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Urban areas can be both detrimental for pollinators or function as suitable habitats, depending on the land-use type, the urban context and the pollinator group in focus. Urban green spaces, including gardens, parks or cemeteries can provide essential resources for a wide range of pollinator groups, like wild bees, hoverflies and beetles. Urban community gardens can be particularly structurally complex and harbour a diverse range of nesting and food resources for pollinators. However, we know little about how garden features may vary with the urban context of gardens and which specific garden features can increase the abundance of pollinators in general and of different pollinator groups. Over two summer seasons, we recorded garden features and pollinators using flower observations in 33 urban community gardens in Munich and Berlin, Germany. We examined how garden features differ amongst urban community gardens from three urbanisation categories, and analysed the effects of garden features such as floral and nesting resources and landscape imperviousness (as indicator of urbanisation) on pollinator abundance, richness and diversity. In more urbanised gardens, flower richness and bare substrate were less prevalent. Flower richness was positively correlated with overall pollinator abundance, richness and diversity as well as with the abundances of all pollinator taxa excluding beetles. Landscape imperviousness was negatively correlated with hoverfly and beetle abundances. Hoverflies also decreased with increasing bare substrate and wasp abundance decreased with increasing deadwood availability. Our findings highlight the important role of flower richness for insect conservation in urban management and show that pollinator taxa react differently to garden features and urbanisation. To support pollinating insects, gardeners can increase flower richness, especially in highly urbanised areas. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the context of worldwide biodiversity and wild bee decline, it is increasingly important to better understand the effect of land-use changes on wild bee communities at a global scale. To do so, we studied the effect of city area and urban green spaces layout on wild bee species richness and community composition, as well as on wild bee species with an unfavorable UICN conservation status. This study was based on a large European dataset encompassing 20 cities from France, Belgium and Switzerland. We found a mean wild bee species richness in cities of 96 ± 48 (SD), showing that this species richness was highly variable among cities. The main factor positively influencing wild bee species richness in cities was the area of the city. Conversely, species richness was not significantly related to the total area of urban green spaces in a given city, measured as the spatial extent of urban parks, wastelands and other semi-natural habitats, excluding urban private gardens. Species with conservation status were quite scarce in urban environments, especially when compared to the European Red List of Bees, and we could not link their presence to either city or urban green space area. Dissimilarities in wild bee species community compositions were not associated with any of the studied characteristics of cities. We found that the dissimilarity of wild bee community composition among cities was mainly driven by the rarest species, as the most common ones were found in a majority of the cities sampled. Overall, these results emphasize that larger cities host more wild bee species, but are no refuge for the ones with concerning conservation status. Thus, stakeholders are encouraged to design their cities in favor of biodiversity to better support wild bee communities, and perhaps mitigate the established effect of the urban ecological filter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Online Journal of Art & Design is the property of Online Journal of Art & Design and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper focuses attention on the importance of preserving objects of the historical urban landscape, which the authors consider as a response to the challenges of war. The relevance of the study is due to the desire of Ukraine to follow European values in the formation of urban spaces. The purpose of the study is to substantiate the essential, to be preserved, characteristics of the elements of historical urban landscapes - gardens and squares. In the work, the analysis of the stages of formation of elements of the historical urban landscape is carried out on the example of a garden and a square in the cities of Poltava and Kharkov; factors and patterns that influenced the features of their architectural and landscape formation are identified; the main characteristics of the spatial planning and landscape organization of the studied objects are revealed. A new research algorithm for Ukrainian practice will strengthen the scientific justification of projects for the preservation and revival of the country's historical urban landscape objects, as a response to the challenges of the post-war period. The result of the study can be used in works aimed at preserving historical urban landscapes in various urban conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban gardens have emerged at the cracks and edges of the densely built environment of Metro Manila, taking on a variety of forms that cultivate a sense of habitability amid harsh urban conditions. The empirical diversity in the spaces, practices and trajectories of urban gardens in the city, however, often exceeds their usual framings either as state‐sponsored projects from above that seek to transform individual dispositions, or as grassroots initiatives from below that result from conscious collective resistance or encroachment. Framing gardens as a locus to understand city‐making amid massive urbanisation, this paper aims to provide a different account of urban gardens by focusing on how they emerge from a certain edginess, characterised by a coming together of various actions, aspirations and relations, and by a mode of practice marked by a distinctive temporality and peripheral logic. Using particular accounts of gardening from across Metro Manila, the paper demonstrates the edginess of urban gardens in terms of four articulations: as interstitial, provisional, transversal and experimental. Making a garden work and maintaining its place in the city entail consolidating relationships between various urban elements that carve spaces of manoeuvre, produce diverse eventualities, and map onto the indeterminate politics of the maybe. Framing gardens as a locus to understand city‐making amid massive urbanization, this paper aims to provide a different account of urban gardens by focusing on how they emerge from a certain edginess, characterized by a coming together of various actions, aspirations and relations, and by a mode of practice marked by a distinctive temporality and peripheral logic. Using particular accounts of gardening from across Metro Manila, the paper demonstrates the edginess of urban gardens in terms of four articulations: as interstitial, provisional, transversal and experimental. Making a garden work and maintaining its place in the city entail consolidating relationships between various urban elements that carve spaces of maneuver, produce diverse eventualities, and map onto the indeterminate politics of the maybe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban green spaces, encompassing parks, gardens, and natural landscapes, play a vital role in improving the quality of life for city residents. These areas provide environmental benefits such as enhanced air quality, regulation of temperatures, and conservation of biodiversity, fostering a healthier urban environment. Additionally, green spaces offer opportunities for recreation and places for social interaction, which strengthen community unity and individual wellbeing. This study examines literature and case studies to identify factors that influence the efficacy of urban green spaces, stressing the importance of fair and comprehensive access. It also underscores the significance of integrating green spaces into urban planning to develop sustainable, livable cities. By advocating for increased investment in green infrastructure, this paper seeks to educate policymakers, urban planners, and community stakeholders about the critical role of urban green spaces in improving quality of life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban parks provide environmental, social and economic benefits to users. A notable model that sought to integrate green spaces and create self-sufficient, healthy and pleasant places to live by combining the best aspects of urban and rural life was the garden city model. This led to the creation of many green areas across many African cities, including Kumasi, Ghana. However, considering the rapid decline and deterioration of urban parks in African cities, a key question being asked by the paper is that: is there decline in urban parks and their usage because users are not satisfied with them and thus do not patronise them? Premised on this, this paper examines the factors that influence the satisfaction and patronage of the Rattray Park in Nhyiaeso, commissioned in 2015 and remains the only functional recreational and urban green park in the city of Kumasi. Data was obtained from 237 park users along four indicators, namely (i) sociability, (ii) user and activities, (iii) accessibility and linkage and (iv) comfort and image. The results showed sociability as the most significant factor which influenced users' satisfaction and patronage of the park, i.e. users were more concerned about the provision of facilities for recreation and socialisation. The major contribution of this paper is that sustaining urban parks will happen when there are conscious attempts by relevant stakeholders to identify, appreciate and understand the varying needs of users. This study further contributes to better understanding the garden city model and provides some suggestions to improve upon the quality and patronage of parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In daily life, people's interaction in urban areas with urban environments are a result of the quality of the urban public space. The diversity and intensity of urban space activities in public open spaces correlate with the quality of that space. In addition to the physical and environmental characteristics of urban space, indicators such as intensity and diversity of urban space activities and socio-economic status of active users provide important data when measuring spatial quality. This paper outlines the importance of the relation between urban public open space quality and urban space activity. Three public open spaces (Anıt Park, Adnan Ötüken Park, and Eser Park), designed as green bands in garden city planning in Ankara, Turkey were selected as the study area. In the study, the relationships between the spatial qualities of the three selected public open spaces and urban space activities were revealed as per the analysis carried out. The study uses the mixed method approach, which includes the determination and use of qualitative and quantitative data. Following the theoretical discussion, the study investigates the relation between urban public open space quality and urban space activity. Throughout the field study, analysis of public open spaces was performed based on sound spatial quality measurement criteria. Survey results were evaluated according to Gehl's urban space activity approach for public open spaces. Study results draw attention to the relationship between space quality in public open areas and urban space activities are dependent on physical space dimensions, the social and common content. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, a growing number of citizen‐led gardens have appeared in the urban public spaces of large cities across the world. While many of these projects are initially launched informally without any support from the state, they gradually become integrated into the social fabric of the city. To understand the evolution of the formal–informal boundaries of the practice, we argue that we should be paying attention to the specific institutional contexts that frame gardeners' interactions with public authorities. Drawing from a study of citizen‐led gardens in Mexico City, we show that informal urban gardening becomes a disconnected‐from‐the‐state practice. On the one hand, the Mexico City government has shown a growing interest in regulating urban agriculture. On the other hand, gardeners are increasingly trying to find their own ways to formalize and perennate their practice. We suggest that this disconnection between gardeners and the state is best explained by the weakness of the institutional context in which their interactions take place. A top‐down policymaking process, along with the incapacity and unwillingness of the multi‐leveled city government to implement policies effectively, reinforces norms of mistrust and generates low expectations among gardeners as they interact with local authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In discussions on urban food security and healthy aging, urban agriculture is described in the context of changing approaches to sustainable urban development under crises. Space planning-related urban agriculture practices, such as edible landscaping combing design and small-scale crop production, are the primary active strategies and environmental policy tools. This paper addresses urban food security and health aging by practicing campus agriculture and community gardens around National Taiwan University. In particular, this study adopts participatory action research, participatory observation, and semi-structured, in-depth interviews as the research method. We examined the challenges and benefits of implementing urban agriculture in Taipei. Further, we proposed that urban agricultural space building and planning based on a social support network of urban agriculture can effectively address food supply and healthy aging for an aging urban society to some extent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Canberra, a city known as a "garden city" that emerged in the early twentieth century, is developing at a speedy rate. The compact city vision for Canberra was announced in ACT Planning Strategy 2018 while the city encounters climate change impacts. Although urban compaction has its own benefits, it is considered a challenge for maintaining and developing the quality and quantity of urban green spaces. Canberra owns a unique urban design legacy and is known for its bush capital/garden city character, which has intertwined the social and ecological layers of the city. The concern around urban compaction and densification calls for holistic green infrastructure (GI) planning to balance the built and non-built infrastructure. To do so, it is necessary to understand the underlying social-cultural and ecological layers of Canberra's green spaces and the Ecosystem Services (ESS) they offer. The application of multiple ESS in the current GI planning and governance practices is another issue that needs to be examined to inform future development. Thus, this qualitative research seeks to understand the ESS discourses in Canberra's GI and the challenges in applying these ESS in planning and governance. We used a socio-ecological approach to design the research and understand the multidimensional values and benefits of Canberra's green spaces. We adopted semi-structured interviews with twelve experts from relevant disciplines with specific knowledge of Canberra's urban landscape and green spaces to find out the socio-ecological synopsis of Canberra's GI and green spaces governance. We found that it is necessary to mainstream multiple ESS in Canberra's GI to amplify the existing socio-ecological values. The abundance of green spaces in Canberra can be better used to make a multifunctional landscape that serves multiple ESS. However, we identified the maintenance and budget issues as the main challenges that can be addressed by improving community engagement. To design an effective GI network and mainstream ESS in green spaces, the planning and governance system should employ a transdisciplinary, multi-object and multi-scale approach and state-of-the-art technologies. Moreover, this research underlined the importance of a protocol and guidelines that monitor the landscape projects' design and delivery correspondence to the high-level policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Georgian feuilleton developed in fits and starts in the first 5 years of the first Georgian newspaper, Droeba. The feuilleton is an exemplary genre in the development of Georgian publics, both urban and print. The digressive narrative of the feuilleton meanders between, ties together, and dialogizes the disembodied world of public texts and the embodied world of real public places, drawing together two different, seemingly antithetical senses of "public". First, the "metatopical" public created by the circulation of Droeba, a disembodied reflexive intertextual world of stranger‐contemporaries, fellow readers of the newspaper reading in their private homes, writing about different somewheres from the perspective of a voice from nowhere. Second, the concrete spatialized set of public places and the quoted, overheard, voices of crowds, stranger‐consociates, to be found in those public places, the streets and especially gardens, of the city of Tbilisi which is the exemplary locale which can be presupposed as a "here" shared between the writer and his readers. The feuilletonist dialogizes the garden heterotopias of the city, just as he dialogizes the heteroglossia of the city. The feuilletonist‐qua‐flâneur then arises at the conjuncture of two public worlds, two parallel streams of circulation of literature and life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The international planning agenda is opening its attention to the integration of food systems in urban planning and, consequently, to Urban Agriculture (UA). However, what UA and, particularly, Urban Food Gardening (UFG) mean in terms of city planning and urban space management have been less explored by the academic point of view. Here we propose a frame to analyse UFG practices in relation with land use and zoning, land property, management and urban regulations. By an empirical analysis of a thirty case studies in Italian metropolitan cities, we show that the Italian panorama of UA practices is wide and varied, and that the recent policies aimed at promoting UFG adopt different tools, according to pathdependencies and different actors involved in defining urban agendas. However, the Italian planning system has not yet integrated UA within its planning tools in a structured way. Current trends regard to the adoption of UA-related policies, strategies, plans and regulations has been highlighted, in order to identify possible points of attention for the development of UA in the European context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relevant studies have demonstrated that urban green spaces composed of various types of plants are able to alleviate the morbidity and mortality of respiratory diseases, by reducing air pollution levels. In order to explore the relationship between the spatial pattern of urban green spaces and air pollutant concentrations, this study takes 37 garden cities with subtropical monsoon climate in China as the research object and selects the urban air quality monitoring data and land use type data in 2019 to analyze the relationship between the spatial pattern and the air pollutant concentration through the landscape metrics model and spatial regression model. Moreover, the threshold effect of the impact of green space on air pollutant concentrations is estimated, as well. The results showed that the spatial pattern of urban green space was significantly correlated with the concentrations of PM2.5 (PM with aerodynamic diameters of 2.5 mmor less), NO2 (Nitrogen Dioxide), and SO2 (Sulfur dioxide) pollutants in the air, while the concentrations of PM10 (PM with aerodynamic diameters of 10 mmor less) pollutants were not significantly affected by the green space pattern. Among them, the patch shape index (LSI), patch density (PD) and patch proportion in landscape area (PLAND) of forest land can affect the concentration of PM2.5, NO2, and SO2, respectively. The PLAND, PD, and LSI of grassland and farmland can also have an additional impact on the concentration of SO2 pollutants. The study also found that there was a significant threshold effect within the impact mechanism of urban green space landscape pattern indicators (LSI, PD, PLAND) on the concentrations of PM2.5, NO2, and SO2 air pollutants. The results of this study not only clarified the impact mechanism of the spatial pattern of urban green space on air pollutant concentrations but also provided quantitative reference and scientific basis for the optimization and updating of urban green space to promote public health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bio-grafía. Escritos Sobre la Biología y su Enseñanza is the property of Universidad Pedaggica Nacional and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The importance of the coastal spatial identity has not only clarified the dynamics of the economic and communication role of Ire coas, also defines new ideas in Ire structure of future cities. Modeling Ire spatial syntax of Ire coastal areas of southern Iran promises an emerging social configuration that will have a different spatial identity from other configurations. This social configuration is nature-based and eco-based and has international role. In this research, modeling and discovering the spatial syntax relationships of such a configuration, relying on environmental rules and phenomenological perspective, are developed and discussed. Therefore, the new settlement named here as a marine garden city, is the result of such assessment. Spatial syntax analysis has been conceptualized, formulated and modeled by looking at Ire geodemographic space of Ire mangrove marine ecosystem on Ire northern shores of the Persian Gulf and Ire Sea of Oman at Ire levels of spatial syntax, array and layers, and explained at three levels: conceptual, mathematical and graphical. Spatio-graphs with fractal and non-fractal structures is used to index the depth and degree of relationship between spatial components and in the syntax of spatial patterns, compression, distance, scattering and distribution arrays are considered and Conceptual models have become experimental models using quantitative and mathematical data. The results of Iris study show: Analysis and perception of the geodemographic space can be effective in the fundamental land-use, identity and discovering the existing relationships between the configurations and their development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are regarded as the key policy agenda for national, regional, and local government to combat climate change impacts and promote sustainable development. For example, in Perth and Peel metropolitan area, the capital city of Western Australia, there has been a shift of policy setting from that of a sprawling city to a denser city, while maintaining and promoting its ecosystem services and achieving sustainable city goals. Residential verge gardens have been widely adopted in recent years by communities and local governments in the Perth metropolitan area. This study reviews the motivations and drivers for the uptake of verge gardens in metropolitan suburbs and identifies potential policy responses. The City of Bayswater local government area was surveyed for this research. The study considers a mixed-methods approach, including site auditing and a questionnaire survey for local residents who have transformed their verges. A total of 534 verge gardens were audited on residential lots, and 166 valid questionnaire responses were received from residents. The site-audit of the verge gardens in Bayswater found that native vegetation is the dominant verge garden of choice, followed by the ornamental garden, with food production (plants/vegetables) seeming to be the least popular option. Regarding the motivations and drivers, the study has found that social (e.g., aesthetics, flowers, social interactions, and social mimicry), environmental (e.g., attracting wildlife and birds and environmental practice waterwise garden), and personal (easy maintenance) drivers are the primary motivators for residents to adopt verge gardens. Whilst the on-ground surveys were prior to COVID-19, the article includes how this topic could relate to pandemic-resilient urban spaces. As local governments look towards supporting the sustainable outcome goals, the observations of this study will be helpful for developing local government policy and community programs in the promotion and uptake of verge gardens in Australian cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Planned after the City Beautiful Movement and Garden City Movement, Manila City and Quezon City, now among Metro Manila's 16 cities, did not result in the desired outcomes of their planners. The history of unfulfilled visions that began with Burnham's 1905 Plan for Manila repeated in similar fashion in Quezon City in its 1949 Frost-Arellano Plan. How do Metro Manila's public green spaces, as remnants of these plans, sustained specific visions for meeting human needs? To find answers, we focused on Rizal Park and the University of the Philippines (UP) Academic Oval – two public green spaces that remained from the Burnham and Frost-Arellano plans. Contemporary uses of these spaces suggest that the intermingling of the upper and lower classes as envisioned in these plans is limited; nonetheless, they represent endeavours by fairly diverse groups to actively satisfy human needs within and beyond how these spaces were initially designed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing significance of temporary urban initiatives—like community gardens, markets, festivals and artistic ventures—raises questions about their role in the public life and "publicness" of cities. In dialogue with normative and alternative literature on public space, we examine how temporary urbanism is implicated in the production of publicness. Through examining the Auckland Night Markets in New Zealand, we discuss how these events produce publicness through (a) the people that attend them and their experiences, (b) control practices and (c) their spatial configuration. Our discussion lends support to emerging accounts of public space and publicness as pluralistic and dynamic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I Public Gardens and Livable Cities i provides both the inspiration and the advice that practitioners can use to start developing their own visions and building the necessary partnerships to be more intentional parts of the solution in their cities. In the end, these stories are not stories of the gardens themselves, but of the potential benefits that can be realized when gardens look outside of their own borders to see themselves as members of a wider community, not only inviting community members in but also themselves branching out. [Extracted from the article]

The city of Joinville has hot summers quite, with temperatures that can exceed 40ºC and thermal sensations of 50ºC or more. The sidewalks absorb this heat from the sun and walking in the city at certain times becomes quite difficult. The afforestation can contribute significantly to the welfare of pedestrians, but the planting and conservation actions are quite complex and the city code named "Flores Towns" or "Garden City", does not have afforestation in a large part of its sidewalks. This article aims to make a diagnosis about the afforestation of sidewalks in the city of Joinville-SC Brazil, thus verifying the quantity and the main species introduced in this space. It also tries to identify who is responsible for planting and conservation, without analyzing whether the trees or shrubs are appropriate for the location. It was found that the sidewalks of the homes are more wooded, especially those in the most economically affluent neighborhoods. The sidewalks of shops in general are the least wooded places in the city. The present research also has discussed the actions of afforestation as landscape action since the beginning of the colonization, revealing that "green already" as part of the Cultural Heritage of its residents, mainly those who inhabit the residences and buildings of that municipality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The crescent population concentration in cities is recognized as one of the main contemporary challenges. It is in cities that social and environmental challenges are increasing, which implies a look at the sustainable urban planning. Urban green spaces play an important role in responding to such challenges, specifically through ecosystem services. Cultural services gain special importance, particularly in improving the mental, physical, and social health of its users. This work aims to examine the uses and perceptions of users of gardens and public parks in the city of Porto, as well as how these same spaces are meeting their needs, establishing a relationship with their location considering greater or lesser socio-economic and environmental deprivation. A survey is being conducted to the users of 25 gardens and public access parks and a discussion on the preliminary results obtained (n=131) is proposed. The results provide a sketch of the profile of potential users of these spaces, besides revealing that the spaces of the city with greater socio-economic and environmental deprivation are perceived by their users as green spaces with lower quality. It is expected that the results can help to define attraction strategies for the green spaces of the city with lower quality and in areas of higher deprivation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Children's experiences of outdoor environments have been studied now for more than 40 years yet no research has specifically focussed on children's experiences of water play in constructed spaces of city centres. This article discusses the development of an observational mapping tool, called TOWEC, to record the interaction of children with water. It then reports findings and analysis from observations over a year-long period of 3,399 children interacting with water in the award winning public open space of the Peace Gardens in the centre of the City of Sheffield, UK. The findings reveal that children undertake both active and passive activities associated with the constructed water features and that these activities are influenced by gender, age and temperature, but not ethnicity. The water features were not designed for children to play in but the children realise the potential affordance that the water features provide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Technica Napocensis: Civil Engineering & Architecture is the property of Universitatea Tehnica din Cluj-Napoca, Facultatea de Constructii and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper aims at providing a historical understanding of the role of gardens and green spaces in urbanization and urban planning, as well as in processes of social formation and social mobility that took place on the background of a changing spatial, socio-economical and political context in Belgium in the period 1889–1940. The research is based on a number of case studies, which represent different stages and themes in the evolution of garden design, urban planning and society: 1) vernacular versus designed gardens and landscapes; 2) the popularization of the garden and the development of a new framework for urban planning; 3) the garden city versus private arcadia and 4) modern garden design and the rise of the middle class (1930–1940). Through an analysis of designs and discourses of, amongst others, leading landscape architects/urban planners Louis Van der Swaelmen, Jules Buyssens and Jean Canneel-Claes, the paper exposes a number of ambiguities and tensions, for example between the ‘vernacular garden’ and the ‘garden of the establishment’ and between the deep-rooted dream of a privately owned house and garden, and attempts to create new social and spatial frameworks that surpass the individual lot. The paper concludes that these tensions can still be traced in the context in which landscape designers and urban planners work today. This historical awareness, however, can help them to set out strategic goals for the contemporary garden as a place of both production and consumption, and as a place where social identity is shaped. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Singapore Story is Singapore's hegemonic national narrative, which celebrates the early embrace of neo-liberal-developmental economics for the putative benefit of all ordinary Singaporeans. Like all historical narratives, it has been ordered selectively and presents certain outcomes as natural or inevitable. The Garden City programme, in operation from 1967 to 2013, has reshaped the city in the image of a multinational capital, re-ordering space to complement the national narrative. Historical fictions such as Simon Tay's City of Small Blessings (2009) and Suchen Christine Lim's The River's Song (2013) offer new, plural perspectives on recognizable historical narratives as they are embedded in Garden City spaces, potentially undoing the erasures of dominant versions of history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ciudad Jardín Lomas del Palomar is a neighbourhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina, designed by the German immigrant Dr Erich Zeyen in 1944. Zeyen based Ciudad Jardín on Ebenezer Howard's garden city ideals and designs, which had gained a strong influence in Germany at that time in architecture and urban planning. Like garden city communities elsewhere, Ciudad Jardín was intended to create an urban environment suffused in ample public and private green spaces. This little-known South American garden city-inspired neighbourhood offers a unique learning opportunity about the role of social and political forces in historic preservation and planning, and about the value of urban planning based on green infrastructure as revealed by a society with comparatively little environmental awareness or historic preservation values. The article is based on original research carried out by the author in Argentina. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social capital is about people who meet, get to know each other and help each other in various ways. Therefore, it appears odd that discussions on meeting places and social capital are rare. This paper discusses the linkage, here termed socio-spatial planning. It raises the question: How can public meeting places facilitate creation of bridging social capital? It suggests that one possible way of securing regular, intergroup face-to-face meetings would be to establish multifunctional centers. Such houses include public services such as health care, school, library; private enterprises as grocers' shops and banks; and facilities for local associations such as theatre scenes and sports halls. Cases from the Netherlands and Denmark indicate that such large meeting places help counteract segregation of various groups - be it ethnic, social or age. In this way, a well-functioning multifunctional center facilitates provision of the collective goods of integration and bridging social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Sidewalk gardens are perceived as part of the environment. • Relational values are important in the appreciation of plants grown in gardens. • People born outside the RM have a greater knowledge and willingness to conserve. • Sidewalk gardens can promote a feeling of familiarity with native flora. • The results provide useful information to guide future urban conservation actions. Plant diversity in large cities has recently become a subject of intense biological research. Urban green spaces are widely acknowledged to improve people's quality of life. Unlike in wild areas, plants in urban ecosystems develop in spaces strongly managed by human activity and tend to form different compositions than the natural landscape. Under this scenario, would the motivations and preferences of urbanresidents make it possible to conserve a sample of the local diversity in these spaces? To answer this question, we apply a semistructured survey to 100 homes that have a residential sidewalk garden in Santiago de Chile. Our results show that these gardens are perceived as an essential part of the home and its environment. We recognized three groups of citizens, namely, a utilitarian group (19 %), native group (21 %) and neutral group (60 %). The utilitarian group prefers to grow useful plants, such as for medicine or food. The neutral group does not indicate a preference for particular attributes of plants, which could be an indicator of the extinction of the experience with nature. Most of the participants do not know the origin of the species they grow.However, even when knowledge of native flora is limited ( X ¯ = 0.96; max = 3.0), citizens recognize the intrinsic value of these species and would be willing to conserve them in their gardens ( X ¯ = 4.35; max = 7.0). This willingness is also motivated by the set of benefits provided by native plants (e.g., ornamental, ecological, structural or emotional). Greater knowledge of native flora in the native group can be attributed to familiarity; therefore, the presence of these species in residential sidewalk gardens could encourage preferences and decisions aimed at promoting the conservation of local plant diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Cumulatively congested and polluted cities call for green space. • Conflict appears between appreciable green value and green gentrification. • Large green space is more likely to generate gentrification than small ones. • Suggest replacing large green space with scattered small ones in urban planning. Urban green spaces can improve residents' health and well-being. However, international research shows that urban greening can produce gentrification effects. A dilemma for planners is determining whether the scale of greening or the characteristics of green spaces is driving gentrification. In this article, Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and field investigations are used to assess the potential gentrification effects of a new public green space in the urban central area of Hangzhou, China. Hangzhou is one of China's 'garden cities', but rapid urbanization and climate change are increasing urban heat-island impacts, requiring large-scale urban greening. The two-stage CCA not only confirms the green gentrification phenomenon within the study area but suggests that large green spaces appear to foster gentrification due to their functional benefits, favorable policy support, elaborate embellishments, and strict management and maintenance regimes. Appropriate policy responses may include using a 'just green enough' approach: whereby distributed smaller green spaces, with less stringent maintenance could resolve the green gentrification paradox. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We investigated the change in visitation of urban green spaces (UGS) during COVID-19 pandemic. • Social isolation reduced extent, type and distance of visited UGS on the basis of legal restrictions. • Reasons for visiting UGS changed from non-essential before the pandemic to essential during it. • Respondents missed visiting UGS regardless of the view of UGS from their window. • Respondents expressed the need for UGS integrated within the urban fabric. Urban green space (UGS) is an essential element in the urban environment, providing multiple ecosystem services as well as beneficial effects on physical and mental health. In a time of societal crisis these effects may be amplified, but ensuring that they are maintained requires effective planning and management – which is a complex challenge given the rapid changes in modern society and the need for continual adaptation. This study aims to identify the drivers that normally attract visitors to UGS, and to assess the effects of social isolation on the usage and perception of UGS during the COVID-19 pandemic. We conducted an online survey during the period in which restrictive measures were imposed in response to the pandemic (March-May 2020), in Croatia, Israel, Italy, Lithuania, Slovenia and Spain. Results showed that urban residents normally have a need for accessible UGS, mainly for physical exercise, relaxing and observing nature. The reduction in UGS visitation during the containment period was related to distinct changes in the motivations of those who did visit, with a relative increase in "necessary activities" such as taking the dog out, and a reduction in activities that could be considered non-essential or high-risk such as meeting people or observing nature. Behavioral changes related to proximity were also observed, with an increase in people walking to small urban gardens nearby (e.g. in Italy) or tree-lined streets (e.g. in Spain, Israel), and people traveling by car to green areas outside the city (e.g. in Lithuania). What the respondents missed the most about UGS during the pandemic was "spending time outdoors" and "meeting other people" – highlighting that during the COVID-19 isolation, UGS was important for providing places of solace and respite, and for allowing exercise and relaxation. Respondents expressed the need for urban greenery even when legally mandated access was limited – and many proposed concrete suggestions for improved urban planning that integrates green spaces of different sizes within the fabric of cities and neighborhoods, so that all residents have access to UGS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]