The ‘civic-transformative’ value of urban street trees

Oliver Harrison

Environmental Values, 2024, vol. 33, issue 4, 363-379

Abstract: Urban street trees (USTs) have a range of values – some of which are easier to quantify than others. Focusing specifically on the UK context and using the Sheffield Tree Protests (2012–) as a case study, whilst confirming existing research as to the variety of values associated with their specifically ‘cultural’ services, the article argues that USTs have an additional potential form – what I call ‘civic-transformative value’. This form of value has at least three key characteristics. Firstly, it is place-based and communal; second, its form is ‘relational’; and finally, as intrinsically contingent, it is pluralistic in the sense that its civic-transformative potential is dependent on successfully integrating a range of other values. The article emphasises both the possibility and necessity of ‘convergence’ – that is, a pluralistic and pragmatic alliance of values which might help protect not only USTs, but other embattled sites of nature.

Keywords: Urban street trees; value; relational value; environmental pluralism; convergence hypothesis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:envval:v:33:y:2024:i:4:p:363-379

DOI: 10.1177/09632719231180306

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