Green Wedge Urbanism: History, Theory and Contemporary Practice

Description

As towns and cities worldwide deal with fast-increasing land pressures, while also trying to promote more sustainable, connected communities, the creation of green spaces within urban areas is receiving greater attention than ever before. At the same time, the value of the ‘green belt’ as the most prominent model of green space planning is being widely questioned, and an array of alternative models are being proposed. This book explores one of those alternative models – the ‘green wedge’, showing how this offers a successful model for integrating urban development and nature in existing and new towns and cities around the world. Green wedges, considered here as ducts of green space running from the countryside into the centre of a city or town, are not only making a comeback in urban planning, but they have a deeper history in the twentieth century than many expect – a history that provides valuable insight and lessons in the employment of networked green spaces in city design and regional planning today. Part history, and part contemporary argument, this book first examines the emergence and global diffusion of the green wedge in town planning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, placing it in the broader historic context of debates and ideas for urban planning with nature, before going on to explore its use in contemporary urban practice. Examining their relation to green infrastructures, landscape ecology and landscape urbanism and their potential for sustainable cities, it highlights the continued relevance of a historic idea in an era of rapid climate change. Cover Contents List of Figures List of Tables Acknowledgements Introduction Green wedge: Definitions Interdisciplinarity, locality, temporality and scale The structure Methods and sources Part One Green Wedges in History 1 Urban Planning with Nature The Enlightenment and the pursuit of nature The Industrial Revolution and the disintegration of open spaces The rise of town planning Ring vs radial growth Park systems 2 The Emergence and Diffusion of the Green Wedge Idea Radial planning, radial parks and green wedges Intrinsic opposition: Belts vs wedges Opposition resolved: Belts and wedges as elements of the same park system The socialist city 3 Towards a Bright Future: Green Wedge Visions for the Post-war Period London: The green wedge metropolis New towns and green spaces Planning new beginnings 4 Polycentrism and Regional Planning Organizing the territory The corridor-wedge model The Green Heart and green wedges of Randstad in the Netherlands PART Two Green Wedges Today 5 Green Spaces, Networks and Contemporary Challenges The benefits of green spaces The birth of urban design and the ‘Star City’ Green infrastructure Landscape Ecology Landscape Urbanism Sustainability and resilience in face of climate change 6 Towards Sustainable and Resilient City-regions Stockholm: Blue and green wedges The Copenhagen Finger Plan: The development of a model The green fingers of Helsinki Randstad: From Green Heart to Green-Blue Delta Melbourne towards 2030 Freiburg: The green wedge and the mountain–valley systems 7 Green Wedges: From the City-region to the Neighbourhood Hamburg green network plan The Raggi Verdi of Milan Songzhuang Arts and Agriculture city: A new form of urban–rural relationship Green wedges at multiple scales: Viikki Rieselfeld Vauban The neighbourhood scale: Dunsfold Park, UK The green wedge as a typology: La Sagrera Linear Park Green Wedge Urbanism: Past, Present and Future The green wedge idea: From the city scale to the polycentric region Towards a theory of green wedge urbanism Final words Notes Bibliography Index