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Problem, research strategy, and findings: Increasing numbers of urban dwellers face housing precarity in cities worldwide. We conceptualize housing precarity as a multidimensional phenomenon, using five different dimensions: 1) housing affordability, 2) tenure security, 3) housing satisfaction, 4) neighborhood quality, and 5) community cohesion. By building on an original survey with 12,611 respondents from six cities (Berlin [Germany], Chicago [IL], London [United Kingdom], Los Angeles [CA], New York [NY], and Paris [France]), we examined how vulnerable residents—such as older residents, households with children, minorities, and renters—perceived the five dimensions of housing precarity compared with the rest of the population sample. We found first, that being a renter was negatively associated with all five dimensions of housing precarity, rendering renters more precarious than homeowners. Second, older residents did not seem to be more precarious than younger urban dwellers. Third, households with children and minorities had less tenure security and housing satisfaction than households without children or non-minorities. These results were largely robust across all cities. Further research is needed to analyze how local housing markets, planning and policy instruments, or land use conditions affect residents' perceived housing precarity outcomes. Takeaway for practice: This research can help city planners, urban practitioners, and policymakers to better understand the vulnerabilities of urban residents and the multidimensional manifestation of housing precarity. It calls for a resident-centered approach to urban planning that urges land use and planning interventions to be more sensitive to people's differing housing perceptions and needs. Specifically, the findings suggest that renters, households with children, and minorities need comprehensive policies (and the municipal authorities' strategic activation thereof) that stabilize their financial and legal housing situation, whereas older urban residents could benefit from community activation programs to support their neighborhood integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cities, Communities & Territories / Cidades, Comunidades e Territórios is the property of Instituto Universitario de Lisboa, DINAMIA-CET 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.)

As the tier of government closest to people, local government plays a key role in answering local needs and aspirations. However, local governments are often under-resourced, leaving them inadequately responsive to many of these critical local demands. Moreover, accountability to their citizens, which is the core of a well-functioning local democracy, is often lacking because the necessary formal laws and informal norms do not enable citizens to influence the decision-making process in a collaborative, creative, and evidence-based process that promotes collective learning. Through innovative case study analyses from around the world, the 12 contributions in this thematic issue delve into the multifaceted ways in which local governments can bridge the gap between people and politics, offering innovative perspectives on participatory governance, co-creation, and collaborative decision-making for inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable cities. The cases showcase innovations and challenges in the urban environment, capturing different ways to bring people and politics together in an attempt to co-create solutions for a sustainable and resilient urban future. The insights provided by this plethora of cases provides lessons that can help revolutionise international, national, and local urban policy to empower local authorities and their local communities to address the increasingly urgent challenges faced by municipalities around the world, ensuring an inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable future for the generations to come.

This paper questions claims that peri-urbanization perpetuates the shrinking of livelihood opportunities. A critical analysis of the peri-urbanization process presents a more nuanced transformation of livelihood opportunities. Drawing on concurrent triangulation mixed-method, primary data was sourced from non-farm workers using survey questionnaires, informant interviews, and observation from 225 respondents in a Ghanaian peri-urban community -Bamahu. Digital image software, Erdas Imaging 2015 and Landsat satellite were used to acquire land use and land cover data to affirm spatial differences. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics complemented with thematic analysis for qualitative data. The findings showed significant land use and land cover alterations from 2000 to 2019. These changes resulted in the springing up of non-farm livelihoods that populated formal and informal non-farm opportunities. The analysis provides evidence that supports two key contributions to peri-urbanization and livelihood transformation debates. Empirically, it brings in-depth insights from original fieldwork data to highlight specific contextual realities by not only revealing the spatial alterations but also peering into how emerging non-farm livelihoods trade-off with existing farm-based livelihoods. Theoretically, it extends the debate by reframing peri-urbanization as a process of transforming livelihoods that thrive due to infrastructural development, new skills, and a ready market for goods and services. These findings have important implications for opening up a theorization of the peri-urbanization phenomenon. This paper concludes that the emergence of these livelihoods is crucial and should be adequately integrated into urban policies and plans to ensure inclusive cities.

Spatial inclusion is defined as the availability of space and mobility for underprivileged people, as well as the physical closeness of different social groups. This study seeks to uncover the key components of spatial inclusion that increase social inclusion by investigating the links between spatial and social inclusion characteristics in South Korean cities and regions. A micro-dataset on personal health and social life, as well as other publicly available data, such as Census data are examined. The results suggest that increased spatial inclusion improves social inclusion of socially underprivileged people. However, the effects of each component of spatial inclusion are distinct. While housing affordability has mixed effects on different dimensions of social inclusion, an open settlement environment generally has a positive effect on social inclusion. The findings provide important implications for promoting social inclusion in cities and regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, social work with migrants and ethnic minorities has developed as a field of research and practice. Further, it is recognised in the literature that the increased processes of human mobility in today’s societies have driven a growing focus on inclusive cities, especially in larger urban areas where ethnic diversity and cultural heterogeneity can be found alongside newly arrived migrants seeking a better quality of life, safety, and sanctuary. There is a strong link between individuals’ well‐being and their relationship with spaces, institutions, and resources. Cities and their urban environment have been increasingly identified as key arenas where social, economic, and ecological societal challenges should be addressed. In the context of migration, municipalities have invested in dealing with both inclusive and sustainable policies. However, cities are not uniformly experienced by all. This scoping review seeks to answer how an inclusive city is conceptualised in the Swedish and the UK’s social work literature concerning migration. Using social exclusion and inclusion as the theoretical points of view, we conduct analysis using Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) six‐stage methodological framework. Despite social work playing a major role in the social inclusion of immigrant minorities in cities, through promoting participation, there is a lack of knowledge and research on social work engagement with social inclusion, both in the fields of social policy and practices. This article contributes to an enhanced understanding of what an inclusive city is, and the role of social work in defining and developing social policies and professional interventions for inclusive cities to support the integration of migrants with distinct needs. We offer a much‐needed review of the similarities and differences between the two geographies by analysing the social work perspectives from Sweden and the UK.

In 2016, the Vancouver City Council passed the Supporting Trans* Equality and an Inclusive Vancouver policy, a motion that prompted the development of a strategy aimed at ensuring the safety and accessibility of municipal programs, services, and physical spaces for Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse (TGD2S) users, including residents, City staff, and visitors. Binary gender is a taken-for-granted assumption of most urban forms and functions: It is encoded in all municipal data collection forms, building codes, signage, and communication strategies. At its root, then, addressing trans inclusion requires the municipal government to attend to and redesign the gendered models of service, programs, and space upon which the city is built. This article tells the story of the Supporting Trans* Equality and an Inclusive Vancouver policy and is driven by two goals. First, I document this policy as a contribution to the urban policy and planning literature, where attention to gender diversity is due. Second, using the trans inclusion strategy, I show how a municipal equity policy aimed at addressing the safety and inclusion of TGD2S people can have significant impacts beyond its immediate scope. To develop this idea, I consider how equity-driven innovation can substantially reshape institutional practices.

Knowledge about how marginalised citizens use urban spaces is hard to access and apply in urban planning and policy. Based on current debates around “smart cities” and “smart governance,” the City of Odense, in Denmark, has tested the integration of “smart engagement” by means of GPS-tracking techniques into the municipality’s cross-sectoral strategy for an “inclusive city.” In a period of austerity, cities have the incentive to optimise public services. Hence, GPS-tracking data was produced by 64 marginalised citizens, resulting in a data inventory covering three weeks of spatial behaviour. First, this article shows how these GPS-tracking data were processed into maps without revealing person-sensitive spatial patterns. Secondly, the article explores whether such maps and the GPS-tracking techniques that underpin them are considered valid, relevant, and applicable to urban planning from the perspectives of marginalised citizens, their representatives, and municipal planners and professionals respectively. The GPS project showed shortcomings as regards the quality of the data inventory and the representativity of the mapped behaviour, which made them inapplicable for optimising dedicated public service. However, the article also finds that the GPS-based maps succeeded in being non-person sensitive and in providing a valuable platform for citizen-centric dialogues with marginalised citizens with the potential for raising awareness and increasing knowledge about this citizen group’s living conditions and urban lives. An important derived effect of the project is that it has ensured ongoing cross-sectoral collaboration among a range of professional stakeholders, imperative for ensuring creating greater equity in urban planning.

Copyright of Bitácora Urbano/Territorial is the property of Bitacora Urbano/Territorial 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.)

In recent years, social work with migrants and ethnic minorities has developed as a field of research and practice. Further, it is recognised in the literature that the increased processes of human mobility in today’s societies have driven a growing focus on inclusive cities, especially in larger urban areas where ethnic diversity and cultural heterogeneity can be found alongside newly arrived migrants seeking a better quality of life, safety, and sanctuary. There is a strong link between indi‐ viduals’ well‐being and their relationship with spaces, institutions, and resources. Cities and their urban environment have been increasingly identified as key arenas where social, economic, and ecological societal challenges should be addressed. In the context of migration, municipalities have invested in dealing with both inclusive and sustainable policies. However, cities are not uniformly experienced by all. This scoping review seeks to answer how an inclusive city is conceptualised in the Swedish and the UK’s social work literature concerning migration. Using social exclusion and inclusion as the theoret‐ ical points of view, we conduct analysis using Arksey and O’Malley’s (2005) six‐stage methodological framework. Despite social work playing a major role in the social inclusion of immigrant minorities in cities, through promoting participation, there is a lack of knowledge and research on social work engagement with social inclusion, both in the fields of social policy and practices. This article contributes to an enhanced understanding of what an inclusive city is, and the role of social work in defining and developing social policies and professional interventions for inclusive cities to support the integration of migrants with distinct needs. We offer a much‐needed review of the similarities and differences between the two geogra‐ phies by analysing the social work perspectives from Sweden and the UK. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many countries in the modern era strive to keep up with the world's rapid development in many economic, environmental, and social aspects, particularly on the urban scale and city planning, as well as competition for access to the highest levels of luxury in terms of buildings, designs, and iconic buildings that distinguish each country in the media from its counterparts from neighboring countries. In the region, and possibly internationally. Some countries were forced to relocate a number of their cities and capitals, as well as develop new alternatives for them in new places. In the context of implementing these strategies, decision-makers overlook the social and emotional dimensions of citizens, making it difficult for planners and those involved in the design process to understand the human requirements and needs of the user, resulting in the neglect of many aspects that citizens require, such as the design of the urban environment, planning of public areas, and green open spaces. This paper aims to highlight the importance of taking the emotional side of the user into consideration and integrating them into the decision-making process through participatory planning to develop decision-making strategies that include the preferences of all stakeholders in the planning process.

In 2016, the Vancouver City Council passed the Supporting Trans* Equality and an Inclusive Vancouver policy, a motion that prompted the development of a strategy aimed at ensuring the safety and accessibility of municipal programs, services, and physical spaces for Two-Spirit, trans, and gender-diverse (TGD2S) users, including residents, City staff, and visitors. Binary gender is a taken-for-granted assumption of most urban forms and functions: It is encoded in all municipal data collection forms, building codes, signage, and communication strategies. At its root, then, addressing trans inclusion requires the municipal government to attend to and redesign the gendered models of service, programs, and space upon which the city is built. This article tells the story of the Supporting Trans* Equality and an Inclusive Vancouver policy and is driven by two goals. First, I document this policy as a contribution to the urban policy and planning literature, where attention to gender diversity is due. Second, using the trans inclusion strategy, I show how a municipal equity policy aimed at addressing the safety and inclusion of TGD2S people can have significant impacts beyond its immediate scope. To develop this idea, I consider how equity-driven innovation can substantially reshape institutional practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge about how marginalised citizens use urban spaces is hard to access and apply in urban planning and policy. Based on current debates around "smart cities" and "smart governance," the City of Odense, in Denmark, has tested the integration of "smart engagement" by means of GPS-tracking techniques into the municipality's cross-sectoral strategy for an "inclusive city." In a period of austerity, cities have the incentive to optimise public services. Hence, GPS-tracking data was produced by 64 marginalised citizens, resulting in a data inventory covering three weeks of spatial behaviour. First, this article shows how these GPS-tracking data were processed into maps without revealing person-sensitive spatial patterns. Secondly, the article explores whether such maps and the GPS-tracking techniques that underpin them are considered valid, relevant, and applicable to urban planning from the perspectives of marginalised citizens, their representatives, and municipal planners and professionals respectively. The GPS project showed shortcomings as regards the quality of the data inventory and the representativity of the mapped behaviour, which made them inapplicable for optimising dedicated public service. However, the article also finds that the GPS-based maps succeeded in being non-person sensitive and in providing a valuable platform for citizen-centric dialogues with marginalised citizens with the potential for raising awareness and increasing knowledge about this citizen group's living conditions and urban lives. An important derived effect of the project is that it has ensured ongoing cross-sectoral collaboration among a range of professional stakeholders, imperative for ensuring creating greater equity in urban planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years, the number of people living in the city is constantly increasing, due to ongoing migration from rural to urban areas. The increase in population is followed by an increase in diversity within the city, which results in a large number of people with different characteristics and needs that must be accepted, fulfilled, and respected. Therefore, one of the current challenges in city planning is the design of inclusive spaces that are welcoming to all citizens regardless of their gender, age, nationality, economic circumstances, disability identity, or religion. It is time that urban design revolves around the needs of residents, and the built environment allows everybody to enjoy equal rights and access to every part of the city. Considering that in terms of inclusion the unbuilt environment is as important as the built environment, this paper will focus on the research of public open spaces, as an important part of the urban landscape which should be enjoyed by all. Through field observations in Iliria Square, this research aims to expand how we evaluate the capacity for inclusion in public space, find out whether users in public spaces experience these spaces as inclusive, and if contrarily, find out why so and how to fight exclusion, how these spaces can be changed and improved. This paper will hopefully raise awareness for the design of inclusive spaces in the city and serve as a stimulus and valuable knowledge base for future research on this topic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Enhancing urban inclusivity is a crucial task for sustainable urban development. One key challenge is to create seamless and accessible urban space that caters to the mobility needs of people, especially the elderly. Addressing this pressing challenge requires a comprehensive overview of barrier-free facilities (BFFs) configuration within cities. In this study, we propose an integrated framework for assessing the BFFs in Beijing by leveraging open BFFs data and mobile phone data. The proposed framework encompasses considerations of spatial distribution, accessibility, and supply-demand patterns of BFFs. Our findings reveal the significant agglomeration and heterogeneity of BFFs in Beijing, as well as serious spatial and social inequalities. Furthermore, the supply-demand relationship of BBFs in Beijing is relatively good, with 77.8% of supply-demand balanced areas. Overall, our study provides a holistic understanding of the BFFs within Beijing, offering valuable insights for informed decision-making in inclusive city planning and development. • A comprehensive analytical framework for the spatial configuration of barrier-free facilities (BFFs) was proposed. • Significant spatial and social inequalities are evident in the spatial configuration of BFFs in Beijing. • The overall supply and demand of BFFs in Beijing is generally balanced, some areas in the suburbs outside the 4th Ring Road require improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Solar radiation exposure of sidewalks impacts the pedestrian experience. • Tools are needed to evaluate and design comfortable pedestrian paths. • The variability of solar radiation exposure must be included in mobility studies. • Users of diverse walking abilities experience pedestrian networks differently. • Adopting vulnerable people's perspective fosters the design of inclusive cities. The walking experience is impacted by solar radiation exposure of pedestrian paths; this is a critical consideration for walkability assessment. The presented systematic methodology evaluates the impact of solar radiation on the user experience of pedestrian networks. Simulations were performed modelling the urban morphology in 3D and evaluating the shading provision of sidewalks at key times of the year. Three issues were investigated: the variability in solar radiation exposure of sidewalks, the difference in path length if discomfort resulting from exposure to solar radiation was prioritised over distance, and the access to shading for pedestrians of diverse walking abilities. Four user profiles were characterised by walking speed and ability to climb the stairs; adopting the perspective of diverse users provided critical information to design cities meeting the needs of vulnerable pedestrians. The resulting maps illustrated the dynamic nature of solar radiation exposure of the pedestrian network, with a critical cue on the paths chosen for optimising comfort, and the time that pedestrians would spend in the sun before finding shade. This work is a first step forward in the systematic implementation of microclimatic analysis in the walkability assessment, aimed at supporting designers in proposing solutions for ameliorating thermal stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As cities plan for post-COVID recovery, many questions preoccupy mayors, policymakers, planners and developers. This article examines COVID-19's impact on cities, drawing on local governments' developing policies and responses to identify some of the emerging trends and trade-offs. Overall, city recovery will likely involve some transformation to land uses and real estate markets, with increasing demand for urban amenities and nature, and with policies in support of affordable housing, slum upgrading and informal sector employment, to achieve more liveable and inclusive cities. This in turn will depend on the policies, planning, finance, digital infrastructure and governance systems in place. While many city challenges predate COVID-19, they were exacerbated by the pandemic. The extent to which cities, and especially cities in the global South, will overcome such challenges will depend on political will and the implementation of targeted policies and low-cost investments in sustainability, liveability and inclusion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Italy is the country with the highest number of sites recognised as World Heritage by UNESCO and one of the nations with the highest density of sites of cultural interest both in Europe and in the world. Unfortunately, only a small part of these are completely and easily accessible, and certain of the most fragile sections of society, for example disabled persons, are in fact excluded from the possibility of visiting and discovering the said places. The research presented here represents an "experiment" in the application of the methodology of the Accessibility Plan to the monumental complex of the Opera di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, in other words the attempt to increase the degree of accessibility of the complex through a medium and long-term innovative strategic planning tool that takes into consideration not only material aspects (physical and sensory accessibility) but also aspects of an intangible nature, thus making it possible for people to fully understand the cultural meanings of the places, and focusing on the "experiential dimension of the visit" [1]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to analyze different city plans in terms of proximity and accessibility. A total of 6 highly-recognized pedestrian models were chosen to compare their inclusive micro-mobility measures, not only in international contexts (Paris, Melbourne or Portland); but also a closer look will be taken at Spain, as it has managed to present its own referents (Valladolid, Vitoria and Pontevedra). A qualitative approach study was undergone to assess the real extent of inclusive proximity criteria, triggering a more in-depth, critical analysis by recognizing implicit, non-explicit, inclusive micro-mobility measures. The findings show disconnections between accessibility and proximity policies, mainly regarding exclusion of explicit accessibility measures and pedestrian mobility comfortability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Italian historic centers have an architectural and archeological heritage widespread in the urban structure, which is not always easily accessible due to the orography and materials the streets and the squares are paved with. The topic of the urban accessibility is extremely complex and not easy to solve, also because the removal and overcoming of the architectural and sensorial barriers that could alter the original layout and consolidated historical memory must be avoided. The research investigates the accessibility and usability conditions of the urban environment between the Langobardic building and archeological sites in Pavia (Italy) to identify pedestrian routes that can be covered by weak persons in autonomy or with the help of a companion. The analysis and synthesis of the urban environment produce some maps which report the level of accessibility of the streets and allow to identify the best route between the Langobardic masterpieces in the downtown. The adopted evaluation system is the result of an investigation methodology defined and consolidated over the years by the activities of a group of researchers from the University of Pavia and is independent of the heritage of Langobardic origin; the same methodology can also be used to other types of widespread heritage in the historic center of the city (Romanesque, Lombard Gothic, etc.). The same methodology can be exported to other historical centers and can constitute the tool for the promotion of the architectural and archaeological heritage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Religación: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades is the property of Religacion: Revista de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades 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 article illustrates the transformative potential of guaranteeing justiciable socio-economic rights in domestic law, by engaging with the judicial vindication, over nearly a quarter-century, of the right to housing in the South African Constitution. Initial assessments of housing rights litigation in the country suggested that, while the right provided temporary protection against eviction and could provide temporary relief in housing emergencies, it was of limited use in addressing spatial injustice and unequal access to affordable housing. But over time, judicial vindication of the right to housing has given poor and vulnerable communities a foothold in cities, which is productively being leveraged by social movements claiming a right to the city. Meanwhile, separate remedial frameworks around land rights and political participation appear to be slowly converging with the housing jurisprudence, in ways that hold significant potential for transformative change in South African cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facing climate emergency and disaster risks, cities are developing governing arrangements towards sustainability and resilience. Research is showing the ambivalent results of these arrangements in terms of inclusion and (in)justice, as well as their outcomes in emptying the ‘properly political’ through depoliticised governing techniques. Acknowledging this post-political thesis, however, critical analyses must also engage with re-politicization and focus on disruptive and transformative governance efforts. This article addresses the dual dynamics of de—and re-politicisation, focusing on the interplay of different modes of governing urban risk. We follow the political philosophy of Jacques Rancière and related interpretations in critical urban studies to recover the politics of the city. We focus on a post-disaster area in the foothills of Santiago, Chile. After a 1993 disaster, the State constituted a mode of governing risks based on physicalist interventions that discouraged local conflicts. This techno-managerial policing order made risks invisible while favouring real estate development. However, we show how local initiatives emerge in the interstices of formal and informal arrangements that contest this course. This emerging mode of governing risk, we argue, has the potential to recover incrementally urban politics and disrupt the dominant one through an egalitarian principle on the margins. Our contribution shows that, although these modes of governance coexist and are still evolving, advancing more just and inclusive cities require moving beyond consensus-based governance and focusing on the role of dissent and disruptive politics.

This paper questions claims that peri-urbanization perpetuates the shrinking of livelihood opportunities. A critical analysis of the peri-urbanization process presents a more nuanced transformation of livelihood opportunities. Drawing on concurrent triangulation mixed-method, primary data was sourced from non-farm workers using survey questionnaires, informant interviews, and observation from 225 respondents in a Ghanaian peri-urban community -Bamahu. Digital image software, Erdas Imaging 2015 and Landsat satellite were used to acquire land use and land cover data to affirm spatial differences. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics complemented with thematic analysis for qualitative data. The findings showed significant land use and land cover alterations from 2000 to 2019. These changes resulted in the springing up of non-farm livelihoods that populated formal and informal non-farm opportunities. The analysis provides evidence that supports two key contributions to peri-urbanization and livelihood transformation debates. Empirically, it brings in-depth insights from original fieldwork data to highlight specific contextual realities by not only revealing the spatial alterations but also peering into how emerging non-farm livelihoods trade-off with existing farm-based livelihoods. Theoretically, it extends the debate by reframing peri-urbanization as a process of transforming livelihoods that thrive due to infrastructural development, new skills, and a ready market for goods and services. These findings have important implications for opening up a theorization of the peri-urbanization phenomenon. This paper concludes that the emergence of these livelihoods is crucial and should be adequately integrated into urban policies and plans to ensure inclusive cities., Competing Interests: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (© 2024 The Authors.)

Copyright of Arte, Individuo y Sociedad is the property of Universidad Complutense de Madrid 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.)

Urban Green Space (UGS) is considered to be beneficial for health and wellbeing of urban residents. But there is growing evidence that benefits are not equally distributed. In this article we aim to understand the role that UGS plays in the process of social exclusion and the role urban greening strategies can play in enhancing social equity for specific groups that are excluded: elderly people with dementia, people with mental issues and people from an underprivileged neighborhood. The concepts of inclusion and exclusion and their relation to UGS are discussed. Four exclusion mechanisms are distinguished based on the role of the physical and societal environment and on the role of actors involved (public or private). Further, we identify four discourses behind possible strategies and measures to promote inclusion. These mechanisms and discourses are confronted with an analysis of three cases promoting inclusion of elderly with dementia, people with mental health issues and people from an underprivileged neighborhood. Succesful inclusion strategies in these cases are based on alignment between private actors initiatives and public actions. The cases indicate that public and private actors need to cooperate better in order to make UGS part of inclusion strategies.