More green but less just? Analyzing urban green spaces, participation, and environmental justice in Amsterdam

Cities worldwide are taking action to increase the amount and quality of urban green spaces. However, not all efforts for the greening of cities produce just and inclusive outcomes. For more inclusive urban greening processes, scholars have proposed incentivizing residents’ participation in planning and implementing green initiatives that promote creating and maintaining green spaces. However, further in-depth analysis of the connection between implementing new urban green spaces and environmental (in)justice is needed to understand how unjust outcomes might emerge due to policies aiming to promote the uptake of urban green through citizen engagement. To investigate the justice implications of policies that aim to create new urban green spaces through citizen participation, this article combines GIS analysis and qualitative analysis of 26 semi-structured interviews to evaluate the process and outcomes of the Green Agenda policy in Amsterdam. The Green Agenda (Agenda Groen) is a municipal policy supporting citizens’ initiatives to uptake urban green. Through the analysis of this case study, the article aims to identify factors that create barriers to achieving just outcomes during the implementation of policies for urban greening. Results indicate that although the approach has successfully increased the amount of urban green in Amsterdam, the presence of barriers that impede procedural justice and lack of recognition made the urban greening process less just. The three underlying factors that create barriers in Amsterdam are the centralization of the government, the lack of support for local organizations, and the effect of socioeconomic characteristics on inclusion and participation. The article concludes by discussing the synergies and tradeoffs between identified barriers and suggesting solutions to be integrated into future policies for more successful and just greening processes.