other hand has it all wrong. It is far from ‘noble’, in what appears Hopkins lead client for the ODA, in the run up to the 2012 Games. and in easy walking distance, of many more existing residents. to be a class based discourse, it seems he finds it a little vulgar. Eleanor Fawcett, Head of Design and Physical Regeneration, for LLDC and Interviewees provided evidence that locating park space on the River was Vicky Austin, Head of Paralympic Legacy, Equality and Inclusion,. “There is a frenzy of wacky light fittings, of playground installations, of seats, contested for reasons of community access. However within the Olympic context, of tree species, sculptural lumps of granite, kiosks ……. the visual equivalent of a high value was placed on creating an ‘ambitious’ park. By siting the park on the several mobile ringtones going off at once.” 19 The spatial analysis indicates that South Park is likely to be a more sociable it can be seen that individual designers have substantive influence in shaping space. The interviews support an argument that highly educated Anglo - European park space, is legible in its spatial arrangements, has greater connectivity to space in accordance with their passions, aesthetic ideals and values, albeit subject people, the dominant groups in the UK, are producing spaces formed in accordance surrounding access routes, and allows good visual surveillance, as well as a variety to approval and contest. They construct representations and narratives that with their own cultural preferences and practices, assuming their visions of beauty of programmed spaces. It is arguably very well designed indeed. Moore’s critique demostrate the sense of their preferred approach, with the intention of gaining and understanding of space have universal appeal. seems founded entirely in issues of taste. support of other powerful individuals, using their resources of social capital and cultural capital, the latter particularly in the form of technical expertise. This has resulted at least in the North Park, in a space that is most suited to While in the thesis I have drawn out elements of the discussions that place a cultural the tastes and values this study finds associated with white British people, and vision of landscape to the fore, this was never strongly represented by anyone The neutral unemotional representation of facts, of creating built space asa particularly white British graduates. It remains to be seen if the findings which interviewed as a key component in decisons that were made. The main focus of scientific, practical, rational response to a set of objective problems, masks the would predict less use of the North Park by people from BME groups, are reflected all discussion by the designers interviewed is the difficult task of simultaneously process’s substantial symbolic and culturally situated content - among other in the actual behaviour of visitors to the park. resolving multiple technical considerations, complex problem solving. Where things, attachment to a specific, socially constructed Romantic vision ofman’s design narrative or aesthetics had to be teased out, pragmatism and realism relationship with nature. Readings discussed in the theory sectionÊ of thisÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ thesisNorthÊParkÊCounts Ê Ê Ê ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊNorthÊParkÊCountsÊ Ê Ê Ê ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ SouthÊParkÊCountsÊ Ê Ê ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSouthÊParkÊCountsÊ were regularly used to valorise particular choices, prioritising the tangible and claim the British in particular value ‘practical’ knowledge, based Êon19/04/2014:N1 the assumed Ê 19/04/2014:N219/04/2014:N1 19/04/2014:N219/04/2014:S1 19/04/2014:S219/04/2014:S1 19/04/2014:S2 the measurable, and framing decisions as not arbitrary but as irrefutable sense. objectivity of physical experience, framed within a Western ideology of space as Practicality implied objective functional performance of a particular design, and a universally objective backdrop to life This view is in no way contradictedÊ by the Ê acceptable economic justification. I argue an emphasis on artistic or symbolic representations here. A focus on the technical, the practical, rather Ê than symbolic, Ê values would reveal the subjectivity of decisions, and be more open to criticism. has been claimed to be an intrinsically ‘conservative’ cultural construct. An Practicality, simple efficiency of thinking, is more valued, and is far harderto emphasis on the ‘objective’ makes it more difficult to see the framing/Ê construction Ê contest. It was frequently represented in constructions of arguments supporting of thought, and to challenge it. That the landscape ideals of contemporaryÊ British Ê the preferred park design. spatial practice, as manifest in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, should in many ways be so similar to those invented by the ruling elite roughly threeÊ 02/07/2014:N1 hundred Ê02/07/2014:N202/07/2014:N1 02/07/2014:N202/07/2014:S1 02/07/2014:S202/07/2014:S1 02/07/2014:S2 The third rule of the game emphasised in the interviews, was that to be a showcase years ago, seems to validate this argument strongly. The landscapeÊ designed Ê ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊ NorthÊParkÊCountsÊ Ê Ê Ê Ê ÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊÊSouthÊParkÊCountsÊ project for the UK on a global scale, the landscape must not only be uniform here was primarily intended to be an ambitious, British version of Olympic space, Ê 19/04/2014:N1 19/04/2014:N2 19/04/2014:S1 and practical but also be ‘’ambitious’’. This could be achieved through providing emblematic of contemporary British values - but while youthful,Ê multicultural Ê 19/04/2014:S2 evidence of technical mastery, and delivery of multiple objectives. The opportunity London was part of the brand sold to the Olympic Committee Êduring the bid, Ê Ê to create an ambitious landscape project in design terms was a core reason given the North Park in particular is arguably more structured by Romantic ideals than Ê for the initial central location of the park on the Lea River, and part of the argument the present spatial context of city form or the needs of current residents.Ê The Ê Ê made by Hopkins to change the landscape aesthetic/ emphasis to ecology and centre piece, distant and still hard to reach for most, is a naturalised riverÊ in a floral Ê 06/08/2014:N1 06/08/2014:N1 06/08/2014:S1 06/08/2014:S206/08/2014:S1 06/08/2014:S2 sustainability. However, ambition in landscape design must be tempered with meadow, an ecological picturesque landscape, symbolically reclaimed from the Ê 06/08/2014:N2 06/08/2014:N2 restraint. The final rule is that landscape design shouldn’t be too ostentatious or horrors of industry. Ê Ê Ê 02/07/2014:N1 02/07/2014:N2 02/07/2014:S1 02/07/2014:S2 showy - successful constructed landscapes should appear natural, effortless . As Ê Ê the following quote from Hopkin’s interview illustrates, by using perceived critique The interviews indicate that there was a substantive change in the representation Ê of designs elsewhere to distance the chosen approach from ‘incorrect’ design. of landscape style from when planning permission was sought, to theÊ constructed Ê Ê space. A park imagined and represented for support publicly as in the mould of Ê Ê Ê ‘’Keeping it simple always was really important, and I didn’t want this to be an the pastoral/ gardenesque Royal Parks like St James’s Park or Hyde Park, was Ê Ê Ê over wrought design, and of course there is great pressure to, to make it an ultimately in its larger northern section, built to a less ‘maintained’, more09/08/2014:N1 dramatic 09/08/2014:N209/08/2014:N1 09/08/2014:N209/08/2014:S1 09/08/2014:S209/08/2014:S1 09/08/2014:S2 ecological post industrial aesthetic, with elements of the sublime supplied by over Ê absolute icon of design. Well I think it is,... for very different reasons than other Ê 06/08/2014:N1Ê 06/08/2014:S1 06/08/2014:S2 scaled built elements. The park preference survey and focus group findings show 06/08/2014:N2 large scale projects of this nature. ‘’ Ê that this change in style (at least of the North Park) is one that is likelyÊ to have a Ê The implied criticism of ‘other large scale projects’ presumably mega event or significant impact on the breadth of its appeal locally. Ê Ê Ê Olympic projects elsewhere, is perhaps a way of constructing this landscape, (one Ê Whether the change in the park’s intended style would actually be likedÊ by local Ê designed to be emblematic of Britishness) in contradistinction to the foreign. As Ê the interview continues, Hopkins representation becomes reminiscent of 18th residents has not been raised. The greatest anxiety, and focus of later consultations,Ê Ê Century English remarks regarding the landscapes of French formalism appears to be that the technical achievement of the landscape space02/09/2014:N1 should be Ê 02/09/2014:N1 02/09/2014:S1 02/09/2014:S1 Ê 09/08/2014:N1Ê 09/08/2014:N2 09/08/2014:S1 09/08/2014:S2 appreciated. Though all the designers interviewed were motivated to create space Ê ‘’Simon Barnes, ... wrote ..this park, was not what you might expect - an Olympic that was valued by everyone, there was a sort of shock, and resistanceÊ evident Ê Ê Park for generalissimos, grand boulevards and grand statements - and he said in the interviews to considering approaches to spatial design or management that, paradoxically the commitment to non human issues, which is the wildlife that would suit ideals aspired to by people from minority ethnicitiesÊ in the focus Ê Ê groups - for example for formal geometric gardens, for dog free space, or for single and the biodiversity - half of the park is habitat - that paradoxically, that makes Ê Ê Ê the park more humane.’’ gender spaces. All of these were initally strongly challenged. Controlling for dofs or for gender was framed as ‘excluding’, the antithesis of public - Rogers’Ê idealised ÊTOTAL Ê TOTAL TOTAL TOTAL 02/09/2014:N1 02/09/2014:S1 This construction indicates that there is still a way of thinking about the form of vision of the equitable sharing of public spaces, unproblematically Ê available and Ê Ê landscape in particular configurations as constitutive of nation, of Britishness, accessible to all. Viewed in the light of focus group representations, this ideal Non white Non white Ê ethnicitiesÊ Ê ethnicities a construction that is set against foreign less democratic countries with of inclusion appears to have embedded in it a process of ‘conditional belonging’ 252Ê 252Ê Non white Non white Ê ethnicities ethnicities ‘generalissimos’ and their less ‘humane’ tastes or cultures. That this vision might where to be ‘acceptable’ you must mirror legitimate (white) Britain’sÊ preferences Ê 1048Ê 969Ê 1048Ê 969Ê & behaviours, even if that requires you to adopt values that may negate your own. White White be excluding to many British people is not considered. It is a morally and politically Ê 805Ê 805Ê ethnicities ethnicities correct landscape, representing what people ‘should’ like. The legitimate taste. Ê White ethnicitiesÊ White ethnicities Ê While aspiring to make spaces that are freely available to everyone, spatial TOTAL TOTAL producers overlook their own culturally situated values of nature, cities and public Ê From the evidence presented in the thesis, some of which is summarised here, Non white Fig 21 Park User Tally Counts Spring/ Summer 2014 Ê ethnicities 20 252Ê Non white ethnicities Fig 10.1 North Park Êand SouthFig Park 10.1 Tally North Counts, Park Summerand South 2014 Park Tally Counts, Summer1048 2014Ê 969Ê White 805Ê ethnicities Ê White ethnicities 205 205

Fig 10.1 North Park and South Park Tally Counts, Summer 2014

205

TOTAL TOTAL

TOTAL Findings: User Observation (Thesis Pages 203-211) Conclusions: Whose Values, Whose Benefits at the Queen of BME groups to white groups in the South Park tended to increase . It might be Elizabeth Olympic Park (Thesis Pages 203-229) Five four hour visits to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park were completed between that people who lived more locally were able to remain at the park until later, or it April and September 2014, after the opening of the South Park (the North Park may indicate temporal differences in spatial practice on ethnic lines that were not The purpose of this study has been to investigate a gap identified in the literature opened in 2013). Four visits were made during school holidays, and one in school picked up in the focus groups, and again would merit further research. exploring why people of ethnic minorities are under-represented as park users term time, three at weekends and two on weekdays. Most visits were made after in the UK. The research gap is addressed by the core research question: “Could lunch and into the early evening, but one weekend visit was made from mid morning As would be anticipated from the variation on ethnic lines in landscape preference people of minority ethnicities be under-represented as users of British parks through lunch time. As focus groups indicated that park use by some was highly seen in the survey, and in park use preferences and practices described in the focus because of a failure by those producing and regulating park space to recognise that weather dependent, visits were made only on fine days with sunshine and warm group discussions, some non white ethnicities may be under-represented more their own spatial practices and preferences are culturally based, not universally temperatures between 20 and 27 degrees celsius. The intention was to broadly than others. For example, there appeared to be a relatively high proportion of shared, particularly on ethnic dimensions?’’ assess the presence or absence of BME groups relative to the representation in East Asian heritage park users among the non white users of North Park during the surrounding area under the most favourable circumstances for park use by all several visits, close to 5% of all users recorded. While East Asian heritage is not The answer to this core research question, based on this case study has to be yes. groups. recorded in the Census, 5% of people in the catchment area record their ethnicity Culturally situated actions and assumptions of designers and decision makers who as Asian Chinese or other Asian, rather than Indian, Pakistani or Bangladeshi Asian, create and control park space are certainly a part of the reason that people from Resources available for user counts meant that it was not possible to speak with so it is possible that people from a variety of East Asian backgrounds are neither BME groups do not make use of this park space as much as white British people. many of those counted, and thereby to allow them to self identify ethnicity. Instead, over represented or under-represented as users of the North Park. This field note I have shown significant differences between the spatial practices and preferences imperfect and broad visual indicators of ethnicity were used, supplemented by finding does indicate however that some non white groups are even more under of many local people, and the tastes and ideologies informing much of the built notes made during counts (of languages spoken, accents heard, styles of dress etc). represented as users of North Park than the overall ratio recorded implies. space at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park along ethnic lines, which, at least with Ultimately, I used visual indicators and what I could hear, in order to place users regard to the use of what I have called an ecological aesthetic, might have been into two groups, based on whether I thought they would be most likely to claim predicted from previous research. I have found, and evidenced, in the differential a white ethncity, or other ethnicity within the UK census. Though this primarily racial grouping, and the method of counting generally is far from ideal, it does give an indication of whether the surrounding population is broadly represented, or not, at what could reasonably be considered peak use times - in the school holidays at weekends, and in good weather.

The park catchment population for a 3.2 km catchment, is made up of 40 % people claiming a white ethnicity, and 60% of people claiming all other ethnicities. There is a small percentage difference in the numbers for the inner catchement In general then, if park spaces appealed equally to users of all ethnicities, it might be expected that the ratio of white users to non-white users to would be roughly 2:3

While there is clearly a margin for error, significant discrepancies of more than 10% from the surrounding catchment population would arguably indicate under or overrepresentation, and demonstrate that more accurate assessment of use patterns on ethnic lines are a subject suitable for further well resourced research.

The busiest areas were found on the upper level movement routes, supporting empirical studies that inform the spatial analysis. Areas at the lower levels, or on slopes, are significantly less well used. As would be expected, many people use the park in good weather at weekends and in the school holidays, less during the week, especially in school term time, and less people use the park when the weather is cooler or changeable . The park is very much seen as a resource for people with children, as the vast majority of groups passing tally counting points, or observed remaining in the park included children. Crowd Catchment

The tariff counts set out in the table Fig 21 show some broad consistency in 81 White ethnicities the differences in the ethnic mix of users between North and South Parks. The 25 Non white ethnicities catchment area ‘ethnic’ mix for the park is 40% white ethnicities to 60% people 74 76 62 63 of BME or 2 to 3. The North Park was used generally by a far higher proportion 18 77 52 17 19 75 78 71 23 61 24 of people from white ethnicities, (the majority from overheard speech, white 9 35 70 25 29 56 57 58 4 24 27 10 32 34 37 23 26 28 33 47 11 17 59 British ethnicity), than would be found in the catchment population, with counts 15 31 64 6 65 69 25 12 30 43 45 60 68 7 8 13 14 21 ranging from between approximately 3 and 7 people of white ethnicity, to every 2 16 12 73 1 9 38 51 8 46 21 1 18 5 7 44 11 4 54 14 16 5 13 from BME groups. This is significantly different from the surrounding catchment 2 10 6 20 3 66 3 20 67 population, and indicates that white people are generally over represented as 79 22 49 22 2 36 72 users of this space. 15 19 40 41

81 48 53 50 39 80 42 The South Park counts generally showed a ratio closer to, though not matching 55 the catchment population, with slightly more than half the users on average being of non white ethnicities. Towards evening, at about 5.30 - 6pm, the proportion 21 Fig 22 Users North Park: Count by Photographic Method April 2014. patterns of use of the new park spaces at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park by land values and area ‘branding’. The London 2012 Olympics was delivered on time What I have identified as an unintended failure of spatial producers, to recognise people of different ethnicities, an instance of under-representation of people and to general acclaim. Demand for housing in London continues to fuel demand that their own ideals for park space may not be shared, (or perhaps to recognise of BME groups that can reasonably be attributed to culturally situated spatial for land, and property developers are submitting plans every month for housing and the potential implications of this) and to engage more consciously with different production. new uses on the formerly economically blighted industrial sites within the LLDC’s culturally based preferences and practices in this multicultural urban setting, authority boundary . The park is just one of many new attractions making this part relates at least in part to the specific institutional context of spatial production. While many people who participated in this research share some understandings of London a desirable setting for development. The new residents attracted to it, For landscape architecture and most spatial production there is no value exchange of the value of park spaces, and make use of park spaces, I assert that the findings and able to afford to live here, and new companies and institutions locating here, relationship between producer, and ultimate end user. It is a context that allows here strongly indicate there is normative ontological variation at a collective are likely to raise the average levels of the indices of deprivation in the Olympic the dominant / legitimate tastes to be reproduced, and flourish, almost entirely cultural level, with regard to both the role of parks in urban life, and to the Boroughs, measures that can evidence improved quality of life achieved through independently of the preferences of ‘consumers’ . Designers and their clients relationships between people, urban life and ‘nature’. It is these underlying views the project. In many ways the project has delivered what it was intended to do, are as ‘fish in water’, and consequently many aspects of decision making are that inform people’s relationship with parks, and lead to multiple interpretations and having a significant role in its creation will be very much a benefit for its spatial unquestioned, and can be assumed to be universally shared. and meanings for the same space. I do not claim however to have shown that producers, as increased capital of all forms. views represented here are universal norms across people of all these claimed Who is or isn’t present in park space takes significant investment to record ethnicities throughout the rest of the UK, (though there are fair indications from However, I have presented what I believe is strong evidence here that a large part accurately, and is at this time, simply not used as a measure of park quality in the other research of likely similarity in some cases). What I do claim, and what can be of the park has been designed in a way that does not fit well with a lot of local UK, though I would argue it should be. tested by further research, is that in every park catchment there are very likely to people’s normative preferences or needs. Many of those who were intended to be views that are normative within culturally (not racially) based groups, and that be among its beneficiaries have ultimately not been able to influence the design of So what of the wider research question, underlying this specific case study. Why these can be determined using similar methods to those employed in my research. this park space. The user counts show that in terms of benefits that can be gained are people from ethnic minorities under-represented as park users in the UK? through park use , this park is doing less to benefit people of non white ethnicities The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park has been primarily created as a tool in urban in the park catchment area. Discussion in the focus groups of the use or avoidance of parks in East London regeneration. Its success will be measured to some extent in its ability to transform combined with evidence here and in other studies has provided the basis for proposing a model to explain widespread but variable under-representation of ethnic minority users in British parks as an interaction between three main factors. These factors will all vary from park to park, and have differing impacts for different groups, because they assume the integration of the spatial and the social. The factors I argue determine use or non use of park spaces by different groups are

• Contested rights to park space - reflecting both the locally specific and more generalised social hierarchies of power. At a structural level, contested rights to space limit access to/ proximity of parks for less powerful groups. At a local level, contested rights are acted out in park space itself, and manifested in acts of oppression, threat of oppression, and in unwitting incivilities. Ignorance, intolerance, racism and xenophobia, gender heirarchies, homophobia and many other forms of social power play operate to control and limit use of space for some groups through social contest. • Institutional approval in park space of hegemonic values and practice - this can be influenced by spatial designers and park managers. Physical provision and preferred management practices can and do tacitly support claims of greater rights to space by some groups, and can support racist and other types of social exclusion on the ground. • Exclusionary effects for those who do not share ‘legitimate’ values, tastes and behaviours in their preferred spatial practices. This factor operates both Crowd Catchment through lack of provision of preferred facilities, decreasing the quantity of 36 White ethnicities attractive park space, and through implicit marking of illegitimacy, thereby 40 Non white ethnicities limiting rights to claim or control park space. I argue this operates along ethnic/ cultural rather than racial lines. I have found that different ethnicities 37

34 33 have different preferences for space, and are likely therefore to be differently 40 32 21 32 30 36 39 23 35 34 35 25 29 33 38 24 25 36 affected by local provision. 26 31 27 15 19 21 17 18 20 18 22 20 28 6 16 17 2 4 19 7 16 23 5 8 3 9 10 15 5 11 8 10 The interaction of these three factors provides an explanation both for the general 1 2 6 11 4 13 13 3 12 22 tendency towards BME underrepresentation, and the local variation that is seen 7 14 9 14 31 1 from place to place.

24 12

26 28

29 30 27

Fig 22 Users South Park: Count by Photographic Method April 2014. 22 Parks for People: Cultural Reflexivity in Park Design and that, and considering how conflicting needs can be accommodated, or managed, British Bangladeshis is likely to remain more limited, however there may still be Management (Thesis Pages 230-239) within a multicultural area if not within a single park means spatial producers and opportunities to provide more for this groups’ needs by making a space of unique managers need to be willing to challenge their own tastes, prejudices, passions or appeal for this part of London. Providing space for occasional or even regularly This chapter’s focus is on actions to reduce inequality and exclusionary practice, ambitions, and design and manage space in ways that are reflexive. timetabled ‘women only’ days, or ‘women only’ outdoor activities, provided at and move toward equitable provision of park space times when children are in school, giving the many locally resident Islamic stay-at- Importantly understanding what is required in each place needs to be based in home mothers greater opportunity to participate, could meet a demand that was Defending Equal Rights to Space. valid methods of establishing local needs . People are not inarticulate about their expressed in the focus groups. If supported by appropriate and directed publicity, preferences. Good data can help inform decision making, and inclusion needs to this might be a significant attraction. Due to its unusual ground form andthe In an ideal world public spaces would of course be places where citizens meet be embedded in meaningful processes of participation and consultation. All of the presence of infrastructure, there are spaces at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and interact respectfully, but the reality of East London’s park spaces, like most social research methods used here can generate valid and applicable material to that are hidden from view, and might be access controlled and protect modesty, others, is not ideal. As the focus group participants described eloquently, parks inform spatial design. Fundamentally though, consultation can only be meaningful with little impact on the rest of the park. which should be places of relaxation and restoration, can often be spaces of stress, if those carrying it out apply well designed, appropriate, considered methods, and intimidation and fear. Many people who feel themselves to be vulnerable in are not attached to any preconceived outcome, just genuinely interested in the Access to quality green space is linked with better health outcomes and lower unregulated park spaces travel, if they have the resources, to make use of more results. mortality rates in urban environments. Participants in this study did not universally controlled spaces, like the warden patrolled Royal Parks, or access supervised recognise feelings of increased calm or other physical change associated with Coram’s Fields. It seems likely then, that the presence of park wardens (as at the simply being in or looking at green space, and research has also shown that what Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park), or other means of regulation in more East London Considering Inclusive Spaces people believe about green space has an impact on whether or not access to nature park spaces and/or at some times, would increase frequency of park use by people is “restorative”. This study provides evidence that people’s beliefs about nature from some BME groups, particularly Islamic ethnicities. Based on the evidence of the park preference survey and focus groups within this and green spaces do vary on ethnic lines. Tendencies to universalise for example a case study area, it is possible, to make recommendations regarding ways in which ‘restorative’ value for nature are generalisations, and uncritical thinking has been Staffing parks is costly, and despite many calls for investment in park wardens, both the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park itself and East London’s park design and shown here to have the potential to exclude. Studies do allow however for many finding revenue for staffing has been the largest obstacle to greater regulation of management practices more generally could better accommodate other arguably mechanisms to underlie the evidenced relationship between access to green space park space in the UK for some time. There is scope for greater voluntary sector normative cultural preferences and practices of many local residents. and health, such as health benefits of exercise, benefits of social contacts outside or housing agency involvement at a local level. The ‘Community Green’ report’s the home, better air quality or less noise in greener environments. recommendation for improved quality of space close to home (CABE, 2010), if Concerns over aesthetics, and programmed uses will be addressed in this section. combined with some regulation, could reduce fear of local play spaces and small However what comes through very strongly from all the focus groups is that I believe action can be taken toward removing existing barriers to equitable use parks that is widely reported, and address needs of those people who seek green there is one normative cultural assumption of many white British people and of park space for many people from British minority ethnic backgrounds, which garden like spaces for frequent use close to home - dog free spaces that are safe, park managers that really needs to be questioned. Most London parks including would be likely to result in their increased frequency of visits to many park spaces. tranquil, and suited to sociability, food growing and children’s play. Regulating ‘country parks’ offer only relatively small dog free areas, and in participants’ All require an acceptance that hegemonic views in spatial production do not a large number of very local spaces full time would be hard to fund if paid park experience there is very little enforcement of dogs on leads policies. Dogs are represent universal truths. Responding to place is not just a physical act, it is a wardens were the only option, but this is not the case. Improving both the quality allowed to roam free across the majority of park space, yet less than one in ten social one - space is culturally constructed, and cultural context varies. and supervision of large numbers of small spaces could be achieved through building London households own a dog (BBC News, 2007). It is astonishing then that so little the capacity of communities to recognise and act jointly to address oppressive is provided in the way of dog free park space in London. More equitable options This study shows that in the increasingly multicultural context of our cities, cultural actions or actors, and help ‘self regulate’ space. Housing providers through might include establishing both dog friendly parks, and dog free parks in areas consciousness in production of urban park space really matters. If access to green investing in a staff resource across a property portfolio, perhaps as community of plentiful open space provision like the Lea Valley or Epping Forest. In larger space can have the profound impacts on urban lives that have been claimed, it gardeners or play workers, can provide a presence in a number of park spaces London parks it seems reasonable to bring closer to equity the area of park space could even be a matter of life and death. across a wide area, if only at specific times. Actions like these are possible, and available for people who do not want to interact with dogs, to provision for those would be likely to have significant benefit, especially for those groups like British who do. The introduction of time of day, day of week, and seasonal restrictions, Bangladeshi people in East London, who seem more reluctant or constrained than might be appropriate in areas of more limited space, as with UK beaches or many others to travel far to access park space. US parks. The representations of the focus groups indicate that Victoria Park for one would see a very significant rise in use by BME groups if this sort of regulation were introduced. Cultural Reflexivity in Institutional Values & Practices Returning to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, North Park could still attract a Symbolic values matter. Actions and concrete representations that are symbolic wider ethnic mix without changing the spatial configuration substantially, or of equality, valuing and accepting the presence of different cultures within Britain, lessening biodiversity or sustainibility. Many of the images of the park currently can be a step towards addressing perceptions of institutional racism. Others have used in its publicity particularly emphasise the area’s naturalistic plant forms that recommended providing for locally preferred activities, representing diversity in many participants in the preference survey liked least. LLDC could make more in promotional materials, in events programming, installing signage meeting local promotions of the controlled spaces that surround them. Other measures in line language needs and the like. By representing and legitimating the presence of with different groups preferences would include publicising that dogs are required multiple cultures in physical space, these actions act to challenge any presumption to be on leads, and that this is being enforced by full time park wardens; making of institutional support solely for national majority use. The types of culturally provision for barbecues and providing better facilities for picnics; installing more relevant interventions that, from this study, would be likely to have impact in East off lawn sociable seating at the upper levels, especially along main movement London, are touched on below. routes; considering provision of more sociable seating within the children’s play areas, particularly in locations with good visibility. These actions that would retain However, for gestures of this sort to go further than potentially superficial, characteristics desired by white British participants, and align the existing space symbolism, they must be underpinned by explicit recognition of the presence of more closely with many of the preferences expressed by British Pakistani, British culturally situated assumptions, tastes, and preferences in all cultures, including Somali and British Caribbean participants. white Britain, and the recognition that some legally upheld cultural preferences Without relocating the park, the appeal of northern areas in particular to can be spatially or at least temporally incompatible with each other. Recognising 23 Bibliography Urban Woodlands: New Perspectives for Urban Forestry. London: Springer, pp. Butler, J., 1993 Bodies that Matter: The Discursive Limits of Sex, New York: Abello, R. P. B. F. G., 1986. Landscape Preference and Personality. Landscape and 81-94. 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