Essential infrastructure or ornamental afterthought? Reimagining urban green space planning in the contemporary city

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My research addresses the contested role of urban green space. I examine the paradox of establishing planning goals and policies that emphasise urban green spaces as critical to contemporary and future urban life, yet managing them as an optional amenity with inconsistent and vulnerable funding. As such, I identify a gap between the theoretical way urban green space is discussed and the practical way it is delivered.Urban green space has risen up policy and research agendas, buoyed by a heightened awareness of the role nature plays in addressing contemporary urban challenges, such as climate change, chronic health conditions and waning biodiversity. A focus on green infrastructure has further elevated the role of urban green space, connecting it with critical urban systems and services, such as urban cooling and flood prevention. Yet, as urbanisation continues at a rapid pace, urban green spaces have not realised their economic, environmental and social potential. My research finds that, instead of being managed as "critical scaffolding" (Eisenman, 2013: 298) or essential elements of a multifunctional, interconnected system of green infrastructure, green spaces are conceptualised as an ornamental afterthought, detached from the city around them.I demonstrate how a powerful cultural and institutional preoccupation with heritage - grounded in a Victorian-era perspective of nature - leads to an "institutional straightjacket" (Lowndes, 2001: 1955), resulting in missed opportunities to use green space as a planning tool to provide the strategic connectivity and multifunctional infrastructure identified as essential for urban sustainability.Drawing from the frameworks of new institutionalism and green infrastructure, my research challenges existing norms around how the concept of green space is constructed. Rarely applied to urban sustainability issues, new institutionalism offers a link with history that helps explain limitations of contemporary green space planning. Building on this, my research demonstrates a path dependency of the conceptualisation of urban green space and lays out how a Victorian obsession with "idealised countryside" (Welch, 1991: 6) dominates green space delivery and management today. My research also contributes to the emerging framework of green infrastructure, showing how, despite falling under the broad umbrella of "green," urban green spaces are not conceptualised as green infrastructure due to constraints from heritage-based policies, planning processes and institutions.Using empirical evidence collected in Inner London, this work demonstrates the paralysing impact an institutionalised conceptualisation of urban green space has on planning, governance and funding processes. This overrides contemporary policies, grounded in sustainable development and green infrastructure, to mitigate harmful impacts of urbanisation. Further, I expand on green space governance. Two newly established organisations - the London Green Spaces Commission and London National Park City Foundation - address urban greening beyond the local scale. This work examines whether these organisations represent a shift towards a more integrated, strategic approach to providing green space as a system of interconnected, multifunctional green infrastructure. With implications for planning, governance and sustainability debates, my research argues that, to truly realise the broad-ranging benefits urban green spaces can provide, green space must be conceived as critical infrastructure on par with roads and utilities. This differs from traditional conversations about green space as a heritage asset and amenity. This shift is made more urgent by a heightened awareness of climate change and its threat to London's economic, environmental and social vitality. With 33 percent of London considered vegetated public green space, it is hard to ignore the contribution this asset could make to urban life if green space is reconceptualised.