Provision of Recreational Areas in Urban Spaces - An International Long-Term Comparison of the Development s of Selected European Cities

The quality of life of the urban population is considerably determined by the existing vegetation and the available open spaces in the cities. WITTIG [in SUKOPP & WITTIG, 1998] refers to the fact that „also in cities flora and vegetation have a great influence on the climate, the quality of soil and the fauna”. Beside the positive effects of green areas for the climate and the air quality of cities, vegetation is “also of importance for the creation of soil, the existence of soil animals as well as the water balance and the ventilation of the soil.” (ibid.). The way and degree of the provision of green spaces can be identified on a municipal level as one of the “measurements which have a stochastically effective correlation with the ecological capacity of urban areas and may thus assume an indicative function for the urban ecological quality.” [ARLT et al., 2002]. In addition to the availableness of open spaces it is furthermore their potential as recreational areas, which is decisive. Important aspects when looking at recreational areas are in particular their reachability and the free access to the public. Though a city can have sufficient provision of open spaces, the proportion of open local public recreational areas can be much less. Sports fields, private gardens, vineyards etc. make urban areas much greener, but are in general either not accessible to the public or not free of charge. In this sense one indicator of the initiative “European Common Indicators towards a Local Sustainability” [EUROPEAN COMMON INDICATORS, 2001], which was launched at the Third European Conference on Sustainable Cities & Towns in Hanover (Germany) in February 2000, was dedicated to the topic „Availableness of public recreational areas”. The European Commission (Environment DG), the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the expert group on the urban environment created in 1991 by the European Commission started this joint initiative for the development of a European common set of local sustainability indicators. “This initiative aims at encouraging European local communities to use common indicators in order to measure their recorded progress towards sustainable local development.” [TECHNICAL REPORT EUROPEAN COMMON INDICATORS, 2000]. The works contain a set of indicators for a local sustainability which have to be considered as a proposal for the “first generation”. The presented paper aims at measuring possible deficits and comparing trends within the analysed cities regarding their provision of recreational areas. Thereby the works on land use analyses of selected European cities [MEINEL et al., 2001] could be included.