Against the backdrop of an accelerating global urbanization and related ecological, climatic or social challenges to urban sustainability, this book focuses on the access to “safe, inclusive and accessible green and public space” as outlined in United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal No. 11. Looking through the lens of environmental justice and contested urban spaces, it raises the question who ultimately benefits from a green city development, and – even more importantly – who does not. While green space benefits are well-documented, green space provision is faced by multiple challenges in an era of urban neoliberalism. With their interdisciplinary and multi-method approach, the chapters in this book carefully study the different dimensions of green space access with particular focus on vulnerable groups, critically evaluate cases of procedural injustice and, in the case of Northern Europe that is often seen as forerunner of urban sustainability, provide in-depth studies on the contexts of injustices in urban greening.
Chapters 1, 5, and 6 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.
Bianka Plüschke-Altof is Researcher in Environmental Sociology at the School of Natural Sciences and Health at Tallinn University and Lecturer in Qualitative Research at the University of Tartu. She holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Tartu and an undergraduate in Social Sciences from the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Her research concentrates on questions of socio-spatial and environmental justice, with specific focus on Central-Eastern Europe. As part of the research group on “Human-nature interactions in the city” at Tallinn University she investigates urban (green space) planning for sustainability, the governance of urban gardening, and environmental activism.
Helen Sooväli-Sepping is a Professor in Environmental Management at Tallinn University and Vice-Rector at Tallinn University of Technology, with specific focus on the organization’s green transition. She holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Tartu in Estonia. Her research lies in the field of environmental studies in urban space (participatory planning, urban green commons, sustainable mobility), and cultural geography (especially heritage culture, cultural sustainability, landscape imaginary). She leads the research group on “Human-nature interactions in the city” at Tallinn University
