Phil Birge-Liberman

Urban sustainability has emerged as a priority field of research for urban geographers. This article offers a critical review of the park restoration and green city movements. I will begin by using an urban political ecology lens to engage in the geographical history of urban parks in America. I will explore the prior treatment of park making in America, paying particular attention to the historiographic issues raised and the large gap in the literature: that parks were engineered urban ecosystems in a political-economic setting and set into the historical–geographical crises of capitalism. I will examine the ways that parks, as engineered urban ecosystems, acted as a spatial fix to the crises of capitalism under dialectical policy regimes. I will argue that parks have never truly been democratic spaces and have suffered under egalitarian policy regimes, while prospering under elitist policy regimes. This article is illustrated with case study material from research on park restoration in Boston, Massachusetts, and concludes with an examination of the future of urban parks.

Edited by Nancy Duxbury, Will Garrett-Petts and David MacLennan Series: Routledge Advances in Research Methods This edited collection provides an introduction to the emerging and interdisciplinary field of cultural mapping, making a case for and demonstrating the spatial turn emerging in many related areas of critical, social and artistic research. The contributors explore innovative ways to encourage artistic intervention and public participation in cultural mapping—recognizing that artistic practices and public involvement introduce a range of challenges spanning various phases of the research process, from the gathering of data, to interpreting data, to presenting “findings” to a broad range of audiences. Toward these ends, the collection explores the international scope of conventional and alternative approaches to mapping cultures and communities. November 2014 | Hb: 978-1-138-82186-6: