Abstract
Mapping Green Dublin is a transdisciplinary, collaborative action research project led by University College Dublin’s School of Geography in collaboration with arts organisation Common Ground, artist Seoidín O’Sullivan, and event facilitators Connect the Dots. It took place in an inner-city neighbourhood of Dublin 8 between 2019 and 2020 and was funded by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency. This article outlines the methodological approach taken to develop a community-led greening strategy that is both inclusive and planning-policy relevant. The first phase of the project involved scientifically mapping the span and territories of trees and greenspace across Dublin 8, identifying their location and quality, greenspace deficits, and future needs. Phase two included a series of curated events from March to August 2020 to map out a proposed process for co-creating urban greening solutions focusing more on local identity and the possibilities for future creation. The scientific data was presented to communities in a way that opened up a creative and supportive space for dialogue on the wider role of trees and greening in enhancing urban resilience. Such a co-created greening plan ensures that interventions respond to neighbourhood needs, have high social and cultural value within the community, and maximise opportunities for community wellbeing. The final phase of the project identified specific areas for focused greening interventions. An important output from this action research project is a co-creation process to enable communities, local authorities, and policymakers to engage with and develop a new governance arrangement for more inclusive and appropriate urban greening strategies.
Highlights
The quality and resilience of ecosystems in our living environments is increasingly recognised as an impor‐ tant determinant of health, quality of life, and over‐ all wellbeing
The public engagement activity is out‐ sourced, creating a new role for private consultants in managing public participation and engagement (Brudell, 2014). Acknowledging these critiques, we argue for a conceptualisation of co‐creation that is radically differ‐ ent
At the same time as access to affordable housing and security of tenure is increasingly politicised, in recent years, the attention of the local authority has moved to place‐making. This is partly a response to academic and community critiques of the nature of past development that has resulted in a poor quality, exclusionary public realm in the city (Moore, 2008; Van Melik & Lawton, 2011), as well as a response to more general trends in urban design and planning where urban attractiveness is considered a critical enabler of economic development (Lawton, 2017; Musterd & Kovács, 2013) and the role of the arts has become an important part of austerity urbanism (Grodach, 2017)
Summary
The quality and resilience of ecosystems in our living environments is increasingly recognised as an impor‐ tant determinant of health, quality of life, and over‐ all wellbeing. To develop more inclusive and sustainable cities, deeper dialogue and mapping are required to unearth local concerns, histories, and vulnerabilities, and generate appropri‐ ate place‐based responses (Bodenhamer et al, 2015; Roberts, 2016) This kind of approach would acknowl‐ edge that urban processes, such as greening, do not happen in a vacuum but within particular spatial and socio‐cultural contexts that can and should be made leg‐ ible. Through MGD, we developed an approach grounded in iterative dia‐ logue, open creation of, and access to scientific data, as well as arts‐based methods and practices This enabled deeper understanding of the everyday impacts of urban dynamics, in neighbourhoods undergoing. The article situates the project within the burgeoning literature on co‐creation in planning and focuses on how new urban actor constellations can support social and environmen‐ tal justice through more place‐based and grounded strat‐ egy development and implementation
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