Impact of Student Interventions on Urban Greening Processes

Abstract

<jats:p>The aim of this study is to determine the contribution of student interventions to urban greening processes. In two Dutch cities action research was conducted, including reflexive interviews a year after the first intervention, to assess factors causing change in the socio-ecological system. Results show that students and network actors were mutually learning, causing the empowerment of actors in that network by adding contextualized knowledge, enlarging the social network, expanding the amount of interactions in the socio-ecological system and speeding up the process. Students brought unique qualities to the process: time, access to stakeholders who tend to distrust the municipality and a certain open-mindedness. Their mere presence made a difference and started a process of change. However, university staff needed to keep the focus on long-term effects and empowerment, because students did not oversee that. After a year, many new green elements had been developed or were in the planning phase. In Enschede, the municipality district managers were part of the learning network, which made it easier to cause changes in the main ecological network. In Haarlem however, no change took place in the main ecological network managed by the municipality, because no political empowerment of the civil society group had developed yet.</jats:p>

Students between science and society: why students’ learning experiences in transformative spaces are vital to higher education institutions

“…In this sense, students’ learning experiences were similar to what Stobbelaar (2020) found when he explored how students organise themselves and share information. A major part of the student projects entailed learning to self-organise.…”

Transformation towards Green Cities: Key Conditions to Accelerate Change

“…Additional factors could include unexpected developments (such as the COVID pandemic, etc. ), combined with pressure the micro level (people in the neighbourhoods demanding green spaces, experimenting with green streets [24]), as well as the incremental development on the meso level (politicians wanting to change [22,25] and seeing increasing problems in separate subsystems in a city (see Section 3 for more explanation)). Secondly, solutions for problems in separate subsystems on the meso level must coincide [22,26,27]; problems with climate issues, housing, liveability, green urban infrastructure, transport, etc., must be addressed by integrated solutions.…”

“…Based on our theoretical framework and literature, we will now stipulate a few measures that can be implemented to speed up transformations towards sustainable green cities. This acceleration needs an interwoven approach to deal with locked-in situations and are also comprehensively described and illustrated by Gorissen et al [24] and Elmqvist et al [10]. Reports by Natuur en Milieu [52], Barboza et al [53], Groene_Stad_Challenge [54], and NL Green label [55] showed the growing importance of green spaces for ecosystem development, health, and well-being.…”

“…Novasadová and Van der Knaap [18] described that the role of change agents to boost a change for a green environment is linked both to biophilic activities, as well as indirectly with non-biophilic agents; their mutual cooperation is essential to support this green environment development on all levels. Stobbelaar [24] discussed linking the levels in the multilevel system that is needed to initiate greening cities. If the micro and meso level coincide, green urban measures are more easily implemented, forming a new green urban STES.…”

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“…It shows that other actors like the municipality take their responsibility for greening seriously, which is also an important factor in behavioural change (social cultural factors). (2) All parties around the inhabitants should send the same message of greening the garden, and should show that they work together [73]. These parties include a municipality, water board, housing cooperation, but also neighbourhood organizations, garden centres and garden television programs.…”