Is the Grass Always Greener? A Retrospective Analysis of Green Infrastructure Planning Post-1994

Over a twenty-year period, green infrastructure has become established as a go-to approach to urban and landscape planning. Its core principles of connectivity, multifunctionality, access to nature, and the integration of socio-cultural, economic, political and ecological factors into praxis have been central to this process. However, there is an ongoing fluidity as to how and what green infrastructure is proposed to be and do in the research literature. This is visible in academic and practitioner debates globally and illustrates the complexity of transposing ideas from one geographical or disciplinary area to another. This paper provides an overview of how green infrastructure has been articulated in different geographical regions to highlight the positive malleability of the concept to adapt to specific contexts. Following the presentation of a summary of international green infrastructure the paper outlines a series of thematic framings that have or could be used to shape debates in the future. These framings are reflective of the prominence of speci fic areas of green infrastructure currently visible and offers new pathways for their use.