A study of multi-stakeholder involvement in the provision of urban green spaces in developed area : cases of Amsterdam and Hong Kong

Abstract

The growing population and increasing urbanisation has caused a development pressure to a city. Compact city is a model to prevent hasty development into suburban areas and to achieve diversity and vitality within a city boundary. However, the potential deterioration of urban environment also comes along with this mode of development. Increasing attention has been given to the urban green spaces (UGSs) for its benefits on creating a more liveable environment. Nevertheless, since UGS is a public good of which their positive externalities are hardly fully captured, the provision of UGS in land-scarce urban environment usually receives low priority compared to other land uses. Different stakeholders receive various benefits from UGSs or suffer from a reduction of land value due to this substantial downzoning, and therefore potential conflicts existed among them. Through the lens of political economy, this study attempted to look into the causal relations between key factors of multi-stakeholder involvement and the performance of UGSs, based on a recently developed theoretical model. The model was using a statistical approach and suggested there were four key factors most significantly affected the performance of UGSs, namely government, society, regulation and implementation. With the aid of case study approach, the model was tested, contextualised and modified and the causal relations among the variables were drawn. The cases chosen were Amsterdam and Hong Kong as they possessed the characteristics that could help identify the causal relations in the model. Making comparisons on two cities with different socio-economic and political systems could also widen the spectrum of the model. Results showed that Amsterdam had a good performance of UGSs while the performance of UGSS in Hong Kong was unsatisfactory. The study was confirmative to the importance of government in the provision of UGSs. However, strong government intervention alone could not guarantee a good performance of UGSs. Besides the four key factors the model suggested, “vision” was identified as another important factor and had to be announced in the early stage in the process of provision of UGSs.