Green Infrastructure in the Time of Social Distancing: Urban Policy and the Tactical Pandemic Urbanism

Krzysztof Herman and Łukasz Drozda
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Krzysztof Herman: Department of Landscape Art, Institute of Environmental Engineering, Warsaw University of Life Sciences (WULS-SGGW), 02-787 Warsaw, Poland
Łukasz Drozda: Department of Applied Social Sciences and Resocialization, Institute of Social Prevention and Resocialization, University of Warsaw, 00-927 Warsaw, Poland

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 4, 1-21

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic generated a number of changes in the functioning of urban areas all over the world and had a visible impact on the use of green infrastructure, including city parks. The study discusses and compares operation and use of two such parks located in Wellington, New Zealand and Warsaw, Poland by adopting “pandemic urban ethnography”, an approach that includes autoethnography, interviews with users, non-participant observation, and analysis of social media content. As indicated by the findings of the study, the importance of less rigidly designed, multifunctional spaces that give their users freedom of “tactical” adjustments, significantly grows during times of lockdown and “social distancing”. During such a crisis, the management and everyday use of urban parks are highly related to urban policies. The article provides insight into how those policies impact the functional values of green infrastructure confronting it with user-generated adaptations and the landscape design itself. The global health emergency showed how access to green areas becomes a crucial determinant on environmental justice while proving the significance of “tactical pandemic urbanism” as both a design and management method.

Keywords: green infrastructure; tactical urbanism; COVID-19; pandemic; urban policy; urban ethnography; urban autoethnography; landscape architecture; urban parks; low-budget strategies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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