Exploring the need for innovation in greening urban environments: Reflecting on radical practice in Greater Manchester, UK

Court, Adelina; Kelly, Aileen; Hardman, Michael

Abstract

The green agenda is high on the list of priorities of local, national, and global governments.
In the UK, a new £40 million scheme aims to encourage a sustainable recovery alongside
policies - such as the 25 Year Environment Plan - and other tools pushing more investment
into the area. With this push, we are now seeing innovation in urban green infrastructure:
from pocket parks, to Americanised models of community gardens both becoming more
frequent across our cityscapes. This paper critically explores the rise of ‘radical
sustainability’ and the need to embrace new forms of urban green infrastructure. The focus of
the paper is explicitly on enabling urban food growing in cities. We begin with an overview
of the practice before proceeding to review current policy tools and, finally, reflecting on a
case study in Salford.
With the latter, we reflect on a model which enables larger-scale farming in the heart of one
of the region’s most deprived areas. We present a case study of a multifunctional forest
school in Salford, reflecting on our work in enabling the project, along its potential impacts.
The multidisciplinary team, formed of an urban geographer, a contextual studies scholar, and
an illustrator, present a visual methodology framework which could be replicated in future
studies. In this sense, we also reflect on the use of methodologies in allowing for radical
visions to be constructed and enabled within the planning system. The paper demonstrates the
transformative nature of innovative greening s

Citation

Court, A., Kelly, A., & Hardman, M. (2022). Exploring the need for innovation in greening urban environments: Reflecting on radical practice in Greater Manchester, UK. Cogent Social Sciences, 8(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2022.2109261

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 30, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Aug 21, 2022
• Publication Date: Dec 31, 2022
• Deposit Date: Aug 25, 2022
• Publicly Available Date: Aug 25, 2022
• Journal: Cogent Social Sciences
• Publisher: Taylor and Francis
• Volume: 8
• Issue: 1
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2022.2109261
• Keywords: General Social Sciences
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2022.2109261