Political ecology of exurban “lifestyle” landscapes at Christchurch's contested urban fence

This paper examines the relationship of planning ideals of sharply defining edges between urban density and greenspace and alternative urban greening arrangements as they are manifested in a case study of exurban “lifestyle blocks” on the fringes of Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. Exurban development outside Christchurch's urban growth boundary – called the “urban fence” – provides an example of tension between municipal attempts to curb sprawl and exurbanites’ desire to live in the dispersed settlements outside of urban boundaries. These struggles play out at different scales and in a range of different metropolitan contexts. This paper reports on the results of an ethnographic study of Christchurch urban fringe residents’ residential land-use narratives and practices. The paper focuses on landscape preferences and concerns of a sample of small-scale productive land users and explores the implications of their versions of urban greening in the context of policy visions for the urban edge. A political ecology interpretation highlights relationships in this case study between competing claims about fringe greening and fringe landscape practices. These contests over the landscapes of the urban edge illustrate ways that municipal and regional planning visions for the urban edge conflict with the ideals and practices of those residents and land use managers who might otherwise be some of the strongest supporters of urban greening initiatives. Competing discourses about the urban edge relate in different ways to concerns about abrupt urban containment and to practices that act on these concerns. I briefly discuss promising examples of edge greening in this case that may provide models for participatory management of contested and multi-use greenspace at the urban–rural fringe.