Collaborative decision-making in green and blue infrastructure projects: The case of Copenhagen’s Hans Tavsens Park and Korsgade

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IN

DEGREE PROJECT THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT,

SECOND CYCLE, 30 CREDITS ,

STOCKHOLM SWEDEN 2020

Collaborative decision-making in

green and blue infrastructure

projects: The case of

Copenhagen’s Hans Tavsens

Park and Korsgade

JAMIE NICOLE ZOURAS

KTH ROYAL INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

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Collaborative decision-making in green and blue

infrastructure projects:

The case of Copenhagen’s Hans

Tavsens Park and Korsgade

Jamie Nicole Zouras | MSc Thesis Sustainable Urban Planning and Design | KTH

School of Architecture and the Built Environment |2020

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ABSTRACT

Worsening climate change impacts, particularly in coastal areas, are forcing urban planners and designers to find new approaches to govern cities. Traditional government approaches are failing to equip cities with effective strategies on how to implement sustainable interventions such as green and blue infrastructure. Adaptive governance has emerged as a way of dealing with the inherent uncertainty and unpredictability of complex social-ecological systems. It is neither top-down nor bottom-up but involves innovative ways of solving problems with emphasis on collaborative decision-making. This research focuses specifically on how collaboration is undertaken in adaptive governance processes by examining The Soul of Nørrebro case study—an integrated urban design and climate adaptation project for Hans Tavsens Park and Korsgade in Copenhagen, Denmark. Through desk study and interviews, the study identifies which stakeholders are involved in collaborative-decision making processes and how stakeholders envision, implement, and contest collaborative decision-making in green and blue infrastructure projects. This research found that participation from a wide range of local stakeholders and citizens is an integral part of redesigning public space, as it helps create cohesive, just, and ecologically productive environments. However, trade-offs that result in political decisions that are desirable to some and not to others cannot be avoided in the end. While certain setbacks were unavoidable, others that were encountered could have perhaps been prevented through increased transdisciplinary and representative collaboration.

KEYWORDS

Green and blue infrastructure, adaptive governance, collaborative decision-making, community involvement, social-ecological resilience, urban sustainable transitions, climate change adaptation

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I owe my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor, Andy Karvonen, for his guidance through all stages of this project. From the start, Andy was supportive of my research interests and offered his insights into relevant topics. During supervision meetings, he helped me think through ideas, navigate the degree project process, and he encouraged me to stick to the process, especially in uncertain times. Andy’s feedback, comments, and suggestions were clearly communicated, helping me realize and develop my abilities in academic research and writing. Andy’s enthusiasm, humor, and easy-going nature greatly inspired my work and made this process significantly more manageable.

Thank you to The Soul of Nørrebro interview participants for having been so generous with their time, knowledge, and insights. Each individual was genuinely dedicated to helping me understand and analyze the project, making for an exciting final project.

I would also like to convey my sincere thanks to Ellen Zouras who reviewed earlier drafts, motivated me during challenges times, and nourished me with delicious food throughout my thesis journey; Andy Muehlhausen for solving technical difficulties during online interviews and for his dependable positive energy; and Julian Bauer for helping keep my spirits high.

Lastly, I am much obliged to my parents for their continued support, encouragement, and love.

Jamie Nicole Zouras Stockholm, June 2020

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1. INTRODUCTION

The world population is projected to increase to over 8 billion by 2025, and by 2050, 68% of the world’s population is expected to live in urban areas (UN DESA, 2019; UN DESA, 2018). Finding long-term solutions for the ever-growing demand for clean air and water, habitat preservation, and reduction of carbon emissions has become increasingly challenging for urban planners and decision-makers (IPCC, 2018). As cities expand to accommodate the growing population, natural landscapes are increasingly disrupted by impermeable asphalt roads, concrete sidewalks and parking lots, commercial structures, and housing developments (Chithra et al., 2015). These impenetrable surfaces prohibit the infiltration of water into the soil, resulting in increased pollution from runoff, degraded water quality and aquatic ecosystems, and excessive flooding (ibid.). Furthermore, the positive correlation between urbanization and both habitat loss and habitat fragmentation is increasingly detrimental, as urban development destroys wetlands, forests, and grasslands (Liu, He and Wu, 2016). Altering, eliminating, and decreasing the connectivity of habitat negatively impacts plant and animal diversity and species richness (Wilson et al., 2015). These ecological consequences not only diminish ecosystem resilience, carbon storage, and local climate stabilization (Jim and Chen, 2008; Stewart and Oke, 2012; Kabisch, 2015), but they also have profound impacts on human well-being, public health, and urban livability.

To address the ecological impacts of rapid urbanization, urban planners and landscape architects have developed green and blue infrastructure, or GBI, to decrease or replace traditional gray infrastructure, which is concrete-dominated and single-functioned (Lovell and Taylor, 2013; Casal-Campos et al., 2015; Sinnett, Smith and Burgess, 2015; Bingham et al., 2018; Somarakis, Stagakis and Chrysoulakis, 2019). Incorporating GBI into urban areas fosters ecological, social, cultural, and economic resilience in many ways. The European Union recognizes that GBI can mitigate the urban heat island effect and natural disasters, improve water filtration and help maintain water table levels, prevent soil erosion and boost soil functions, boost plant and animal biodiversity, and sequester carbon. Green spaces can also deliver cleaner air and drinking water, strengthen ecological values and the human-nature connection, repair environmental burdens, and prevent social exclusion and isolation. Furthermore, GBI instils ecological integrity and produces essential spaces that are vital to well-being and cultural heritage (COM 2013/0249 final, 2013).

GBI offers benefits that are critical for designing multi-functionality in urbanized areas. While GBI projects emphasize what to implement and why, cities must develop effective strategies on how to implement them. GBI involves modifying complex ecological and social processes, but traditional, top-down government arrangements are unidirectional, making it difficult to deal with the ‘wicked’ problems that GBI aims to address (Acuto, 2013; Rittel and Webber, 1973). Many cities have limited resources and knowledge to navigate urgent dilemmas in the most effective way, so they often resort to conventional ways of controlling wicked problems like climate change, which aim to simplify complexity to arrive at a guaranteed consensus. To use GBI as an effective tool that achieves multi-functionality, a governing framework based on co-produced knowledge, iterative dialogues, and learning needs to be embedded in science, policy, practice, and society (Kabisch et al., 2016; Nesshöver et al., 2017). Thus, there is an evident and pressing need to reevaluate the way in which urban social-ecological systems are governed. A new way of thinking and working with diverse actors is required to create solutions that plan for and accept society’s dynamic and uncertain exchanges. One way that local governments can do this is by exploring an adaptive governance framework, which recognizes that there is no one-size-fits-all solution to bringing

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together new networks of society and establishing long-term institutional collaborations (Frantzeskaki, Kabisch and McPhearson, 2016).

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how collaborative decision-making supports the development of long-term, social-ecological resilience in green and blue infrastructure projects. To gain insight into stakeholder perceptions of collaborative decision-making, this research investigated two questions:

1) Who is involved in decision-making when planning and designing The Soul of Nørrebro GBI project?

2) How do stakeholders envision, implement, and contest collaborative decision-making in The Soul of Nørrebro GBI project?

This research involves an analysis of stakeholder perceptions of ‘The Soul of Nørrebro’ green and blue infrastructure project in Copenhagen, Denmark to reveal how adaptive governance influences the implementation of nature-based projects and how this informs social-ecological resilience. Based on desk study and interviews, this study considered the involvement of the following stakeholder groups: the Municipality of Copenhagen, SLA (landscape architecture design firm), the University of Copenhagen, Rambøll (engineering consultancy company), MiljøPunkt Nørrebro (local environmental organization), the Nørrebro community focus group (named ‘hurtiggruppen’ in Danish), and Urban Renewal Nørrebro (a site-specific organization focused on revitalizing neighborhoods; called Områdefornyelse in Danish). This study found that the municipality does not just want feedback from the community, but they want them to develop and steer the project. There is an ongoing dialogue to best determine how Hans Tavsens Park and Korsgade will be planned, but trade-offs that result in political decisions that are desirable to some and not to others cannot be avoided in the end. While certain setbacks were unavoidable, others that were encountered could have perhaps been prevented through increased transdisciplinary and representative collaboration.

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2. BACKGROUND

First, this chapter summarizes the global discourse of green and blue infrastructure and how cities around the world understand and utilize green and blue infrastructure projects. Next, The Soul of Nørrebro case study in Copenhagen, Denmark is introduced. Lastly, a need for more advanced collaborative processes through new modes of governance in Denmark is identified.

2.1 Green and blue infrastructure

The concept of incorporating more green space into the built environment can be traced back to the nineteenth century when landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted touted linking together parks and nature for the benefit of people (McMahon and Benedict, 2002; Eisenman, 2013). Soon after, concepts of greenways, landscape ecology, and the Garden City movement became prominent in urban planning, as consensus among academics, policymakers, and practitioners on the importance of green space grew (Mell, 2017). Ecologists and biologists have also long recognized the benefits that interconnected green spaces have on biodiversity to counter habitat fragmentation (McMahon and Benedict, 2002). While the concept of green space is historically rooted, the term ‘green infrastructure’ is thought to have gained popularity after a 1999 report from the President’s Council on Sustainable Development stated that green infrastructure strategies “actively seek to understand, leverage, and value the different ecological, social, and economic functions provided by natural systems in order to guide more efficient and sustainable land use and development patterns as well as protect ecosystems” (PCDS, 1999, p.64 in McMahon and Benedict, 2002). Since then, green infrastructure rapidly gained international recognition, and the term was further explored, expanded, and consolidated in contemporary planning (Mell, 2017).

Green and blue infrastructure (GBI)—a particular type of green infrastructure—emerged as climate change impacts became more evident and stormwater management became increasingly challenging in urbanized areas (Liao, Deng and Tan, 2017). The global discourse on GBI broadly describes replacing engineered structures with natural elements and processes to emphasize the interconnectedness of aquatic and terrestrial systems (ibid.). GBI commonly incorporates principles of flood mitigation, biodiversity enhancement, improved water quality, improved physical health and mental well-being, increased social interaction, inclusion, and cohesion in communities, enhanced quality of public space, recreation, and leisure, and increased marketability and resale value of homes (Naumann et al., 2011; Liao, Deng and Tan, 2017; Brears, 2018). Synonyms for GBI and related terms include: Stormwater Best Management Practices, Low Impact Development, Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems, Nature-Based Services, Integrated Urban Water Management, Water Sensitive Urban Design, ABC (Active, Beautiful and Clean), Waters Programme,the Sponge City Initiative, etc. (Fletcher et al., 2014). The terminology and definitions of GBI vary depending on the source, regional perspective, and context. This study uses the European Commission’s (COM 2013/0249 final, 2013) working definition of GBI, as follows:

A strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services. It incorporates green spaces (or blue if aquatic ecosystems are concerned) and other physical features in terrestrial (including coastal) and marine areas.

While GBI emerged as a popular agenda in recent years, the practice is not new and is increasingly being embraced as a multifunctional resiliency tool in many cities (Liao, Deng and Tan, 2017). Driven by the worsening, burdensome financial effects of climate change, cities are more commonly using their locally

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elected officials to push forward impactful climate policy (C40.org, 2012). One example of this is Seattle, Washington, where water and nature have historically been a large part of the region’s identity, infrastructure, and economy (Karvonen, 2010). When late nineteenth and early twentieth century traditional engineering of the land exacerbated widespread problems like landslides, drainage, and runoff, the city began to rethink urban nature and created natural and low-impact projects like bioswales, pervious paving, green roofs, and rainwater harvesting to restore the land. The lush vegetation resolved many of the city’s ecological issues, improved social aspects of urban design, and boosted Seattle’s resident engagement in community decision-making (ibid.). Other examples include Toronto, Canada and several cities across the Netherlands that are vulnerable to extreme flooding from increased rainfall. These cities have strategically invested in GBI to complement traditional pipe and sewer systems, improve water quality, reduce rapid fluctuations in stormwater flow, act as shade cover during heat waves, foster habitat for wildlife, increase property value, provide greenery for aesthetic purposes, and more (Empey et al., 2016). These examples demonstrate that GBI projects are being implemented in many cities— especially large, coastal cities—to realize the multi-faceted benefits of GBI. While there is increasing consensus that it is in the best interest of cities to carry out GBI projects at all scales, there is a need for detailed study of how GBI processes are being implemented.

2.2 The Soul of Nørrebro case study

Copenhagen is known as a pioneer in implementing innovative climate adaptation and stormwater management projects that provide greater social, environmental, and economic benefits to the city (Brears, 2018). The Soul of Nørrebro is a green and blue infrastructure project that is being implemented in Hans Tavsens Park and Korsgade in the Nørrebro neighborhood of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Figure 1: the Nørrebro neighborhood in Copenhagen, Denmark. Source: Google Maps.

Figure 2: project at Hans Tavsens Park and Korsgade. Source: SLA / Beauty and the Bit.

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Figure 3: Hans Tavsens Park before the design proposal, captured in 2016. Source: SLA.

The Soul of Nørrebro will consist of three urban spaces (Hans Tavsens Park, Korsgade street, and Blågård School area) in a 85,000 m2_{area that also serves as the home to 25,000 residents (SLA, 2016). The urban}

design project—viewed as an exemplary model for Nordic cities—was the winner of the 2016 Nordic Built Cities Challenge, which aimed at the development and visualization of innovative solutions for livable, smart, and sustainable cities (Ramboll, 2016b). The project proposal was submitted by SLA, a group of urban quality experts and designers specializing in the fields of landscape architecture and urban planning, beating out 145 entries from all six Nordic countries (Ramboll Group, 2016). The initial planning and conceptual phases for the project began in 2018, and implementation is estimated to be completed in 2024 with help from the multi-stakeholder team, which includes SLA, Rambøll, the Municipality of Copenhagen, HOFOR Greater Copenhagen Utility, and Urban Renewal. Project completion was originally intended for 2022, but the planning and design phases have taken longer than anticipated. The project, funded by the Municipality of Copenhagen and HOFOR Utility, is estimated to cost EUR 18 million (135 million Danish Krone), yet this is expected to change due to unforeseen modifications to the plan (SLA, 2016).

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Figure 4: The Soul of Nørrebro proposed plan for Hans Tavsens Park – tranquility after a cloudburst. Source: SLA / Beauty and the Bit.

The Soul of Nørrebro is one of many rainwater management initiatives sought after when a sudden bout of precipitation on 2 July 2011 resulted in extreme flooding and infrastructural damage, costing approximately EUR 800 million in insurance claims (HOFOR, 2016). Heavy rains, or cloudbursts, are only expected to become more frequent, especially in coastal cities like Copenhagen (IPCC, 2018). The Soul of Nørrebro focuses on multifunctionality, addressing both climate adaptation and social renewal. The new robust landscape will not only mitigate flooding but contribute to food growing, noise reduction, lower CO2 emissions, and improving air quality. Furthermore, it will create more aesthetic and pleasing green spaces for the community to enjoy—whether it be a place to meditate in tranquility or have a quiet conversation, or a place to meet friends, make noise, or boisterously play (Nordic Built Cities Challenge, 2016). The project has been praised by the unanimous Nordic Built Cities Challenge jury for including the local citizens in holistically integrating storm water management, biodiversity, culture, recreation, peace of mind, learning, play, and everyday urban life for residents and visitors through its humanistic and nature-based design of shared public space (Landezine, 2016). Greenery will create new and improved hydrological, biological, and social ecosystems in Nørrebro that will clean water, prevent flooding, and improve access to nature and quality of life for local inhabitants (SLA, 2016; Nordic Built Cities Challenge, 2016).

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Figure 5: proposed plan for everyday and cloudburst rain to be collected in Hans Tavsens Park and led down Korsgade street to the lake, as indicated by the author’s arrow. Source: SLA / Beauty and the Bit.

Hans Tavsens Park and Korsgade will accommodate approximately 5,000-7,000 m3_{of rainwater at one}

time. (It was initially estimated that 18,000 m3_{of water would need to be accounted for, but after the}

city’s master plan on cloudburst management changed, the team had to adjust plans to reduce capacity by a significant two-thirds.) Instead of using traditional solutions to urban flooding like digging wider sewers, increasing impermeable surfaces, and using technological devices, the area’s topography, soil, and vegetation will accommodate climate change solutions by creating efficient catchment basins, green corridors, and cleansing biotrophs. This will result in the regulation of urban microclimate and nature-based management of torrential rains by diverting water runoff from roofs and roads into nearby lakes, where the water will be biologically purified on its way, thereby enhancing the water quality of Copenhagen lakes. The proposed plan will replace areas of wide-open grass with water-loving plants and lush underbrush to increase filtration (Figure 4), replace concrete with permeable pavement and green sidewalk gardens (Figure 7), and utilize the edges of Hans Tavsens Park to create opportunity for urban nature to be cultivated and shared by nearby schoolchildren (Figure 9). These proposed changes aim to establish niches for the community to shape according to changing desires, break up street monotony while maintaining the area’s characteristic street art and red brick aesthetic, and create a smoother transition between the park, school courtyards, and nearby church, thus bringing adults and the youth closer together (SLA, 2016).

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Figure 6: Korsgade street, captured in December 2018. Source: Google Maps.

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Figure 8: urban space between two school yards, captured in November 2012. Source: Google Maps.

Figure 9: proposed plan for urban space between two school yards. Source: SLA / Beauty and the Bit.

Located in Copenhagen’s city center, Nørrebro can be characterized as a place of cultural exchange and is known as “the beating heart of the city” (Nordic Built Cities Challenge, 2016, p.5). Nørrebro, Copenhagen’s most densely populated neighborhood with the least amount of green space per citizen, is also characterized as one of six disadvantaged areas in Copenhagen that “have stagnated in relation to the city's overall development and therefore have a special need for social development and physical investments” (Københavns Kommune, 2012, p.14). Moreover, these challenges are unevenly distributed within Nørrebro, particularly regarding the one-sided composition of residents with low-income, criminal records, and from non-Western origin (ibid.). With this in mind, the green-blue project is based on collaboration and co-creation to capture the area’s diverse inhabitants, and it has been widely

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acknowledged for its continuous community engagement efforts to understand people’s needs. This includes informational meetings, workshops, and city walks with residents and the nearby cemetery and church, as well as involving the two onsite schools and school children. The project also plans to engage the community throughout the construction and maintenance phases to create a more permanent participatory process (SLA, 2016). Based on local and site-specific knowledge, the goal is to end up with “a greener, happier, more socially and culturally inclusive – as well as a more resilient and healthy – city” (SLA, 2016, p.8). The Soul of Nørrebro is framed as a necessary intervention to mitigate flooding, yet it is not simply viewed as a technical, ecological intervention but an opportunity to recast social relations. Thus, the stakeholder team has adopted an innovative, collaborative approach to implementing plans that touch on multiple aspects of urban life.

2.3 Public participation in Denmark and the need for advanced collaborative processes

Denmark has developed a reputation for being a frontrunner in sustainable development based on its strong political body that supports a decentralized public sector and its commitment to developing and sustaining partnerships (Ministry of Finance, 2017). This is thought to be partially attributed to the country’s routine planning practices that involve citizens, as “In Denmark, public participation through public hearings is mandatory in the process of making comprehensive municipal plans” (Hedensted Lund et al., 2012, p.615). However, climate change adaptation and spatial planning have historically “operated with strict hierarchical orders and division of tasks and competences between different government levels and clear boundaries between public and private actors,” creating a barrier for cross-sector collaboration (ibid.). It is common for planning professionals to believe that expert knowledge is too technical to convey to the public (Hedensted Lund et al., 2012), suggesting that mandatory public participation may not be effective in sustaining partnerships, as communication remains unidirectional, where specialized government sectors define what climate change adaptation entails and how to go about solving complex challenges. Climate change adaptation for many planners in Denmark continues to be dominated by sector policy and technical professionals. While building relationships between actors across scales is key for effective collaboration, Denmark’s institutional planning processes do not foster advanced collaborative processes. In the last decade, however, initiatives have emerged that show a trending transition to modes of governance that incorporate values and resources from the bottom-up (Hedensted Lund et al., 2012; Blok et al., 2019).

A study that investigated the governance arrangements around municipal green space maintenance in ten Danish municipalities showed that, in all ten municipalities, non-government actors were included in public involvement initiatives due to the widely recognized benefits of including local residents in the decision-making of their environments, namely, enhanced feelings of ownership, increased sense of community, heightened awareness of climate change issues, and decrease in vandalism (Molin and Konijnendijk, 2014). However, the study reiterates that in Denmark, a traditional structure that reflects hierarchical governance is used in green space projects. The study suggests that recent trends of transitioning to co-governance in local authorities—where decision-making power is shared with other actors—calls out a need for increased training and expertise on public involvement (ibid.). This would help address challenges of representativeness, time constraints, managing disappointments, dividing responsibilities, and balancing lay and scientific knowledge. In fact, a wider understanding of changing governance arrangements in urban green space management and maintenance is necessary (Molin and Konijnendijk, 2014).

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In The Soul of Nørrebro case study, Hans Tavsens Park and Korsgade must be transformed into a climate adaptive system that provides long-term protection against flooding while continually accommodating the needs of local community members and visitors. Thus, the project can be characterized as a social-ecological system, which, in this thesis, is understood as a system that integrates the way people think, study, and analyze humanity's dependence and influence on nature (Fischer et al., 2015; Berkes, Colding, and Folke, 2003). Folke et al. (2010, p.3) define a social-ecological system as an “Integrated system of ecosystems and human society with reciprocal feedback and interdependence.” The interplay between The Soul of Nørrebro’s biological, hydraulic, and social perspectives is thus critical to arrive at a central, agreed upon vision to move the initiative forward, move past conflicting interests, and properly integrate the project into other systems. To do so, a holistic perspective is needed and can perhaps be achieved through more effective collaborative processes.

Many scholars agree that the complexity of social-ecological systems must be governed holistically, taking multiple types of information into account (Dietz, Ostrom and Stern, 2003; Pereira et al., 2015; Buizer et al., 2015). This arguably makes collaboration in planning an even more important approach to creating culture, knowledge, and learning processes. By telling stories, finding commonalities, increasing efforts to establish trust, and being transparent about underlying goals, concerns, and methods, societies can perhaps cope with and overcome problems in a way that is more unified and sustainable. However, planners must collaborate by integrating perspectives across institutions at multiple levels—moving past unidirectional communication that hierarchical government reinforces, despite efforts to sustain partnerships and expand networks through mandatory public participation hearings. More advanced collaborative processes must be fostered through new modes of governance, yet it can be challenging to determine which governing processes are best for creating climate resilient landscapes while preserving each neighborhood’s cultural identity and social fabric. The collaborative approach in The Soul of Nørrebro seemingly reflects a turn towards adaptive governance that is participatory and emergent, trying to break through the barriers that traditional governmental divisions often create.

Adaptive governance has emerged as a way of dealing with the inherent uncertainty and unpredictability of complex social-ecological systems to achieve resilience. Collaboration is a key aspect of adaptive governance that encourages collective decision-making and co-production of knowledge with representatives from government agencies, businesses, non-profits, the academic sector, and the local community to ensure that complex demands are met in the fairest way possible. As Olsson et al. (2006, p.13) describe, “Linking different networks and creating opportunities for new interactions are important when dealing with uncertainty and change.” While multi-stakeholder governance aims to achieve a collective goal through diverse stakeholder partnerships, adaptive governance goes one step further to collectively achieve resilience by emphasizing the need for flexibility to embrace the inherent uncertainty and unpredictability of complex social-ecological systems (Folke et al., 2005). It emphasizes that not only must collaboration be prioritized across governmental sectors, but collaborative processes must also prepare involved actors to effectively integrate and utilize expert and local knowledge, adjust to changing conditions, and navigate complex problems. Adaptive governance can be viewed as a lens for integrating perspectives across institutions at multiple organizational levels. It is thought to influence the way social-ecological systems accomplish resilience and can provide the mechanisms that planners seek to “connect knowledge with action” in collaborative decision-making processes (Wyborn, 2015, p.3). This thesis focuses specifically on how collaboration is undertaken in adaptive governance processes to strengthen social-ecological resilience by examining The Soul of Nørrebro case study.

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3. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The theoretical contribution of this chapter first explains how elements within resilience thinking, systems thinking, and urban sustainable transitions intersect with adaptive governance. Next, it presents collaborative decision-making as a key aspect to transition to long-lasting and resilient social-ecological systems. Finally, the chapter highlights six prominent characteristics and emerging challenges in collaborative decision-making that can help urban planners and designers build social-ecological resilience through green and blue infrastructure projects.

3.1 Applying resilience thinking and new modes of governance

The term resilience can be ambiguous and interpreted in different ways depending on the context. From an ecological standpoint, resilience has been explained as “a measure of the persistence of systems and of their ability to absorb change and disturbance and still maintain the same relationships between populations or state variables” (Holling, 1973, p.14). Keck and Sakdapolrak (2013, p.8) explain that social resilience can refer to “individuals, organizations or communities—and their abilities or capacities to tolerate, absorb, cope with and adjust to environmental and social threats of various kinds.” When talking about engineering, resilience is “the intrinsic ability of an organization (system) to maintain or regain a dynamically stable state” (Hollnagel, Woods and Leveson, 2006). Resilience involves general concepts, and the various ways of defining resilience can make it difficult for planners to adopt definitive elements in the urban context. While it may be challenging to explicitly operationalize, resilience thinking is important when thinking about who is governing transitions of social-ecological systems as well as whose sustainability gets prioritized (Smith and Stirling, 2008).

When resilience thinking is applied to cities, as exemplified in The Soul of Nørrebro case study, planners aim to reduce vulnerability from climate change impacts. Climate change during an era of rapid urbanization threatens ecological, social, cultural, and economic systems alike, so achieving urban resilience must build stability by balancing multiple interests. Cities’ increased vulnerability to climate change is forcing planners to rethink land uses, spatial form, development of buildings, infrastructure availability, and specific topography (Albers and Deppisch 2013); thus, a holistic perspective of social-ecological systems must be used. In this thesis, the Municipality of Copenhagen is implementing a multi-functional green and blue infrastructure project that aims to use a green, public park as a way of building resilience against cloudburst events and everyday rain while maintaining a variety of possibilities for park users to socially and culturally interact. The project hopes to increase urban resilience by reducing green space occupants’ exposure to crisis.

Planning to minimize climate change impacts is inherently difficult since it is unknown exactly how and to what extent climate change will affect urban spaces, but resilience thinking is thought to introduce complexity as a way of making “visible synergies and ‘win–win’ situations within planning” (Erixon, Borgström and Andersson, 2013, p.349). When design solutions consider multiple perspectives, sectors, and scales, resources can be leveraged to drive innovation and create long-lasting change (Sellberg, Wilkinson and Peterson, 2015). Holling (1973) suggests that recognizing human ignorance, accepting that future events will be unexpected, and emphasizing the importance of heterogeneity are necessary facets of managing complex systems. Furthermore, resilience thinking research recognizes that diversity—or the combination of different elements—fundamentally contributes to complexity, as it helps build capacity for a system to anticipate, absorb, and recover from unexpected disruptions (Albers and Deppisch, 2013;

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Folke, Colding and Berkes, 2002; Folke et al., 2002). These elements of resilience thinking challenge planners to use complexity as a tool to enrich and proliferate the dynamic interactions that occur in urban systems.

Resilience thinking uses systems concepts to understand complex, adaptive problems in a new way (Biggs, Schlüter and Schoon, 2015). Systems thinking is believed to help constructively simplify complexity through holistic and iterative thinking, which allows decision makers to understand things differently and more clearly (Gharajedaghi, 2006). A systems thinking approach also allows problem solvers to take a step back from reductionist tendencies of defining problems in terms of their solutions by primarily and deeply getting to know how a system functions, who the major actors are, how the actors do what they do, and the role of the system as a whole. Achieving a shared vision is essential to building social-ecological resilience since multiple complex systems are involved. As so, systems thinking promotes backcasting— or designing a solution by working backwards from an inspirational vision of the future—as a planning tool to reach successful, integrative outcomes. Moreover, systems thinking principles are centered around co-producing ideas to enable compatible and coherent system solutions, greater community engagement (as users are more likely to engage with something that they helped design), and opportunity to overcome path dependency, where historic predispositions create institutionalized resistance to change (Gharajedaghi, 2006; Blomkvist and Johansson, 2016). Systems thinking can help urban planners organize thoughts and deepen their understanding of relationships and interdependencies between humans and their environments (Biggs, Schlüter and Schoon, 2015).

Local resilience is important for social-ecological systems, as site experimentation and knowledge production by users helps to strengthen the interconnectedness of the natural and social sciences. However, scholars believe that inconsistency of defining the term resilience and the way in which it has been mainstreamed in many disciplines leads to ambiguity and over-simplification (Olsson et al., 2015; Brand and Jax, 2007). Furthermore, the way in which practitioners carry out resilience thinking can be criticized for holding too much power during the decision making process, as well as for placing too much responsibility on individuals to be accountable for their own well-being, thus reinforcing decentralized governance and normalizing neoliberal ideology, or a market-oriented ideology (Baibarac and Petrescu, 2017; Brand and Jax, 2007; Joseph, 2013). A need for institutional support to make a resilience thinking framework more explicit is recognized (Potter and Vilcan, 2020; Tyler and Moench, 2012), but since building social-ecological resilience is largely context-based and situational, an institutionalized framework would require broad and replicable applications. This, in a sense, is counterintuitive, because it tailors the resilience thinking approach to meet societal needs. It would also require certain people to decide on which aspects should be prioritized when building resilience, which begs the question: whom is resilience for? (White and O’Hare, 2014; Cretney, 2014). As principles of resilience thinking become increasingly common tools to plan for climate change adaptation, caution should be taken to ensure the term resilience is not being used to push political interests and agendas, but to address climate and social inequities.

Cities are composed of many complex social-technical systems, which “consist of a cluster of aligned elements, e.g. artefacts, knowledge, user practices and markets, regulation, cultural meaning, infrastructure, maintenance networks and supply networks” (Geels, 2005, p. 446). While these systems present great opportunities for building global pathways towards sustainability, regeneration, and resilience, it is unclear how impactful urban transition can emerge, especially with time pressures for effective action (Wolfram, Borgström and Farrelly, 2019). Geels (2005) claims that transitions occur

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through the alignment of multi-scale dynamics and through the interaction of social groups with different interests, strategies, and values. Studies show that holistic thinking, transdisciplinarity, embracing uncertainty, and long-term foresight are key elements that must be adopted to accomplish large-scale sustainable transitions (Wolfram, Borgström and Farrelly, 2019; Folke, Colding and Berkes, 2002). Other studies suggest increased trends towards decentralizing and reinventing policy to better facilitate interests from the perspective of the public (Steel and Weber, 2001). Furthermore, greater ecological considerations must take place when considering social-technical systems. If scientific and academic research can be better understood by civic society, then increased environmental consciousness can help influence the planning of more sustainable cities. Rethinking urban social-technical systems to prioritize localized decision-making and community development can perhaps influence the development of new governance concepts, visions, and guiding principles (Geels and Kemp, 2007).

Urban sustainability transitions attempt to catalyze resilience and systems thinking, but the way in which society manages transition processes must challenge conventional governance. While many cities have good intentions for addressing society’s most pressing, complex challenges, there seems to be a disparity between intention and impact. For example, urban planners use densification processes to counteract negative effects of urban sprawl, but public green space is often removed in dense urban areas because of this (Wolsink, 2016; Haaland and van den Bosch, 2015). Current government practices prioritize economic development over urban green space, creating disaffection towards the environment that is associated with higher stress, decreased air quality, diminished aesthetic value, and inadequate public spaces to socialize, mingle, and express creativity (Soga and Gaston, 2016; Ward Thompson et al., 2016; Panagopoulos, González Duque and Dan, 2016). This is to say that conventional governing structures have lacked proper recommendations for the integration of urbanization and urban green space conservation. Institutional arrangements of planning that approach social-ecological systems by embracing elements of resilience thinking, systems thinking, and urban sustainability transitions are needed (i.e., complexity, uncertainty, diversity, holistic perspectives, iteration, co-produced knowledge, community engagement, etc.).

Studies show that current institutional regulatory norms and top-down, neoliberal agendas contribute to the conventional government challenges that prevent progressive initiatives from taking place (Lawrence et al., 2013; Theodore, Peck and Brenner, 2013). Modern-day globalized markets and enhanced privatization of city spaces and services have created complex network dynamics that rely on the “capitalist imperative of profit making,” producing a mentality that proliferates large-scale production, systemic social disempowerment, and detrimental effects on the environment (Brenner, Marcuse and Mayer, 2009, p.176). Whitehead (2013, p.1348) claims, “urbanization is an expression of intersecting regimes of social power.” Thus, this neoliberal agenda reinforces government and policy making that corresponds to profit-making and hyper-individualistic approaches rather than social and environmental needs, where action on climate change is, in fact, directly related to markets, finance, civic engagement, and governance.

In this study, ‘governance’ refers to the way in which humans organize processes, institutional arrangements, and decisions. There are many different terminologies and discourses surrounding governance, especially in recent years as cities try to find the most effective way of managing climate adaptation. Governance often implies that non-governmental and non-state actors participate in shaping policy, but how and the extent to which this occurs can greatly vary (Kleinschmit, Böcher and Giessen, 2009). For example, ‘transition governance’ focuses on altering regimes by shifting roles and power

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relations, as well as by continuously articulating, integrating, and searching for new knowledge, visions, and debates (Wittmayer et al., 2017; Smith, Stirling and Berkhout, 2005), whereas ‘climate governance’ and ‘environmental governance’ focus on engaging local actors in collaboration with higher tier government, mobilizing city networks, and including knowledge outside of modern science (Van der Heijden et al., 2018; Wolfram, 2018; Gulsrud, Hertzog and Shears, 2018).

As previously discussed, adaptive governance has emerged as a way of dealing with the inherent uncertainty and unpredictability of complex social-ecological systems to achieve resilience. The way in which society reorganizes after abrupt change, turbulence, or crisis—such as an extreme flooding event, or cloudburst—can vastly shape how just and sustainable social-ecological systems will be moving forward. Implementing new plans and policies with intention of increasing adaptive capacity of involved actors is an important part of adaptive governance, as it will help them to be “able to reconfigure themselves when subject to change without significant declines in crucial functions of the social-ecological system” (Folke et al., 2005, p.452). According to Folke, Colding and Berkes (2002, p.354-355), adaptive capacity entails: 1) learning to live with change and uncertainty; 2) nurturing diversity and social-ecological memory for reorganization and renewal; 3) combining different types of knowledge for learning (experiential-, experimental-, process-, structural-, functional-); and 4) creating opportunity for self-organization and flexible problem solving across scales. Resilience is key for enhancing adaptive capacity, but to build resilience for social-ecological systems, Folke et al. (2002, p.8) explain that “we need first to clarify the human-nature relation, and identify what to sustain and why.” Thus, planning and management of projects that involve climate change solutions in public space require the incorporation of local users’ and interests groups’ knowledge and wisdom to gain a better understanding of what people need from the system and how they desire to interact with the physical space. Folke et al. (2002) further elaborate that this first-hand knowledge, which is based on experience, creates flexibility in problem solving and balances power among interest groups. Systems are strengthened from receiving dynamic feedback. Since this input is continually in flux, managing different perceptions and stress variables creates a loop that responds to change, rather than an end goal that aims to achieve a stable state. In this way, elements of resilience thinking (and subsequently systems thinking and urban sustainable transitions) overlaps with adaptive capacity, “which includes an emphasis on feedback loops rather than linear causality” (Krasny and Tidball, 2009, p.469).

3.2 Collaborative decision-making

There are synergies of collaboration across governance and planning. Adaptive governance adopts a collaborative way of decision making, as broad stakeholder engagement and resident- and community-based participation and are emphasized as essential components (Folke et al., 2005). The Resilience Alliance—a research organization that focuses on resilience in social-ecological systems—also realizes a need for collaboration and more diverse stakeholder involvement to arrive at comprehensive overviews and to re-emphasize an integrated perspective (Sellberg, Wilkinson and Peterson, 2015). Similarly, White and O’Hare (2014, p.941) say, “The need for partnerships, collaboration, and a shared interpretation is viewed as essential to achieving resilience.” Whereas collaborative decision-making in adaptive governance is based upon the collaborative elements presented in resilience thinking, the emphasis on collaborative decision-making in planning practices originates from a need to achieve social justice and fair representation.

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Many governmental entities fail to produce the transformative and impactful results they want, as decision-making power can be limited when knowledge flow operates in one direction. It is argued that collaborative dialogue is needed as a deliberative governance strategy (Innes and Booher, 2003). An Abson et al. (2014) study that investigates participatory scenario planning in 23 social-ecological case studies indicates that planning practices should promote collaborative and participatory methods to enrich environmental management and long-term thinking of complex systems. The study also emphasizes that specific considerations of each social-ecological system should be made to create tailored objectives, build common understanding, and foster learning (Abson et al., 2014). Adaptive governance processes embrace broad stakeholder engagement to make planning practices more democratic by creating multi-dimensional information flows. When different viewpoints, concerns, and desires are discussed, there is a higher likelihood that social learning could encourage participants to develop a greater understanding and appreciation for opposing views (Stringer et al., 2006).

Additional discourses on broad stakeholder engagement and collaboration in planning processes of social-ecological systems include: incorporating the role of local academia into decision-making, such as by strengthening formal and informal interactions; setting time aside to make sense of and apply scientific knowledge in a pragmatic context; strategic alignment and coordination between public, private, and civic society actors to increase resourcefulness and share tools and visions; taking the time to help stakeholders understanding the needs of the system, as well as the cultural and political framing of the system; consensus building to bring transformation in a networked society; co-management, by establishing effective and trusted intermediation to help mitigate conflict while empowering the community to share opposing views; creating new roles and changing up existing actor roles to challenge thepersistent nature of societal problems; flexibility to allow for time- and context-specific needs; stimulating innovation by proactively engaging youth in planning phases; and establishing the continuity of partnerships to ensure long-term sustainability (Wolfram, Borgström and Farrelly, 2019; Stringer et al., 2006; Wittmayer et al., 2017; Geos Institute, 2019; Baibarac and Petrescu, 2017; Innes and Booher, 1999).

Adaptive governance presents a way of achieving social-ecological resilience, urban sustainable transitions, and nature-based solutions, where collaborative decision-making is a key aspect. This thesis recognizes that collaborative decision-making has six prominent characteristics and emerging challenges that can help urban planners and designers support the development of long-term, social-ecological resilience in green and blue infrastructure projects. These characteristics are outlined below.

3.2.1 Transdisciplinarity

Transdisciplinarity is a specific characteristic of collaboration that aims to spark conversations across the social and natural sciences (Boyd and Juhola, 2014). Lang et al. (2012, p.26) define transdisciplinarity as “an integrative, method-driven scientific principle aiming at the solution or transition of societal problems and concurrently of related scientific problems by differentiating and integrating knowledge from various scientific and societal bodies of knowledge.” Transdisciplinary partnerships not only include people possessing knowledge from different disciplines (multi-disciplinary) and integrating different types and degrees of knowledge (interdisciplinary), but transdisciplinary partnerships also aim at creating knowledge coherence by solving a larger scope of problems presented by all participants, including experts, academics, civil society, etc. (Pohl, 2005; Lawrence and Després, 2004).

Transdisciplinary practices seek to synthesize knowledge from multiple sources. In planning, involving citizens to participate in the creation of public spaces is believed to be beneficial in many ways, and there

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are many community-led GBI and nature-based projects taking place that build on indigenous, local, and informal knowledge (European Commission, 2015; Brondizio and Tourneau, 2016). Strengthening the human relationship with nature by rethinking effective stewardship may not only be important to enhance collectively shared values that are considered necessary to stabilize the rapidly warming climate; stewardship of earth systems may also help human society prosper (Steffen et al., 2018). Bottom-up GBI projects that recognize the importance of citizens’ leading decision-making aim to find solutions to environmental injustices often by putting low-income and historically marginalized communities at the forefront. These grassroots initiatives can be tailored to the unique features of every community if diverse perspectives and stakeholders are included. However, transdisciplinarity in community-led projects that do not have designated roles or leadership could lead to reduced decision-making productivity, political gridlocks, and people seeking to demonize others rather than finding common ground (Chapin, 2020). Thus, a mediator may be necessary to help reframe discussions and prevent false dichotomies from derailing project objectives.

3.2.2 Reflexivity

Reflexivity is another specific characteristic of collaboration (Boyd and Juhola, 2014). Reflexivity questions and contextualizes knowledge and worldviews, thus allowing for critical conversations about balancing diverse interests and adapting to local conditions (Buizer, Elands and Vierikko, 2016). A reflexive governance approach could also “include learning from and being aware of failures” (Kabisch et al., 2016, p.9). In planning, reflexivity is used as a tool for “generating critical knowledge and dialogue that can synthesize the perspectives of multiple actors in a common understanding, existing structural constraints and a collective imagination of alternative future possibilities” (Lissandrello and Grin, 2011, p.223). Together, transdisciplinarity and reflexivity in adaptive governance help create a system that can survive over a long period of time, as they aim to form self-organizing and self-enforcing processes that enable actor groups to draw on various knowledge to sustain systems. This, in turn, helps these social networks manage and maintain systems with a learn by doing approach. Furthermore, when leaders of social-ecological systems orchestrate networks following a disturbance, social memory is strengthened and allows decision-makers to link past experiences with present and future evidence-based policies.

3.2.3 Sense of belonging, pride, and ownership

Collective effort to transition to more resilient social-ecological systems—especially when promoting transdisciplinarity and citizen participation—is believed to increase values of urban nature, environmental stewardship, and civic ecology, which integrate community and ecological values (Krasny and Tidball, 2009). The earlier that citizens are included in placemaking through community-based participation, the greater chance those citizens will feel a sense of belonging, pride, and ownership of public space (Lepofsky and Fraser, 2003; Brody, Godschalk and Burby, 2003). Additionally, when the youth learns about the environment alongside adults and other community members, this sense of belongingness, pride, and agency is thought to be enhanced in all of those who are involved (Krasny and Tidball, 2009). This may, in turn, improve citizens’ image of public space, thus increasing the probability that the community will want to take part in sustaining the physical environment by contributing to the management and maintenance of space (Lynch, 1960). Time invested in environmental restoration, design, and management projects results in increased social connectedness, as well as greater understandings of the interconnectedness of humans and nature. There are profound benefits in community involvement in collaborative decision-making processes, including more care for the natural resources and ecological processes that society depends on, increased well-being from exposure to nature, and stronger social relations that emerge from

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working together with neighbors and sharing traditional knowledge and stories. When a variety of community members engage in local decision-making, conversations lead to concrete, positive behavior changes, thus increasing sense of belonging, pride, and ownership of public space. This is further thought to increase democracy (Karvonen and Yocom, 2011), leading to increased freedoms and justice.

3.2.4 Trade-offs

While it is important that all participants feel that their opinions are important and valid, decision-making always results in trade-offs. Top-down governmental control has traditionally been used to create order and certainty to minimize back-and-forth debates, but this approach has been criticized for stifling local efforts and lacking feedback loops to respond to unforeseen issues (Kettl, 2002). Bottom-up, or grassroots, approaches to implementing local planning projects allow for feedback through dialogue between collaborative partnerships and networks. This on-the-ground, place-based exchange of knowledge, expectations, and aspirations can also encourage civic engagement that can potentially influence larger policy and institutional changes (Stringer at al., 2006). However, research points to uncertainty that bottom-up governance approaches to green and blue infrastructure implementation is more effective than hierarchical processes, since bottom-up processes raise questions of legitimacy, accountability, and capacity, and they operate under the assumption that “community” as a coherent unit works towards the same goals to fulfill the same needs and interests (Fung, 2003; Conrad and Hilchey, 2010; Cooke and Kothari, 2001).

Scholars and practitioners believe that institutional guidance is critical for mobilizing unifying support and building mutual trust, respect, and a sense of solidarity among actors (Folke et al., 2005; Ramboll, 2016a). Continuous, clear, and organized leadership can help avoid ad hoc and impulsive decision-making and integrate and communicate understanding among decision-makers (Olsson et al., 2006). According to Somarakis, Stagakis and Chrysoulakis (2019, p.159), the adaptive governance model “intends to go beyond the opposition between top-down and bottom-up approaches and avoid being insensitive to either local constraints, or to the existence of larger issues related to a particular local situation.” Adaptive governance also takes multiple aspects of scale into account: spatial, temporal, jurisdictional, institutional, and management considerations are made throughout systems planning (Somarakis, Stagakis and Chrysoulakis, 2019). Thus, the polycentric arrangement—which has shared authority—aims at finding a balance between decentralized and centralized decision-making so that resilience projects can reconcile trade-offs by leveraging culturally embedded knowledge through negotiation, openness, and flexibility. Projects that build social-ecological resilience must be implemented inclusively within a local context, and through shared authority, the long-term management and maintenance of the project can be optimized (Imperial, 1999).

It can be difficult to reconcile different perspectives and manage conflict, so it is important that polycentric governance processes include a distinct way of reconciling trade-offs to ensure a shared vision and direction is achieved in a reasonable timeframe. Research on public participation, multi-source feedback, and collaboration within people-centered planning shows that open-mindedness heightens the quality of participation and is essential to foster social learning, prevent defensiveness, and practice cultural sensitivity (Schusler, Decker and Peffer, 2003; Taylor and Bright, 2011; Callicott, 2003). Open-mindedness and respectful listening can also prevent distortion and domination of ideas while exploring complex and challenging issues with sensitivity and humor (Schusler, Decker and Peffer, 2003). Different actors are expected to have different opinions and desires, likely raising tensions, so the way in which collaborative

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decision-making processes reconcile trade-offs is important for incorporating multiple perspectives into plans while still accomplishing a unified result.

3.2.5 Representativeness

Reconciling trade-offs is important to reach consensus among diverse perspectives, but collaborative decision-making processes face challenges of representativeness. When building social-ecological resilience with emphasis on community-based participation, planning entities must critically question who is benefiting and who has the ability to influence change. Often, citizens who are most active in public planning meetings are males who are older, whiter, and wealthier than their neighbors (Einstein, Palmer and Glick, 2018; NCDD, 2013). This creates injustice that is “rooted in social patterns of representation, interpretation, and communication” (Fraser, 1997, p.14). It is also common that individuals with high socioeconomic status and an existing knowledgebase on local systems express interest in becoming involved in the planning process. Furthermore, citizen participation is often based on volunteer engagement and self-organization, making it much easier for individuals who have the time privilege to partake. These factors can cause one-sided decisions to be made, thus reinforcing the marginalization of people whose voices are rarely heard (Stringer at al., 2006). Here, considerations of procedural justice become important to enact fair, representative decision-making processes.

Acknowledging procedural justice—in this study, understood as the ability of people affected by decisions to participate in making them—is an essential part of making environmental considerations in decision-making processes (Ottinger, 2013). Walker (2009, p.627) in Agyeman et al. (2016) explains that procedural justice allows for “a fluidity of movement of people, ideas and perspectives across the boundaries of institutions and between differentiated elite and lay spaces, creating open rather than constrained networks of interaction and deliberation.” This becomes particularly important when cities create climate change mitigation and adaptation plans, because vulnerable populations (low-income, people of color, women, the elderly) have the most difficult time preparing for, responding to, and recovering from the damaging effects of environmental hazards (Clar, 2019). These communities are disproportionately affected by climate change impacts and often bear the brunt of polluted air and water, poorly maintained infrastructure, and the lack of accessible green space, public amenities, and affordable housing in many urban areas.

3.2.6 Distribution of power

While collaborative processes aim for shared decision-making authority, they often face challenges of fair distribution of power. When multiple stakeholders participate in planning, power and agency dynamics should be carefully approached to challenge the power holder status quo and to avoid feelings of alienation and distrust (Arnstein, 1969). These challenges are believed to be addressed by seeking out and prioritizing input and feedback from participants who are directly affected by the system or who are clearly not represented during decision-making, as well as by creating a two-way flow of information by educating participants to ensure the knowledge about the system is understood (Reed et al., 2013). Proactively making efforts to educate and empower all community members to take part in shaping the places in which they occupy can help improve representativeness and fair distribution of power, which are essential for increasing the quality of participation, ensuring transparency, and reducing social inequalities in collaborative decision-making. Furthermore, recognition of differences between groups and cultures is critical when planning community projects, as different ways of living may mean that people’s perception of ‘good environmental design’ differs among individuals and various communities.

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When Persson, Harnesk, and Islar (2017) discussed ‘justice as recognition’ in relation to ecosystem support, they examined the relations of power between many different social actors (indigenous people, government, companies, media, etc.) and found that some stakeholders hold ‘power over,’ ‘more power,’ and ‘different power’ from other stakeholders—often leading to the neglect of cultural or socioeconomic perspectives. One community group may be thrilled at the prospects that a park design project may bring to the neighborhood. For some, there are only positive outcomes of environmental improvement projects; however, if other community groups are left out of the decision-making process, concerns for gentrification, or the displacement of marginalized residents caused by increasing property values due to increased green space, may go unheard (BCNUEJ, 2017). Challenging the way justice is understood and represented in governance and social-ecological resilience discourses can lead to a more equal representation of power and fairness; this must be accomplished by thinking pluralistically and continuously challenging perspectives of justice and power.

Table 1 on the next page summarizes the six prominent characteristics of collaborative decision-making that this thesis uses as a lens to analyze The Soul of Nørrebro case study.

This theoretical framework provides the basis for the aim of this thesis which is to investigate how collaborative decision-making supports the development of long-term, social-ecological resilience in green and blue infrastructure projects. To gain insight into stakeholder perceptions of collaborative decision-making, this research investigated two questions:

1) Who is involved in decision-making when planning and designing The Soul of Nørrebro GBI project?

2) How do stakeholders envision, implement, and contest collaborative decision-making in The Soul of Nørrebro GBI project?

The following chapter explains the methods used to analyze stakeholder perceptions of The Soul of Nørrebro green and blue infrastructure project in Copenhagen, Denmark to reveal how adaptive governance influences the implementation of nature-based projects and how this informs social-ecological resilience.

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Table 1: summary of six prominent characteristics of collaborative decision-making.

Characteristic Description

Transdisciplinarity − Aims at creating knowledge coherence by synthesizing perspectives from multiple sources (experts, academics, civil society, etc.)

− Builds on indigenous, local, and informal knowledge − Strengthens the human relationship with nature

− Puts low-income and minority communities at the forefront Reflexivity − Questions and contextualizes knowledge and worldviews

− Balances diverse interests and adapts to local conditions − Includes learning from and being aware of failures

− Helps create a system that can survive over a long period of time through dialogue and a learn by doing approach

Sense of belonging, pride, and ownership

− Early citizen engagement is key

− Emphasizes that urban nature, environmental stewardship, and civic ecology integrate community and ecological values

− Helps sustain the physical environment by contributing to citizens’ desire to manage and maintain space

− Increases social connectedness and democracy

Trade-offs − Institutional guidance and leadership helps build mutual trust and respect − Polycentricity, which promotes shared authority, finds balance between

decentralized and centralized decision-making

− Negotiation, openness, and flexibility helps reconcile trade-offs

− Open-mindedness is essential to foster social learning, prevent defensiveness, and promote cultural sensitivity

Representativeness − Citizen participants often include males who are older, whiter, and wealthier than their neighbors, as well as individuals with high socioeconomic status and an existing knowledgebase on local systems

− Underrepresentation reinforces the marginalization of people whose voices are rarely heard

− Vulnerable populations have the most difficult time preparing for, responding to, and recovering from environmental hazards

− Considerations of procedural justice become important to enact fair and representative decision-making processes

Distribution of power − Some stakeholders hold ‘power over,’ ‘more power,’ and ‘different power’ from other stakeholders

− Recognition of differences between groups and cultures as well as pluralistic thinking is critical when planning community projects

− Prioritizing feedback from participants who are directly affected by the system or who are not represented helps power sharing

− Educating participants to ensure the knowledge about the system is understood is essential for increasing the quality of participation, transparency, and