Informal Urban Green Space: Residents’ Perception, Use, and Management Preferences across Four Major Japanese Shrinking Cities

Christoph Rupprecht

doi:10.3390/land6030059

Abstract

Urban residents’ health depends on green infrastructure to cope with climate change. Shrinking cities could utilize vacant land to provide more green space, but declining tax revenues preclude new park development—a situation pronounced in Japan, where some cities are projected to shrink by over ten percent, but lack green space. Could informal urban green spaces (IGS; vacant lots, street verges, brownfields etc.) supplement parks in shrinking cities? This study analyzes residents’ perception, use, and management preferences (management goals, approaches to participatory management, willingness to participate) for IGS using a large, representative online survey (n = 1000) across four major shrinking Japanese cities: Sapporo, Nagano, Kyoto and Kitakyushu. Results show that residents saw IGS as a common element of the urban landscape and their daily lives, but their evaluation was mixed. Recreation and urban agriculture were preferred to redevelopment and non-management. For participative management, residents saw a need for the city administration to mediate usage and liability, and expected an improved appearance, but emphasized the need for financial and non-financial support. A small but significant minority (~10%) were willing to participate in management activities. On this basis, eight principles for participatory informal green space planning are proposed.

Highlights

Urban green spaces as an essential element of green infrastructure are increasingly linked to human wellbeing [1,2,3,4,5]
Such schemes might create more recreational green space, provide benefits associated with green infrastructure, and could simultaneously alleviate the costs of maintenance
This study focused on the Japanese cities Sapporo, Kyoto, Kitakyushu and Nagano, all four

Summary

Introduction

Urban green spaces as an essential element of green infrastructure are increasingly linked to human wellbeing [1,2,3,4,5] The benefits they provide come at a price, from maintenance of facilities and vegetation to day-to-day management [6]. Despite introducing participative management for formal green spaces since the 1990s [15], local governments in Japan have been slow to explore this direction for non-traditional green spaces. Such schemes might create more recreational green space, provide benefits associated with green infrastructure, and could simultaneously alleviate the costs of maintenance. One reason for the lack of similar initiatives in Japan may lie in the scarcity of related

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion