Between vision and reality: event-led green infrastructure planning and ecological imaginaries

Sammanfattning

Green infrastructure (GI) has become a central instrument of post-industrial urban renewal, yet the gap between its visionary ecological promises and on-the-ground outcomes remains underexplored. This thesis examines that gap in the German Ruhr area, where sustainable urban development has been pursued through three successive event-led strategies: the IBA Emscher Park, the Green Capital of Europe Essen, and the GI Strategy Ruhr Metropolis. Drawing on urban political ecology and ecological imaginaries, and combining expert interviews with document analysis, the research finds that festivalization dynamics have consistently privileged short-term visibility over ecological continuity, and that GI has been progressively reconfigured as a tool for regional branding rather than a collective ecological right. As ecological issues recede from political agendas, the structural conditions producing this gap urgently require attention