Work

Conversion, coordination and care: Unpacking housing-featured urban renaturing in Taichung

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: The shift toward green and sustainable economies has led to the integration of ecological goals into land development strategies, resulting in diverse urban renaturing practices. These practices are often embedded within property-driven development processes, yet the co-productive relationship between urban greening and housing has remained under-theorized. Rather than treating greening and development as sequential stages, this study examines how they are operationalized in tandem, often reinforcing subtle forms of exclusion not captured by conventional analyses of displacement or gentrification. Drawing on the lens of urban political ecology (UPE), we develop the concept of metabolic greening to unpack a housing-featured renaturing apparatus. Based on a case study of the Unit Two land readjustment district in Taichung City, Taiwan, we analyze how greening practices and housing development are co-produced through iterative and interlocking processes. The research design integrates semi-structured interviews, policy and document analysis, and field observation to investigate the dynamics under study. We developed the 3Cs framework—conversion, coordination, and care—to serve two key purposes: to explain how housing-featured urban greening is organized, and to critically examine the exclusionary effects embedded in these processes. By repositioning greening as an integral part of property redevelopment, the framework advances a more relational understanding of urban nature production. The findings contribute to UPE debates by offering conceptual tools to examine how ecological interventions are not only organized through property but also implicated in shaping differentiated access, right, and control over urban green space.

Source: Environment and Planning E Nature and Space

DOI: 10.1177/25148486251394928

Authors: Chihsin Chiu, Hung-Yu Huang, Su-Ting Wu, Yu-Wei Lee

Institutions: National Taiwan University, National Taipei University of Technology

Language: English

Topic: Urban Planning and Governance

Subfield: Urban Studies

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Sustainable cities and communities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,650