Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
(S.Gold 1980). With these issues in mind, attention now turns to the recreational
resources that exist in an urban landscape—the urban fringe.
Recreational resources and the urban fringe
The impact of urbanisation on the development of industrial societies and the effects in
terms of recreational resource provision is discussed in detail in Chapter 6. Yet the
growing consumption of rural land for urban uses has led to increased concerns for the
loss of non-urban land, as observed by Abercrombie (1938). Pigram (1983:106) observed
that 'every year some 1.2 ha of rural land are converted to urban and built-up uses across
America' and the greatest competition over the retention of land for recreational uses is in
the city periphery or what is termed the 'urban fringe'. Elson (1993) recognised the
considerable potential of the urban fringe as a resource able to accommodate recreation
and sport for four reasons:
• It comprises an area of recreational supply, accessible with good public transport to
large populations, though Fitton (1976) and Ferguson and Munton (1978, 1979)
recognised the inaccessibility to the most deprived areas of inner London. As the
Countryside Commission (1992) noted, one in five informal recreational day trips to
the countryside had a return trip of less than 10 miles.
• It may be an overflow location for recreational and sporting activities displaced from
urban areas.
• It can function as an 'interceptor area', reducing pressure on more fragile and
vulnerable rural resources.
• It may be an area of opportunity as environmen tal improvements and landscape
regeneration (e.g. the reclamation of former quarry sites or gravel extraction) and may
generate new forms of recreation including fishing, sailing and informal use.
As Elson (1993) observes, with active recreation the fastest growing sector of countryside
recreation in the UK, the urban fringe has the potential to absorb such uses. Thus by
altering supply, it is assumed that demand may be directed to new resources. In this
sense, the urban fringe is a useful example in which to examine the nature of spatial
interactions between demand and supply.
THE GREEN BELT CONCEPT
Within the UK the urban fringe has been a created landscape. In the 1930s the green belt
concept was developed in London, along with many other European cities, based on the
influential work of Raymond Unwin and the Green Belt Act 1933. Unwin helped
establish the principle of creating a band of open space on the city's periphery in order to
compensate for the lack of open space in the built urban environment. These principles
were embodied in post-war planning during the 1950s (Ministry of Housing and Local
Government 1955). While such designations were intended to limit urban sprawl,
recreational provision was never their intended purpose. Elson (1986) shows that
planning authorities in the West Midlands, Manchester and Sheffield identified green belt
plans (e.g. green wedges, recreation and amenity areas) in their development plans only
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