Green space availability calculation shows a divers picture across the EU.Southern European cities show below-average availability values.Northern European cities show above-average ...values.Differences may result from biophysical conditions and forest/green area richness.Interpretation from results needs to reflect on data sources and threshold values.
Urban green space (UGS) availability has become an increasingly important aspect of planning and research because of the importance of green spaces for the wellbeing of urban residents. Municipalities across the European Union (EU) use different indicators in this area. Some cities provide per-capita threshold values for urban green space (UGS); some have recommendations regarding the minimum distance to green space while others have no recommendations at all. In this study, we assess green space availability in 299 EU cities according to land use and a population data grid. The results show a diverse picture across the EU. Southern European cities show below-average availability values, which may be explained by their low forest and tree cover and reflect the history of cities in Southern Europe. Comparatively, the above-average availability values in Northern European cities are a result of not only their biophysical conditions and the presence of rich forestland in general but also of Northern European attitudes toward urban living that naturally value having forests close to home.
This assessment is complemented by a detailed case study analysis of two European cities ⿿ Berlin, Germany and ſódź, Poland. Results showed that this approach's explanatory power depends on the data used, scale of interest, resolution of data and estimated threshold value. By comparing results using different datasets and threshold values, we discuss opportunities and limitations for developing indicators of green space availability. We conclude that UGS availability is an important indicator to navigate urban complexity to improve human health and wellbeing but is only one component of the intricate social-ecological interactions within cities.
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The main goal of this article is to identify and classify institutional barriers which prevent the use of urban green spaces (UGS) at three levels: availability (whether a UGS ...exists), accessibility (whether it is physically and psychologically accessible, e.g., not fenced off), and attractiveness (whether it is attractive enough for potential users to visit). We reviewed the impacts on UGS provision exerted by different actors (individuals, formal and informal groups, community councils, city authorities, national governmental and non-governmental organizations), along with the relevant institutional foundations of those impacts. As a result, we identified and classified the different barriers for which these actors are responsible in the case of fifteen UGS types in our case study city, Lodz (Łódź) in Poland. The main barriers at different levels concern conflicting interests, physical barriers (private green spaces), and the lack of funds, together with legal and governmental failures (public green spaces). These barriers result from the different actors’ mandates or lack thereof. Our analysis has implications for the operationalization of UGS availability, accessibility and attractiveness, and, in particular, for mapping UGS and setting the relevant indicators and thresholds for UGS availability, accessibility and attractiveness.
•Overview of values assigned to formal and informal green spaces by urban residents.•Challenges connected with the inconsistent categorization of urban green space.•Anthropogenic components as an ...important aspect in the appreciation urban green spaces.•Informal green spaces are often perceived as valuable by urban residents.•The need to identify and address informal green spaces in urban green space governance.
When green spaces compete with other forms of land use, especially in dense urban settings, their creation and maintenance need to be extensively justified. Very often the utilitarian arguments, such as reference to recreational uses or air quality improvement, are seen as the most convincing to illustrate the importance of green spaces for cities. However, people derive many other benefits from urban green spaces, many of which elude such a simplified practical focus. In this paper, we present an analysis of the values and important attributes that urban residents assign to green spaces. The data were collected in three cities in Poland: Krakow, Lodz and Poznan, using a public participation GIS approach—an online geo-questionnair. Overall, 1640 people took part in the survey. The results exhibit a wide spectrum of values associated with urban green spaces, emphasizing the importance of the multiple cultural and anthropogenic aspects associated with urban green spaces. The study illustrates differences in the valuation of formal and informal green spaces. The latter include all the areas that are not formally demarcated or have an uncertain land tenure status. Places valued for their greenness, pleasant views, uniqueness, wild character and role as natural habitats are predominantly marked outside of formal green spaces. We highlight the challenges in the classification of urban green spaces and the need to identify and address informal green spaces in urban green space governance.
This article aims to position postsocialist cities in Central and Eastern Europe in the broader debate on urban environmental justice. The article crosscuts through all three dimensions of justice ...(distributive/distributional, procedural/participatory, and interactional/recognition) in the context of urban green and blue space provision. Environmental justice is still an emerging topic in postsocialist cities, constrained by market-orientation and neoliberal trends within society, privatization, and the primacy of private interests. The respective situation in postsocialist cities provides insights into the international debate on environmental justice, by highlighting some extremes related to neoliberal and populist governments and very rapid processes that lack long-term democratic consensus within societies. The findings of this study are discussed in the context of a postsocialist legacy, which includes broad tolerance for inequalities, a lack of solidarity in society, a lack of responsibility for the public interest, and extreme individualization and disregard for social interests. This has gradually led to the corporatization of local authorities and various business–government coalitions. This setting is more likely to favor business models related to the use and management of urban green and blue spaces than the environmental justice discourse.
•Broad tolerance for inequalities, lack of solidarity in society, lack of responsibility for the public interest•Extreme individualisation and disregard for the social interest•Corporatisation of local authorities and various business–government coalitions•Urban green and blue spaces poorly considered in planning•Justice consideration far from being accepted as guiding principles for urban greening
The concept of urban ecosystem services (ES) is currently promoted in Sweden in the planning for more compact and sustainable cities. This study looks into how the implementation of the urban ES ...concept in Stockholm is understood by different urban professionals, based on semi-structured interviews and a stakeholder workshop. Although recognizing the usefulness of the ES concept, the professionals identified many remaining challenges linked to integrating the concept into land use planning. These are analyzed in relation to the gap between ES science and ES policy and structured according to the different types of planning uncertainties they represent. One issue that was persistently highlighted by stakeholders was that the promotion of urban ES – regardless of how beneficial it may be – will add further complexity to already strained workloads among planners, policy-makers and urban managers. Also, the political demand for increasing density in the urban areas of Stockholm seems to create a growing need for urban ES. Urban densification can thus potentially promote the interest in planning with ES as a vital parameter for urban qualities. They expressed a need for long term perspectives in planning with new tools and methods for valuing ES, supported through “high profile” projects.
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•Incorporating ES into decision making is bounded by uncertainty.•Need of place-based empirical knowledge and defining appropriate measures/policies.•Need to integrate social networks and diverse interest groups in UES management.•Need to incorporate formal and informal institutions.
We categorize Stockholm's urban green spaces according to the use values and social meanings they support, based on a sociotope mapping, and estimate their impact on property prices with a hedonic ...pricing model. The approach allows us to identify the most and least desired green space characteristics (attributes) and to assess the willingness to pay for the multifunctionality of green spaces. To do this, we test the following hypotheses, each with a separate hedonic pricing model: the proximity of all green space characteristics increases the property prices, but the specific monetary value of these characteristics differs;the multifunctionality of green spaces is well recognized and highly valued by real estate buyers. We find partial support for the first hypothesis: the green space attributes of "aesthetics", "social activity" and "nature" seem to be desired by real estate buyers, whereas "physical activity" and "play" seem not to be desired. We also find support for the second hypothesis: the higher the number of characteristics an urban green space has, the stronger its impact on property prices. This study furthers the discussion on the economic value of urban green spaces by assigning monetary value to their perceived character and use values. In doing so, it highlights the need to understand green spaces both as ecological features and social constructs.
Urban green spaces are frequently presented as being important for urban quality of life and urban development in general, but more detailed interpretations and discussions are typically confined to ...large urban centers, the so-called first- and second-tier cities. Not enough attention has been paid to smaller urban units, the third-tier towns. The main goal of this article is to investigate the share and types of urban green spaces in five selected towns in Poland. We compare different sources of data based on satellite imagery and land-use maps with those used in public statistics, to check whether town authorities are managing all potential green spaces or only a selected part of them. We find that the predominantly used data, based on what is classified as “urban green space” for the purposes of public statistics, obscure the complexity of urban green spaces and focus on the narrowly understood formally managed public green spaces (which occupy 3.5–5.7% of town areas). Meanwhile, based on other sources, such as the national land-use map (BDOT10k), Urban Atlas, and satellite imagery (Landsat 8), what is considered to be green space turns out to cover 50–80% of the town area. The latter large numbers are associated with the predominance of arable land, grasslands, and forests, overlooked in any green space management practices based on data and definitions adopted for the purposes of public statistics. The situation found in our five case study towns resembles that identified in larger cities in Poland, and it exhibits the inadequacy of public statistics definitions and the related management practices, hindering the management of urban green spaces as an interconnected system of urban green infrastructures.
Understanding opportunities as well as constraints for people to benefit from and take care of urban nature is an important step toward more sustainable cities. In order to explore, engage, and ...enable strategies to improve urban quality of life, we combine a social-ecological-technological systems framework with a flexible methodological approach to urban studies. The framework focuses on context dependencies in the flow and distribution of ecosystem service benefits within cities. The shared conceptual system framework supports a clear positioning of individual cases and integration of multiple methods, while still allowing for flexibility for aligning with local circumstances and ensuring context-relevant knowledge. To illustrate this framework, we draw on insights from a set of exploratory case studies used to develop and test how the framework could guide research design and synthesis across multiple heterogeneous cases. Relying on transdisciplinary multi- and mixed methods research designs, our approach seeks to both enable within-case analyses and support and gradually build a cumulative understanding across cases and city contexts. Finally, we conclude by discussing key questions about green and blue infrastructure and its contributions to urban quality of life that the approach can help address, as well as remaining knowledge gaps both in our understanding of urban systems and of the methodological approaches we use to fill these gaps.
Payments for ecosystem services (PES) have received much praise and are increasingly perceived as a promising tool to ensure the protection of global ecosystems as well as being able to help ...alleviate poverty in areas rich in ecosystem services. Given current trends, the scale of payments is likely to grow, creating new circumstances within which ecosystem services will be managed. In this dynamic context, following a precautionary approach, one should focus on establishing systems to handle the risks involved. Based on an analogy to resources that have long been included in the system of market transactions, we suggest that the rapid development of PES can negatively influence regional and potentially national economies. Resource revenues are highly correlated with economic problems in poor countries that are not able to use those revenues to ensure sound development. Problems similar to those that affect resource-rich countries may emerge in the case of economies rich in ecosystem services once PES increase in spatial and monetary scale. The most prominent examples of such problems include rent seeking, unequal bargaining power of buyers and sellers, volatility of payments, which are all related to the quality of institutions. To ensure the long-term positive impacts of PES, such systems should be carefully designed paying particular attention to distribution of property rights and transparency, decentralization of revenues, and capacity building to ensure further development opportunities.
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