Green Neighbourhood Identity: How Residents Use Urban Nature Against Territorial Stigmatization in Finnish Housing Estates

Abstract

The 1960s housing estates are widely defamed in public discourse, including two neighbourhoods of focus in this research in the fast-growing “sustainable city” of Tampere, Finland. Based on a qualitative case study, this paper analyses how residents have used urban nature to counter territorial stigmatization. It views the relationship between territorial stigmatization and neighbourhood identity through urban nature, which has received minimal academic attention despite the increasing interest in green and climate-friendly sustainable cities. This paper argues that 1) the symbolic defamation of forest estates is a social process that has shadowed the housing estates; and 2) the residents of the housing estates constructed a “green neighbourhood identity” as a counter-narrative to shed the negative discourse regarding themselves and their neighbourhood. Urban nature has been an important source for constructing a positive neighbourhood identity but has not negated the historically produced territorial stigma.