Author(s)

P. Castell

Abstract

The objects of study of this paper are groups of residents that are engaged in gardening and other management tasks in their neighbourhood. Such participation processes are sometimes promoted as a salvation of decline and eroded social capital in marginalised urban communities. This paper summarises experiences from previous Swedish case studies of resident involvement in open space management. It also proposes a revised classification model for the analysis, description and comparison of processes of resident involvement in neighbourhood space management in rental housing areas. The new typology is based on the level of autonomy, the management tasks, the type of contract and the type of compensation. Keywords: participation, community garden, open space management, housing. 1 Introduction This paper is an early outcome from the transdisciplinary research project \“Sustainable open space management in rental housing areas” – aiming to collect knowledge on different management forms in relation to sustainable urban development, with a special focus on social and economic aspects. The purpose of the paper is to give an overview of different types of resident involvement in open space management in Sweden and present a model for their classification. Participative management is promoted by different actors for a variety of reasons, but still often understood in practice by managers at housing companies as something unconventional and complicated or even strange [1].

Keywords

participation, community garden, open space management, housing.