The Place of Greening: Comparing Civic Engagement Scenes of Urban Natures across Danish Cities

Abstract

As elsewhere in Europe, cities in Denmark have witnessed a surge in civic urban nature engagement, such as place- and practice-based initiatives (e.g., public-access community gardens, organic food collectives, and grazing associations that enhance biodiversity). While this expansion of urban green communities, as we call them, is widely noted in the literature, less attention has been paid to the comparative variability of their local civic expression. In this article, we use digital methods to map out the group styles, the spatial intergroup networks, and the cultural-political value landscapes of 130 urban green communities across the four largest cities in Denmark. To compare results, we develop the concept of “civic engagement scenes” as a way of responding to recent developments in cultural and political sociology. Overall, we show how this notion allows for interpreting civic greening groups: they are neither neighborhood-based endeavors nor hubs of social movement mobilization, but rather geographies of co-engagement that span cities while also forge new senses and practices of place.