Upscaling without innovation: taking the edge off grassroot initiatives with scaling-up in Amsterdam’s Anthropocene forest

The article explores the extent to which the pressure to upscale grassroot planning initiatives can lead to the loss of their innovative potential. We advocate for the need to acknowledge the differentiated demands between community-involving pilot initiatives and grassroots initiatives when it comes to upscaling and argue that upscaling grassroots initiatives without loss of innovation takes more than just considering large-scale implementation right at the beginning of the initiative. Grounding our research on a grassroot artists and community initiative to transform a public space into an ‘Anthropocene Forest’ in Amsterdam, we show how current practices for scaling up grassroot initiatives are often more concerned with making grassroot actors and practices fit into existing planning institutions and practices, and less concerned with learning and reforming existing institutional practices. We contend that this currently dominant institutional approach to scaling up leads to a double loss: a loss of innovative characteristics of the grassroots initiatives themselves; and a loss of opportunities to imbue existing planning practices and institutions with new ideas and know-hows. The article explores potential ways out of this conundrum.