PhD defence: Natalie Gulsrud

Natalie Gulsrud defends her thesis: 

The role of Green Space in City Branding; an urban governance perspective

Assessment Committee

Adj. professor Thomas Barfoed Randrup (head of committee)

External members Professor C.Y. Jim and Professor Margaret Shannon

Supervisor

Professor Cecil C Konijnendijk van den Bosch, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Abstract

The overall purpose of the presented PhD study is to better understand how biophysically green elements of urban green infrastructure (UGI) are currently incorporated into and impacted by green city branding campaigns at the city level and beyond. This is achieved by examining the impacts of three diverse green city branding cases in Denmark, Singapore and the European Union.

The case studies are analyzed and operationalized through an urban governance theoretical framework linking changes in policy practices such as urban greening to broader structural changes in society such as neoliberalism and globalization. Urban political ecology is applied as a critical lens.

Findings indicate that green city branding discourses impact UGI governance arrangements both at the on-the-ground level of exploring concrete policy problems and their causes and solutions as well as at the meta-level in terms of framing ideas about the relationships between state, market and civil society. Study findings contribute to urban green space management practices in Denmark and abroad as well as to the literature on urban green space governance.

Keywords: UGI, urban forestry and urban greening, urban political ecology, neoliberalism.

After the PhD defense there will be a reception at Rolighedsvej 23