Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
43
The Development of Urban Green Space Policies
Throughout history the development of urban places has gone hand-in-hand with
the despoliation of the natural environment and the loss of green spaces. The very
pressures of growth in urban places, their increasing size—and walling in some cas-
es—led to increasing densities and a reduction in the open areas in these settlements.
But from the fifteenth century onwards, one of the new key features of European
Renaissance planning was the deliberate creation of new open green areas, although
organized and manicured places, in and around cities for at least part of the public,
namely the elite (Mumford
1961
, Vance
1977
). Many began as royal gardens or
parks; others were new creations. But by the eighteenth century many of these areas
were opened to the public and were formally laid out as parks (Summerson
1962
).
A century later the addition of parks became a general trend in most municipalities,
with many adding a variety of recreational facilities in addition to green spaces and
gardens. The slow greening of cities was also helped by the removal of city walls
and the defences outside, areas acquired by the municipality and turned into parks,
boulevards and lakes as seen in Copenhagen and Vienna. In the early nineteenth
century the pioneering design of Regent's Park in London added another impetus
to green space in cities, as plots for 26 large houses for the elite were planned to be
in the park, while the big housing blocks overlooking the park contained big apart-
ments or houses for the wealthy. The streets around contained either large lots for
middle class residents or small terrace houses suitable for servants or artisans who
would serve the elite (Davies and Herbert
1993
). This trend was modified in the
U.S.A. by the creation of new upper class suburbs from the 1860s where houses for
the wealthy were scattered in a wooded and grassy setting and connected by cur-
vilinear roads, such as in the case of Llewellyn Park in Chicago (Reps
1965
). This
naturalistic feature was copied in many upper income areas of cities throughout the
western world and filtered down to middle class areas, but with far few open spaces
and higher densities. In addition, from the mid-nineteenth century, most European
countries enacted new municipal regulations over housing to avoid health prob-
lems due to overcrowding; these ensured that all working class residences had open
space, whether gardens at the back of dwellings, or a common interior courtyard
area for apartment blocks, although the amount of space varied considerably.
The desire to create much more green space and especially trees throughout ur-
ban areas, rather than only in segregated parks or suburbs, received a major stimulus
from Howard's Garden Cities movement (
1898
) discussed in Chap. 2, that aimed
to create healthy towns that combined the best of town and country with lots of
green space as an antidote to the unhealthy, dense industrial cities of the day. A
key feature was the concept of a Green Belt to surround the planned new town,
thereby providing the town with a girdle of agricultural land to help feed the urban
residents, as well as space for recreation and rehabilitation functions, such as hos-
pitals and playing fields. The ideas inspired similar examples in many countries,
although many imitated the morphology and greenery, but not the social ideals. For
example, Krupp's sponsorship of Margarethenhhe near Essen, has a praiseworthy
design that has similarities to Garden City ideas but with a more focused centre.
