ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the key concepts discussed in subsequent chapters of this book on urban environmental stewardship and civic engagement. An urban environmental stewardship campaign of the scope and complexity of MillionTreesNYC requires multi-sector partners, operating at different scales, with a high degree of trust, shared vision, leveraged resources, and formalized collaboration. Since the MillionTreesNYC initiative began in 2007, it has mobilized some 13,000 volunteers to help New York City achieve its goal of increasing the urban forest canopy. The campaign is a good example of a form of "hybrid governance", whereby the role of government and civil society are uniquely intertwined to produce new and innovative organizational structures. Hybrid governance has its own set of politics, and many local urban environmental stewardship regimes have adopted this model. For many urban residents, tree planting is an act of civic engagement that works to shape public life in a different way than the traditional forms of civic engagement.
