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Resilience and the Cultural Landscape: Understanding and Managing Change in Human-shaped Environments

from the US, Germany, China, Sweden, Denmark and Austria. The 16 chapters highlight the special qualities of wildscapes and how these can contribute to a more sustainable urban environment that embraces experiential values such as recreation, thrill, sense of beauty and fascination for nature. The more theoretical chapters deal with our relationship with nature and environmental awareness, the legacy of urban decay landscapes in Detroit and other places (Woodward), the importance of a natural history approach in helping us understand the evolution of urban wild vegetation (Gobster), the need for places where children can be wild (Ward Thompson), the value of playing in industrial (and dangerous) ruins (Edensor et al.) and the reasons why wildscapes in literature play such an important role in children’s fantasy (Mugford). The case study section covers examples from small to large scale and from spaces with hard surfaces to areas with wild growing vegetation. That variety is exemplified by studies that discuss the enhancement of ruderal perennials in a Sheffield park (Tylecote and Dunnett), the restoration of industrial wasteland following opencast coal mining in Germany (de Waal and de Wit) and how a squatter movement in the early 1970s ‘Free Town of Christiania’ in Copenhagen has resulted in a new type of urban common (Hellström), with lessons for wider practice. The final section, ‘Implications for wildscape practice’, addresses issues such as the vulnerability of ambiguous concepts within planning (Qviström), and how different practices, including public participation, can evolve to better engage with the social and environmental contexts of wild landscapes (Sheridan). A concluding chapter by Jorgensen and Lička shows, by the use of examples from Vienna, how urban wild spaces can inform and inspire low intervention approaches to planning and design of urban environment, where ‘local identity’ is not imposed on the sites. This book enriches the reader’s understanding of landscapes beyond the notions of wild or cultured, urban or rural, and can be recommended to everyone.