Becoming a green city: a qualitative case study of Drammen City’s regeneration

Nature-centred urban regenerations support citizens’ satisfaction, well-being, and social inclusion. City planners should engage in a people-centred and temporally-framed collaborative process.

Background: Urbanization is rapidly increasing, with 85% of Europe’s population predicted to be living in cities by 2050. Nature-centred urban regenerations are steadily growing as a cost-effective solution to tackle environmental as well as health challenges, thus contributing to “a future in which cities provide opportunities for all” (SDG11). By applying a temporal lens to place-making, emphasizing the importance of everyday human experiences within an ever-evolving space, we can enhance our understanding of how nature-centred urban regeneration can support and promote health and well-being among its citizens, beyond traditional top-down urban planning or place marketing paradigms.
Methods: Through a qualitative case study, we investigated the temporal dimension of place-making in the context of Drammen City, a previously highly polluted and trafficked industrial city in South-Eastern Norway that in the past three decades underwent a large nature-centred urban regeneration. Multi-stakeholder interviews were conducted (n = 21), involving three categories of residents: i) Community, ii) Municipality/policymakers, and iii) Activity, leisure and tourism. The data analysis focused on a phenomenological and social-relational perspective of place and place-making. The study is part of Drammen’s activities within the NetZeroCities – Pilot Cities Programme, which received funding from the H2020 Research and Innovation Programme under grant agreement n°101036519.
Results: The analysis shows how urban place-making is temporally defined historically (past-in-the-present), experientially (present-in-the-present), and environmentally (present-in-the-future). Although the collective memory of Drammen is inherited and referred to in terms of a transition from “old Drammen” to “new Drammen”, the city's history as a shared inherited memory is core to its identity. As a “River City”, living in Drammen provides an opportunity to be close to, or immersed in nature even though urban nature is seen by some participants as a constrained nature experience. The participants' expectations of the future are evidenced in i) their representations of the city as environmentally focused and ii) how they engage with the surrounding environment and its affordances. Both these dimensions are linked to the citizens’ sense of pride and community, as well as wellbeing and social inclusion.
Conclusions: The findings contribute to the current understanding of place-making as temporally defined, as well as how nature-centred urban regenerations support citizens' health and well-being in line with the Sustainable Development Goals. City planners should engage in a people-centred collaborative process, embracing places’ temporal frame from the past, the present and the future.