Over-design and under-funding: A theory of park (re)development in Gothenburg

Abstract

Urban parks are commonly seen as the panacea for multiple of urban issues. From migrant integration to climate change, urban agriculture to wellbeing, biodiversity to obesity, urban parks are touted as the answer. The potential of parks to address these issues comes not only from their initial design and localisation, but also their ongoing management and maintenance. In recognition of parks as a ‘fix’ to a multitude of urban problems, funding for park (re)development is relatively easy to come by, through a variety of funding mechanisms. However, despite management and maintenance being the most significant factor in the benefits of parks being sustained in the future, budgets for ongoing park management and maintenance remains insufficient and stagnant. To date, the relationship between design and management has been conceptualised by landscape architects and urban designers. The models developed have been focused on the scale of the urban park, as a demarked space within a city, and the interactions that occur within said space. However, parks do not exist as islands. Parks are part of the fabric of the city. Therefore, this thesis goes beyond the park, and utilises theories situated at the city-scale to better understand how design and management intersect and influence the spatial realities of urban parks. This study takes the form of a single case study of Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city. Interviews, online, in-person and walking, were conducted with informants from private landscape architecture firms, as well as project managers, park managers and maintenance teams from the park and nature administration in City of Gothenburg, and the real estate office. Thus encompassing those who are involved with or have knowledge about the (re)development of urban parks within the locality. Using a theoretical framework that combines urban regime theory, entrepreneurial urbanism, city branding and neoliberalism (theories that characterise the contemporary ‘green’ city), this thesis unpacks the nuanced processes that constitute the relationships between urban park design and maintenance. Findings show that, firstly, the agenda of the City of Gothenburg, to brand itself as a green and innovative city, coupled with the mode of funding park (re)development, almost exclusively through the sale of publicly owned land in Gothenburg, creates a discrepancy between the monies available for design and management. Secondly, neoliberal policies and practices impact upon the relationships between City employees and private landscape architects, as well as between these human actors and the non-human entities that are inherent to urban parks, and how these relationships manifest in the very fabric of urban parks. Finally, it is questioned why the design capabilities of private landscape architecture firms, with specific regard to knowledge and innovation, are held prioritised in park (re)development over the practical capabilities of the City of Gothenburg employees who enact park management and maintenance on the ground. The thesis concludes with a discussion of the term ‘overdesign’, which is presented as a relational conceptualisation of the spatial realities of urban parks in Gothenburg Whilst overdesign is seen to be driven by funding models, linked to city branding and entrepreneurialism, in itself is not problematic. What makes overdesign problematic is that it increases the complexity of ongoing management making it more difficult to sustain in the long-term, and ultimately more costly. This added complexity in management is compounded by the fact that the influx of funding for the initial design and construction phase is not matched by sustained levels of funding available for ongoing maintenance. Whilst the trend towards overdesign feeds into the contemporary rhetoric of the green and innovative city, in fact, overdesign may result in parks which are placeless, akin to highstreets and airports. Thus actually striping cities of their own identities and competitive advantages that urban entrepreneurialism and city branding relies upon.