Expanding communities mean less green spaceSeptember 29, 2008The Netherlands is becoming more crowded. A green and open landscape is increasingly regarded as a leisure space for urban dwellers, and people are keen to retain it. Researcher Terry van Dijk of Wageningen University and Research Centre analysed the actions by concerned citizens in five green areas under threat of urbanisation. He discovered, among other things, that active citizens are relatively well educated and that larger cities are less responsive to civil initiatives. Efforts to retain the landscape were recorded from the Bloemendaler polder, the Hoekse Waard, the Mastenbroek polder, Moerdijk and Vleuten-De Meern in order to determine the systemic obstacles encountered. Van Dijk found that it was not the formal system of regional planning (the laws and regulations) that determined whether concerned citizens were successful in their opposition to urbanisation. Instead, the political system is the filter that determines whether concerns about the landscape can lead to the abandonment of proposed urbanisation projects. Citizens who take the initiative were found not to await opportunities for inquiries, but to use local and regional politics to get their issue on the agenda. The continuing expansion of municipalities in the Netherlands is leading to a 'dilution' of protesting citizens in increasingly larger electorates, where protesters' voices become weaker. At the same time, large municipalities tend to attract building projects rather than reject them. Green space residing under multiple municipal territories is harder to defend because none of the surrounding cities feels responsible. Another conclusion from Van Dijk's study was that municipalities do not receive financial incentives to retain open landscape - quite the contrary. And, the more densely populated an area, the more protests there are against disappearing green space. A survey on civil initiatives from the TV programme Landroof also showed that concerned citizens are relatively well educated and often have a personal stake in the areas concerned. The project entitled 'Towards more effective landscape planning in an emerging metropolis' is part of the larger research programme 'Reinventing Landscape Planning in MetroLand', financed by the NWO programme GaMON. The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) |
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| Related Green Space Current Events and Green Space News Articles Community gardens don't impact crime rate Urban residents across the United States have dug in to create green spaces in their neighborhoods, transforming vacant lots into colorful and crowd-pleasing community gardens. Magazine touts NJIT idea to harness clean energy for NYC An NJIT architecture professor with an architecture student has designed a network of modular floating docks to harness clean energy for New York City. The proposal was featured this week in Metropolis magazine. Green neighborhoods may reduce childhood obesity Childhood obesity can lead to type 2 diabetes, asthma, hypertension, sleep apnea and emotional distress. Obese children and youth are likely to be obese as adults, experience more cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and stroke and incur higher healthcare costs. Neighborhood greenness has long term positive impact on kids' health In the first study to look at the effect of neighborhood greenness on inner city children's weight over time, researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the University of Washington report that higher neighborhood greenness is associated with slower increases in children's body mass over a two year period, regardless of residential density. Campus green spaces enhance quality of life The next time you see students playing an energized game of touch football or studying in the sunshine on a college quadrangle, consider this: campus green spaces can help students feel better about life and improve learning. Childhood weight linked to proximity to green space and food stores Living in greener neighborhoods or in closer proximity to grocery stores is associated with reduced risk of being overweight, according to a study of more than 7,000 children ages 3 to 18 conducted by researchers from the Indiana University School of Medicine; the Department of Geography, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis; and the University of Cincinnati. Children need 60 minutes of daily physical activity, expert panel says School-age children should participate in 60 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous physical activity daily, according to an expert panel. How city dwellers and living things put the green into our urban open spaces Urban planners must recognise that green spaces are not produced by professional designers alone, but by ordinary residents and all manner of plants and insects, animals and birds making themselves at home in our cities and towns, says new research sponsored by the ESRC. Urban green spaces lengthen pensioners' lives The availability of nearby parks and tree-lined streets in large, densely populated cities significantly increases the longevity of pensioners, finds a study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. From 1992 onwards, the researchers monitored the longevity of over 3,000 people born in 1903, 1908, 1913, and 1918. All the study participants lived in Japan's capital, Tokyo, one of the most densely populated cities in the world. The average density was 13,050 inhabitants per square kilometre in 1997, and the amount of park space per head was 5.18 square metres. In 1992 the study participants completed questionnaires on their living environment and their monthly expenses. The survey More Green Space Current Events and Green Space News Articles |
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