Realigning Knowing and Doing: An Agenda for Reflection and Action

Abstract

As both a reflection on the book and a proposal for next steps, this chapter emphasises the importance of context in its widest (social, cultural, political, ecological, economic…) sense when seeking to understand the limits to many urban green spaces’ positive contributions to human wellbeing. Exploring the mismatch between policy rhetoric, practice on the ground and lived experience, Dempsey and Dobson underline the significance of political buy-in which does not always result in the ‘best’ urban green space for the people who live there. The chapter, and the book overall, aims to contribute a nuanced understanding of challenges faced by decision-makers involved in the cross-sector and cross-disciplinary domain of ‘healthy urban green spaces’, which are context-specific and often constrained by longstanding organisational rules and practices. We reflect on how the time is ripe to revisit and question some of these rule-bound behaviours and procedures in order to institute appropriate codes, cultures and knowledge to underpin urban green space management in the twenty-first century.