Powerful and large regional authorities are needed to preserve green open space for urban agglomerations

Abstract

Identification and assessment of strategies for the conservation and multifunctional development of green open space in the urban fringe of European urban regions is a challenge to both the academic and the real life world. Comparisons of strategies and their wider policy contexts are often complicated by the numerous differences in policy regimes at different levels. To understand what we can learn from them we first have to know how we can learn from them: how to compare between different strategies under different policy regimes between countries and assess their effectiveness? Within the EU funded research project PLUREL – Peri-urban land use relationships – ‘Strategies and sustainability assessment tools for urban rural linkages’, we developed a methodology for international comparison of regional strategies that considers the policy context at supra-regional level. This methodology helped to explain the reported impacts of strategies. For this we further elaborated the theoretical concept of policy arrangements and policy dimensions by van Tatenhove et al. (2000) and Arts et al. (2006).Strategies and policy contexts referred to are from Montpellier Agglomeration, a formal coalition of now 31 ltinicipalities, Leipzig-Halle region, a functional urban region (FUR) with governance coalitions around green open space preservation strategies, and Hangzhou in China, a very large city with hierarchical formal government.Results showed how the means of influence from different government levels can complement and reinforce each other and raise the effectiveness of the strategies. A combination of hierarchical government with a horizontal coalition between local authorities covering the full FUR can be very effective for managing the land use developments in the urban fringe, even when private business, CSOs or other NGOs are not included in the coalition. We recommend a comprehensive plan at the level of the FUR for managing the land use development of the urban fringe and its green areas as binding guidance to lower level zoning plans. Supra-regional authorities do not have to possess the land resources, but setting the Rules of the Game is a powerful means of influence to coerce local municipalities to preserve green open space in the urban fringe.

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