Green belt

A green belt is a policy, and land-use zone designation used in land-use planning to retain areas of largely undeveloped, wild, or agricultural land surrounding or neighboring urban areas. Similar concepts are greenways or green wedges, which have a linear character and may run through an urban area instead of around it. In essence, a green belt is an invisible line designating a border around a certain area, preventing development of the area and allowing wildlife to return and be established.

The more general term in the United States is green space or greenspace, which may be a very small area such as a park.

Purposes

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In those countries which have them, the stated objectives of green belt policy are to:

• Protect natural or semi-natural environments;
• Improve
  air quality within urban areas;^[1][2]
• Ensure that urban dwellers have access to the countryside, with consequent educational and recreational opportunities;
• Protect the unique character of
  suburbs.^[3]

The green belt has many benefits for people:

• Walking, camping, and biking areas close to the cities and towns.
• Contiguous habitat network for wild plants, animals and wildlife.^[4]
• Cleaner air and water^[1][2]
• Better land use of areas within the bordering cities.

The effectiveness of green belts differs depending on location and country. They can often be eroded by

uses and sometimes, development 'jumps' over the green belt area, resulting in the creation of "satellite towns" which, although separated from the city by the green belt, function more like suburbs than independent communities.

History

In the 7th century,

In modern times, the term emerged from continental Europe where broad boulevards were increasingly used to separate new development from the centers of historic towns; most notably the

CPRE

they lobbied for a continuous belt (of up to two miles wide) to prevent urban sprawl, beyond which new development could occur.

There are fourteen green belt areas in the UK covering 16,716 km² or 12.4%^[9] of England, and 164 km² of Scotland; for a detailed discussion of these, see Green belt (UK). Other notable examples are the Ottawa Greenbelt and Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt^[10] in Ontario, Canada. Ottawa's 20,350-hectare (78.6 sq mi) instance is managed by the National Capital Commission (NCC).^[11]

The dynamic Adelaide Park Lands, measuring approximately 7.6 km², surround, unbroken, the city center of Adelaide. On the fringe of the eastern suburbs, an expansive natural green belt in the Adelaide Hills acts as a growth boundary for Adelaide and cools the city in the hottest months.

The concept of "green belt" has evolved in recent years to encompass not only "Greenspace" but also "Greenstructure" which comprises all urban and peri-urban green spaces, an important aspect of sustainable development in the 21st century. The European Commission's COST Action C11 (COST – European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is undertaking "Case studies in Greenstructure Planning" involving 15 European countries.

An act of the

.

Criticism

House prices

When established around an economically prosperous city, homes in a green belt may have been motivated by or result in considerable premiums. They may also be more economically resilient as popular among the retired and less attractive for short-term renting of modest homes.

The housing market contrasts with more uncertainty and

landlords

who profit from a scarcity of housing, for example by lobbying to restrain new housing across the city. The stated motivation and benefits of the green belt might be well-intentioned (public health, social gardening and agriculture, environment), but inadequately realized relative to other solutions.

Critics include Mark Pennington and the economics-heavy think tanks such as the Institute of Economic Affairs who would see a reduction in many green belts. Such studies focus on the widely inherent limitations of green belts. In most examples, only a small fraction of the population uses the green belt for leisure purposes. The IEA study claims that a green belt is not strongly causally linked to clean air and water. Rather, they view the ultimate result of the decision to green-belt a city as one to prevent housing demand within the zone to be met with supply,^[16] thus exacerbating high housing prices and stifling competitive forces in general.

Increasing urban sprawl

Another area of criticism comes from the fact that, since a green belt does not extend indefinitely outside a city, it spurs the growth of areas much further away from the city core than if it had not existed, thereby actually increasing

. It also means people have to commute through the green belt, an area not designed to cope with high levels of transportation. Not only is the merit of a green belt subverted, but the green belt may heighten the problem and make the city unsustainable.

There are many examples whereby the actual effect of green belts is to act as a land reserve for future freeways and other highways. Examples include sections of Ontario Highway 407 north of Toronto and the Hunt Club Road and Richmond Road south of Ottawa. Whether they are originally planned as such, or the result of a newer administration taking advantage of land that was left available by its predecessors is debatable.

United Kingdom

Green belts were established in England in 1955 to simply prevent the physical growth of large built-up areas; to prevent neighboring cities and towns from merging.

in 1946, just as in France, of shifting capital away from the capital city (addressing regional disparity) and avoiding intra-urban gridlock.

The restrictions of the Green Belt were particularly in the 1940s-1980s mitigated with planned, government-supported, new towns under the

Notable examples

Australia

• initially planned
  in 1837.
• The
  Victorian Government
  which prevents high-density infrastructure from being built.
• Sydney is surrounded by the Royal National Park, the Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, and the Blue Mountains National Park on three sides, with the fourth side being oceanfront. The Western Sydney Parklands also provide a partial North-South green belt through suburban areas.

Brazil

• The
  ecosystem services
  .

Canada

• Ottawa Greenbelt, Canada's oldest green belt.^[20] Created in 1956 to help curb urban sprawl, it surrounds the capital city of Ottawa. It is mostly owned and managed by the National Capital Commission (NCC).
• Biosphere Reserve
  . In an effort to restrain urban sprawl, the Ontario government created the Greenbelt Act in February 2005 to protect this greenspace from all future development, with the exception of limited agricultural use.
• Vancouver
  . This protection is strict and urban development of agricultural land is only allowed if no reasonable alternative exists. However, it does not protect non-agricultural land, particularly hillsides, leading to substantial, and highly visible, leapfrog-type hillside sprawl.
• Quebec's Commission de protection du territoire agricole du Québec keeps territory (the agricultural zones) that is favorable for the practice and the development of agricultural activities. In so doing, the commission safeguards the agricultural territory and helps make its protection a local priority. The agricultural zones cover an area of 63 000 square kilometers in 952 local municipalities.

Dominican Republic

• The Greater Santo Domingo has a Greenbelt (Santo Domingo Greenbelt) project surrounding the whole Distrito Nacional. It is composed of the National Botanical Garden, Mirador Del Norte, Mirador del Este, and other parks surrounding the area from its outer municipios. The overall objective of this Greenbelt is for it to protect the water and natural reserves of Santo Domingo, as well as to regulate the expansion of settlements.^[4] However, it has largely been affected by uncontrolled urbanization, but other parts remain unaffected.^[21][4] With the aid of seventeen soldiers and some support from local municipalities, CONAU has been able to ensure the daily management and protection of the greenbelt.^[4]
• When analyzing this Greenbelt, it is important to bring up the role the United States (US) has played in its creation and maintenance. The American national park model is what influenced the conservation efforts in the Dominican Republic.^[22]
• In the plan and boundary designation of the national park of Del Este, the coastal waters were not included.^[22] This meant that the local community could fish and use the waters as they desired, which did not please American non-profit organizations (NGOs) that were working with the national park to plan and carry out the conservation of endangered species and beach clean-ups. However, the lack of inclusion of the local community and economy into the national park's agenda meant that locals were left to find their own ways of feeding themselves and making money, as the creation of the park destroyed the fishing community that had previously thrived in the area.^[22]

Iran

• Tehran's greenbelt has always been an issue in Iran's regional politics. Under a decades-long megaproject, the length of the green belt of Tehran increased from 29 square kilometers in 1979 to 530 square kilometers in 2017, and the number of parks in urban and suburban areas also increased from 75 in 1979 to 2,211 in 2017 in total. Such actions and additional afforestation increased the humidity level and chance of precipitation in the city, which cools the summer's temperatures down by up to 4 °C. The Tehran municipal government announced a goal of lengthening the green belt by 10 square kilometers each year.^[23][24]

Europe

• European Green Belt
• Banjica Forest
  , Belgrade
• Royal National City Park, Stockholm
• German Green Belt
• Inner and Outer Green Belt of Cologne^(de)
• Coulée verte du sud parisien
• Coulée verte du nord parisien
• Promenade plantée
• Vienna Woods, Austria
• Rennes Green Belt, France
• Parco Agricolo Sud Milano, Milan

New Zealand

In New Zealand, the term Town Belt is most commonly used for an urban green belt.

• Dunedin Town Belt is one of the world's oldest green belts, having been planned at the time of the city's rapid growth during the Otago Gold Rush of the 1860s. It surrounds the city center on three sides (the fourth side being the city's harbor).
• Hamilton Town Belt
• Wellington Town Belt

Thailand

• Samut Sakorn
  Province.

South Korea

• In 1965, the Korean Planners Association developed the Capital Region Urban Plan that incorporated a Greenbelt and satellite towns along the development corridor between Seoul and Incheon after being influenced by the Greater London Plan of 1944.^[3]
• The official Greenbelt was first introduced as a "Limited Development Area" in 1971 with the then-new City Planning Law to prevent urban sprawl around Seoul. Green belts are currently designated around Seoul, Busan, and other metropolitan areas around the country.^[3]
• Other objectives include controlling northern parts for national security, eliminating illegal suburban shantytowns around Seoul, controlling land speculation, protecting agricultural land, and for environmental and natural resource protection.^[3]
• The rapid urbanization and economic growth of South Korea after the Korean War expedited the need for land use legislation. However, the boundaries of the greenbelt were hastily drawn and did not include public input or preexisting villages in the area.^[25]
• The greenbelt reduced housing and property prices within the greenbelt causing landowners to lose economic capital that could be gained from developing the land. However, there are many benefits of the greenbelt in terms of nature preservation, better air quality, and the push for increased efficiency of infrastructure and public services in the urban areas.^[25]

United Kingdom

• The Metropolitan Green Belt: 1,969 sq. miles (5,100 km²).
• The North West Green Belt: 1,003 sq. miles (2,600 km²)
• South and West Yorkshire Green Belt: 1,003 sq. miles (2,600 km²)
• West Midlands Green Belt: 888 sq. miles (2,300 km²)

United States

• The U.S. states of Oregon, Washington and Tennessee require cities to establish urban growth boundaries (UGBs).
• Notable U.S. cities which have adopted UGBs include
  Twin Cities, Minnesota; Virginia Beach, Virginia; Lexington, Kentucky (the first greenbelt in the U.S. in 1958^[26]); and Miami-Dade County, Florida
  .
• The Public Works Administration of the New Deal created three Greenbelt communities based on the ideas of Ebenezer Howard which are now the municipalities of Greenbelt, Maryland, Greenhills, Ohio, and Greendale, Wisconsin.
• More than 20 cities in the San Francisco Bay Area have UGBs (see Greenbelt Alliance, a Bay Area organization that has been involved in establishing these boundaries).
• Brooklyn-Queens Greenway
  in New York City
• Barton Creek Greenbelt, Austin
• Rotonda West, Florida near to Punta Gorda using a radial layout.
• Ann Arbor, Michigan is acquiring conservation easements on agricultural land around the city without the establishment of an urban growth boundary. While the city's initial plan did not include the participation of surrounding townships, at least four townships have participated directly or have initiated their own efforts to protect agricultural land surrounding the city.^{[needs update]}
• Boise Greenbelt, Boise, Idaho
• The Jungle, Seattle
• The Emerald Necklace in Boston is halfway between a green belt and a greenway, nearly ringing central Boston. The final link in the chain, the Dorchesterway, was never constructed.
• The Chicago park and boulevard system

See also

• Buffer zone / Community separator
• Conservation movement
• Development-supported agriculture
• Ecology
• Greenway (landscape)
• Land use planning
• Peri-urban agriculture
• Prime farmland
• Retirement community
• Sustainability
• Urban growth boundary
• Urban rural fringe
• Urban sprawl

References

Media related to Green belts at Wikimedia Commons

Look up green belt in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.