Why Practice Doesn’t Make Perfect

Abstract

There is already a plethora of research which amply demonstrates multiple benefits of urban nature for health and wellbeing, culture and identity, biodiversity and a sense of place. Alongside this, political rhetoric and planning strategies make well-meaning and eloquent statements about how important urban green space is, but this is not followed up by meaningful action. This chapter posits the global and local challenges that we face around urban nature and health and outlines how the book contributes to the gap between what we know and what we do, by investigating and challenging the logics and decision-making processes at work. This chapter – like the rest in the book – aims to address an overarching question: Why is there a misalignment between what we know about green space and what we do in practice? This chapter outlines the book’s aim to understand how the wellbeing benefits of urban nature are analysed and valued and why they are interpreted and translated into action or inaction, into ‘success’ and/or ‘failure’. It sets out why we propose to abandon the problem-intervention-solution mindset that prioritises seeking out what works well to produce policy fixes. The book will explore the validity of the assumptions that such policy fixes are not only available but also effective in improving the wellbeing of urban citizens and the natural environments they inhabit and encounter. We show how and why attention must be paid not only to policies but also to the discursive, complicated and messy contexts in which policy is shaped.