Urban Regeneration, Forests and Socio-Environmental Conflicts

The Case of Prati di Caprara in Bologna, Italy

Authors

  • Andrea Zinzani University of Bologna
  • Enrico Curzi University of Bologna

Keywords:

Urban regeneration, political ecology, socio-environmental conflicts, urban forests, Prati di Caprara

Abstract

In the framework of contemporary neoliberal urban transformations, the role of nature and forests has been emphasized with regard to urban environmental and climate change issues. Whereas since the late 1990s urban political ecology has critically explored urban transformations, their spatial, political asymmetries and contestation, little attention has been paid on the concept of urban regeneration and its practices in relation to forests and renaturalized areas. Therefore, the strategic nature of urban forests in socio-political terms still needs to be explored in-depth. By critically linking urban political ecology with urban regeneration policies, this paper analyzes the emergence of socio-environmental conflicts in relation to the redevelopment process of the Prati di Caprara forest in Bologna (Italy). The paper analyzes roles, interests and visions of institutions and private actors, policies and claims of social groups within the rising socio-environmental conflict. The paper relies on an ethnographic approach, embedded in urban social movements, enabling an in-depth analysis of practices and power relations. Despite the role of capital accumulation strategies in influencing urban regeneration policies, the results show how a socio-environmental movement was able to repoliticize and shape the agenda through its progressive empowerment and its transformative power. By advancing urban political ecology of forests, our analysis shows how forests and renaturalized areas emerge as strategic socio-natures for the empowerment of urban communities and for the emergence of movements who struggle for socio-environmental justice and alternative futures.

References

Alker, Sandra, Joy Victoria, Roberts Peter and Smith Nathan. 2000. The Definition of Brownfield. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 43, 1, 49–69.

Anders Sandberg, L., Bardekjian Adrina and Butt Sadia. 2015. Urban Forests, Trees, and Greenspace. A Political Ecology Perspective. London and New York: Routledge.

Brenner, Neil. 1998. Between Fixity and Motion: Accumulation, Territorial Organization and the Historical Geography of Spatial Scales. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 16, 4, 422–434.

Bryant, Raymond L. 1991. Putting Politics First: The Political Ecology of Sustainable Development. Global Ecology and Biogeography Letters 1, 6, 164–166.

Castells, Manuel. 1972. La Question Urbaine. Paris: Paul Maspero.

Castree, Noel. 2008. Neoliberalising Nature: The Logics of Deregulation and Reregulation.” Environment and Planning A 40, 131–152.

Comune di Bologna. 2007. Piano Strutturale Comunale. Relazione Illustrativa. Bologna.

Comune di Bologna. 2016. Piano Operativo Comunale. Rigenerazione Di Patrimoni Pubblici. Bologna.

Comune di Bologna. 2018. POC Rigenerazione Di Patrimoni Pubblici - Prati Di Caprara.

Dettmar, Jorg 2005. Forests for Shrinking Cities? The Project ‘Industrial Forests of the Ruhr. In, Kowarick Ingo, Korner, Sandra (eds.) Wild Urban Woodlands. New Perspectives for Urban Forestry, Berlin: Springer.

Farro, Antimo L. and Demirhisar Deniz Gunce 2014. The Gezi Park movement: a Turkish experience of the twenty-first-century collective movements. International Review of Sociology 24, 1, 176-189

Ernstson, Henrik and Swyngedouw Erik. 2019. Politicizing the Environment in the Urban Century. In, Ernstson Henrik and Swyngedouw Erik (eds.), Urban Political Ecology in the Anthropo-Obscene. London and New York: Routledge.

Foster, Jennifer and Anders Sandberg L. 2014. Post-Industrial Urban Greenspace: Justice, Quality of Life and Environmental Aesthetics in Rapidly Changing Urban Environments. Local Environment 19, 10, 27-41.

Foster, Jennifer and Anders Sandberg L.. 2017. Post-Industrial Urban Greenspace: An Environmental Justice Perspective. London and New York: Routledge.

Galtung, Johan 1990. Cultural Violence. Journal of Peace Research 27, 3, 291–305.

Gandy, Matthew. 2004. Rethinking Urban Metabolism: Water, Space and the Modern City. City, 8, 3, 21-33.

Harvey, David. 1985. The Urbanization of Capital: Studies in the History and Theory of Capitalist Urbanization. John Hopkins University Press.

Harvey, David. 1996. Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference. Wiley Blackwell.

Harvey, David. 2013. Rebel Cities: From the Right to the City to the Urban Revolution. London: Verso Books.

Heynen, Nik. 2014. Urban Political Ecology I. Progress in Human Geography 38, 4, 598–604.

Heynen, Nik, Kaika Maria and Swyngedouw Erik. 2006. In the Nature of Cities: Urban Political Ecology and the Politics of Urban Metabolism. London and New York: Routledge.

Heynen, Nik, Perkins Harold A. and Roy Parama. 2006. The Political Ecology of Uneven Urban Green Spaces. The Impact of Political Economy on Race and Ethnicity in Producing Environmental Inequality in Milwaukee. Urban Affairs Review 42, 1, 3–25.

Jones, Phil and Evans James. 2013. Urban Regeneration in the UK. London: Sage.

Kaika, Maria, and Swyngedouw Erik. 2012. The Urbanization of Nature: Great Promises, Impasse, and New Beginnings. In, Bridge Gary, Watson Sophie (eds.) The New Blackwell Companion to the City, Blackwell publishing.

Karlsson, Bengt G. 2016. The Forests of Our Lives: In and out Political Ecology. Conservation and Society 14, 4, 380–90.

Kowarik, Ingo. 2013. Cities and Wilderness: A New Perspective. International Journal of Wilderness 19, 3, 32–36.

Kowarik, Ingo and Langer Alexander. 2005. Natur-Park Südgelände: Linking Conservation and Recreation in an Abandoned Railyard in Berlin. In, Kowarik Ingo and Korner Stefan (eds.), Wild Urban Woodlands. New Perspectives for Urban Forestry. Berlin: Springer.

Le Billon, Philippe. 2015. “Environmental Conflict.” In, Perreault Tom, Bridge, Gavin and McCarthy James (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology. London and New York: Routledge Earthscan.

Leonardi, Emanuele. 2017. Lavoro Natura Valore: André Gorz tra Marxismo e decrescita. Napoli: Orthotes.

Martinez-Alier, Joan. 2002. The Environmentalism of the poor: A study of ecological conflicts and valuation. London: Edgar.

Marx, Karl. 1976. Capital (Volume 1). Vintage bo. New York.

Ostrom, Elinor. 1998. “Self-Governance and Forest Resources.” CIFOR Occasional:1–19.

Perreault, Tom, Bridge Gavin and McCarthy, James. 2015. The Routledge Handbook of Political Ecology. London and New York: Routledge Earthscan.

Proto, Matteo, Zinzani Andrea and Frixa Emanuele. 2019. Processi di rigenerazione urbana a Bologna: Prospettive e metodi di ricerca geografica. Pensare Urbano 2.

Robbins, Paul. 2004. Political Ecology, A critical introduction. Wiley Blackwell.

Roberts, Peter, Sykes Hugh and Granger Rachel. 2017. Urban Regeneration: A Handbook. London: Sage.

Rossi, Ugo. 2017. Cities in Global Capitalism. Cambridge: Polite.

Rossi, Ugo and Vanolo Alberto. 2010. Geografia Politica Urbana. Roma: Laterza.

Smith, Neil. 1984. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital and the Production of Space. New York: Basil Blackwell.

Swyngedouw, Erik. 1996. The City as an Hybrid: On Nature, Society and Cyborg Urbanization. Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 7, 25, 65–80.

Swyngedouw Erik. 2011. Depoliticized Environments: The End of Nature, Climate Change and the Post-Political Condition. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 69, 253–274.

Swyngedouw Erik. 2018. Promises of the Political: Insurgent Cities in a Post-Political Environment. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Swyngedouw, Erik and Heynen Nik. 2003. Urban Political Ecology, Justice and the Politics of Scale. Antipode 35, 5, 898–918.

Tola, Miriam. 2019. The Archive and the Lake: Labor, Toxicity, and the Making of Cosmopolitical Commons in Rome, Italy. Environmental Humanities 11, 1, 194–215.

Torre, Salvo. 2017. Contro la frammentazione: Movimenti sociali e spazio della politica. Verona: Ombre Corte.
Trentanovi, Giovanni, Thomas Campagnaro, Andrea Rizzi and Tommaso Sitzia. 2017. Synergies of Planning for Forests and Planning for Natura 2000: Evidences and Prospects from Northern Italy. Journal for Nature Conservation 43, 239-249.

Vicari Haddock, Serena and Moulaert Frank. 2009. Rigenerare la città: Pratiche di innovazione sociale nelle città Europee. Bologna: Il Mulino.

Wilson, Japhy and Swyngedouw Erik. 2014. The Post-Political and Its Discontents Spaces of Depoliticisation, Spectres of Radical Politics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Zinzani, Andrea. 2019. Boschi urbani e complessità socio-ambientale: Una riflessione sul contributo del sapere geografico. Rivista Geografica Italiana, 2, 149-155.

Zinzani, Andrea and Proto Matteo. 2020. L'emergere del Political nei processi di rigenerazione urbana a Bologna: movimenti e spazi di dissenso. Geotema (in press).

Downloads

Published

2020-04-15

How to Cite

Zinzani, A., & Curzi, E. (2020). Urban Regeneration, Forests and Socio-Environmental Conflicts: The Case of Prati di Caprara in Bologna, Italy. ACME: An International Journal for Critical Geographies, 19(1), 163–186. Retrieved from https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1883