TY - JOUR

T1 - A social-ecological-technological system approach to just nature-based solutions

T2 - A case of digital participatory mapping of meaningful places in a marginalized neighborhood in Copenhagen, Denmark

AU - Maurer, Megan

AU - Chang, Ping

AU - Olafsson, Anton Stahl

AU - Møller, Maja Steen

AU - Gulsrud, Natalie Marie

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Authors

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - Systems-based frameworks offer a promising opportunity to integrate smart and green city approaches to create positive contributions to urban sustainability. In particular, digital public participatory GIS (PPGIS) presents a tool for combining technological approaches to urban planning with an agenda for more just nature-based solutions (NBS) by elucidating community voices and subjective perspectives. In this study, we investigate the potential for PPGIS to support more just and inclusive planning and implementation of NBS in a marginalized housing area (Hørgården) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Combining digital PPGIS with qualitative approaches, we identify residents’ meaningful places, narratives about community priorities and needs, and relational values expressed therein. We identify three key findings: (1) an absence of demographic difference in meaningful places identified in Hørgården; (2) a core-periphery structure in the presence of relational value and distribution of sites identified as unsafe or in need of care that is the inverse of that found in Danish policy discourse, and (3) the essential role of qualitative, community-engaged, and reflexive approaches to PPGIS in deriving these results. Based on these findings we conclude that smart technologies like digital PPGIS, framed within systems-based approaches and utilized in locally sensitive and responsive ways, can contribute to more just NBS for sustainable cities by connecting local neighborhood experience to municipal planning and policy agendas.

AB - Systems-based frameworks offer a promising opportunity to integrate smart and green city approaches to create positive contributions to urban sustainability. In particular, digital public participatory GIS (PPGIS) presents a tool for combining technological approaches to urban planning with an agenda for more just nature-based solutions (NBS) by elucidating community voices and subjective perspectives. In this study, we investigate the potential for PPGIS to support more just and inclusive planning and implementation of NBS in a marginalized housing area (Hørgården) in Copenhagen, Denmark. Combining digital PPGIS with qualitative approaches, we identify residents’ meaningful places, narratives about community priorities and needs, and relational values expressed therein. We identify three key findings: (1) an absence of demographic difference in meaningful places identified in Hørgården; (2) a core-periphery structure in the presence of relational value and distribution of sites identified as unsafe or in need of care that is the inverse of that found in Danish policy discourse, and (3) the essential role of qualitative, community-engaged, and reflexive approaches to PPGIS in deriving these results. Based on these findings we conclude that smart technologies like digital PPGIS, framed within systems-based approaches and utilized in locally sensitive and responsive ways, can contribute to more just NBS for sustainable cities by connecting local neighborhood experience to municipal planning and policy agendas.

KW - Community-based planning

KW - Justice

KW - Nature-based solutions

KW - PPGIS

KW - SETS

KW - Urban green infrastructure

U2 - 10.1016/j.ufug.2023.128120

DO - 10.1016/j.ufug.2023.128120

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85175300265

VL - 89

JO - Urban Forestry & Urban Greening

JF - Urban Forestry & Urban Greening

SN - 1618-8667

M1 - 128120

ER -