Regimes of Urban Nature: Organic Urbanism, Biotope Protection, and Civic Gardening in Berlin

Abstract

Ranging from the small square the size of a block with lawns, flowerbeds and shadowing trees and bench to rest for the air hungry city dweller, to the extended people’s park [Volkspark] ... , to the remaining villages with their old churches, estates, farm houses, meadows and fields, to the distinguished mansion districts with their gardens, or the residential areas from the 1920s that are pervaded with green, to the Grunewald or the vast Spandauand Tegelforest in West Berlin, which are almost deserted during the week,— about one fourth of the total surface of this city is “nature,” before and beyond the wall it consists of water, forest, and heath!