Development and management of green spaces in European cities: a comparative analysis

The provision, design, management and protection of urban green spaces are at the top of the agenda of 'sustainability' and 'liveability' of human settlements for improving the quality of local environments. Quality of urban green spaces is a key factor in making cities attractive and viable places to live in. Urban green spaces play an important role in improving the liveability of towns and cities. The present paper considers urban green spaces as an important contribution to a sustainable development of cities. From this perspective, this paper aims to investigate and compare the present state and availability of urban green spaces in various European cities. The results of a multidimensional factor analysis and a spider model applied to a database gathered by means of extensive survey questionnaires show interesting links and patterns between and in European cities. Factor analysis shows that the availability of 'urban green' is relatively high in metropoles and big cities, whereas the availebility of natural green' is relatively high in medium sized and small cities. On the other hand, spider models show that the availability of green spaces per inhabitant is higher in small and medium-sized cities than in metropoles and big cities. This comparative framework shows that the conditions in terms of the green space available to the inhabitants are more problematic for metropoles and big cities.