IN-PERSON Lisbon Livable Cities. Section A
Abstract
What greenspace do diverse urban populations need to grow and flourish? The provision of greenspace for public health has been foundational in urban planning. Health benefits of urban greenspaces are increasingly well evidenced and research shows their positive impacts may be greatest for those suffering social deprivation. In the UK, people identifying as Black Asian and ethnic minority disproportionately suffer overcrowded living conditions, have poorest health outcomes, and are overrepresented in communities identified as greenspace deprived. This project investigated the potential of using the Same Skies Walk, Talk, Eat method to establish community members’ perceptions of, and preferences for action on greenspace deprivation, views that are not typically part of greenspace deprivation studies. Using social media platforms and word-of-mouth recruitment, community residents and investigators jointly planned four walks through two ethnically diverse West Yorkshire neighbourhoods identified as statistically greenspace deprived. We filmed the walks and discussion and shared meals in local restaurants. At the film screening, guests heard residents’ stories of their lives, challenges faced in using and improving greenspaces, how residents’ political actions to improve their communities were often thwarted by disjointed processes within local government and impressions of the Same Skies Walk, Talk, Eat methodology. We propose Same Skies Walk, Talk, Eat methodology as suitable for wider use in addressing urban greenspace inequality, informing effective action and greenspace needs assessment. It allows for the collection of rich data through the multigenerational inclusion of grassroot organisation representatives and community members in the planning, execution, and analysis of the events.
Bridget Snaith is a Landscape Architect, and lecturer in the University of Sheffield’s Department of Landscape Architecture. She claims a white ethnicity. As a practicing landscape architect, her work over the last twenty years has been in co-producing amenity greenspace, play space and shared public spaces with communities in London Boroughs, where the majority of residents are often from ethnicities minoritized in the UK. As an academic she has been critical of what she has found to be culturally excluding practices by white dominated placemaking professions (Snaith & Odedun, 2024).
Dr Tiffany R Holloman is the project manager for Brad-ATTIAN and YCEDE in the Centre for Inclusion and Diversity at the University of Bradford. She is co-founder and co-director of Same Skies Think Tank. Her sociological research examines race and education in the UK and US and her historical research investigates King James VI&I in Early Modern Britain. She is a former consulting lecturer at RADA in early modern history. She has authored several articles, chapters, as well as a co-editor of two books. Her social activism stems from a desire to work with community members in the elevation of human development. She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Dr LaTonia A. Siler-Holloman is a social justice activist and Research Director of Same Skies Think Tank. She has collaborated on several academic outputs, including a chapter on Black attitudes to the COVID-19 vaccination in the book entitled, ‘COVID-19 & Racism: Counter-Stories of Colliding Pandemics.’ (Lander, V., Kay, K. & Holloman, T. 2023). Her PhD from the University of Leeds critically examined the racial labour management of Black male professors in US black colleges and universities. She frequently draws on her public, private, and voluntary sector employment experiences for her research which includes interests in minority higher education, racial labour management, and the 19th century US.
9:00 am - 10:30 am
Thursday 10th July, 2025