Pathways to urban environmental stewardship : Sense of place and civic engagement for urban waterfronts

• Participation of local residents is considered beneficial for urban environmental stewardship, but the understanding of how urban stewards relate to the places they work with is poorly developed. This study of civic groups working to steward urban waterfronts challenges the notion that stronger attachment drives deeper commitment to stewardship. The study looks at three types of groups doing stewardship work on waterfronts and water bodies in New York City: community groups, environmental groups and recreational groups. Using interviews and Likert scale surveys (n=31), we assessed stewardship activities, place attachment and place meanings that members associate with site that each group works with. Our findings show that community group members are more attached to the sites they work with than members of environmental or recreational groups, but environmental groups report the greatest effort put into stewardship work. Further, we show that place meanings reveal different categories of groups based on how they currently view the site (as a place of work, a place of home, or a place of use), and what they want to achieve for it in their stewardship work: some groups work to restore what the place was previously, others work to protect what it currently is, while a few work to create a new identity for their place. These findings demonstrate how pathways to stewardship differ and are not dependent on strong place attachment; however, they can generate fundamentally different outcomes depending on what place meanings stewardship seeks to protect.

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Geovetenskap och miljövetenskap -- Annan geovetenskap och miljövetenskap (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Earth and Related Environmental Sciences -- Other Earth and Related Environmental Sciences (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Sociologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Sociology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

civil society

human-nature relations

New York City

place attachment

place meanings

urban social-ecological systems

naturresurshushållning

Natural Resources Management

Publikations- och innehållstyp

vet (ämneskategori)

ovr (ämneskategori)