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Urban planification

Open Public Spaces

CONTEXT

The presence of open public spaces that favour the growth of cities’ green coverage and urban interaction with blue spaces like lakes, rivers and fountains is essential to reduce the effects of heat islands by increasing shade and reducing heat absorption. The heat island effect is expected to get worse as a consequence of the temperature increases associated with climate change. At the same time, a suitable public space can improve air quality and act as a climate shelter.

Additionally, living close to open public spaces is closely linked to numerous benefits for the health of the population. People who perceive their neighbourhoods to be attractive, with the presence of green or blue zones, are more likely to carry out physical activities in the open air in their free time or to travel (by bicycle or on foot), regardless of age. However, the suitability and type of public spaces should be taken into account to encourage their use and increase safety (lighting, drainage and condition of the paving).

OBJECTIVE

• Increase green cover and the integration of natural spaces in cities for the health and quality of life of the population.

PROPOSALS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Parks, free spaces and leisure spaces 

• Integrate the planning of green and blue spaces, prioritise the least advantaged areas and the development of an attractive and accessible design.
• Prioritise improvements to green and blue spaces of infrastructure that supports physical activity, especially where there are paths to walk, bicycle lanes and water activities.
• Provide open spaces to support physical activity in all neighbourhoods.
• Adapt and promote emblematic parks and green spaces to favour a healthy and sustainable lifestyle, fostering opportunities for leisure and relaxation. Prioritise parks and green areas that are easy to access, safe and connected to housing and transport hubs.
• Remove the borders of traditional parks (fences that delimit the parks), defining an absolute transition between the urban space and the green space.
• Incentivise the creation of community green spaces in the neighbourhoods (balconies, plants on ground level, horticultural areas, gardens, etc.). Provide advice on the design of these spaces so they are good quality and, if possible, accessible. Prioritise their location in areas adjacent to housing, offices and schools.
• Create or improve urban forests.
• Prioritise access to nature at a distance of less than five minutes from housing on foot.
• Plan a network of multifunctional open spaces in all communities to support physical activity, leisure and uses of the countryside.
• Include green areas for sport and for multiple uses (play, rest, activities, walking, cycling, etc.).
• Adopt a green-building design in new public building projects and prioritise these improvements in public rental housing.
• Plan improvements to green infrastructure where there are public transport stops. • Create new routes to walk and cycle in the urban fabric.
• Incorporate cool pavements and “breeze paths” to create green routes, strolling routes, and hiking and cycling trails.
• Develop a green ring in the city to expand the possibilities to enjoy the city and its surrounding area through leisure activities and sport. Consider the opportunities of these areas to recover biodiversity, restore ecological and countryside areas, connect recreational zones, create routes for walking, cycling and running, recover deteriorated areas, etc.

Aesthetics 

• Implement improvements to the urban green space on different scales.
• Implement a wide diversity of local plant species that contain some rare species, if possible, with many indigenous trees, shrubs, fruit bushes, fruit trees and wild flowers. Select the species in accordance with the needs of the spaces, taking into consideration the year-round climate and climate change.
• Plant plants on paths and corridors, open spaces, gardens, motorway hard shoulders and roundabouts and close to buildings.

Green cover and plant life 

• Expand the green cover of urban areas that have relatively low levels of plant life.
• Increase the planting of trees in the connecting areas of the public space, parks and vulnerable areas close to the community and route locations.
• Increase the extension of green roofs in the urban environment, especially in the city centre and in neighbourhoods with a high population density. Install green roofs on all new buildings with a gradient of less than 30 degrees and on different types of buildings (bicycle parking facilities, schools, warehouses, public buildings, upper walkways of underground garages, etc.).
• Install green facades on buildings in the city centre as if there were a park. Plant local species of robust plants that require relatively low maintenance on them.
• Use abandoned areas of the urban landscape to expand the green cover.

REFERENCE EXPERIENCES

LEGISLATION

• Decret Legislatiu 1/2010, de 3 d'agost, pel qual s'aprova el text refós de la Llei d'urbanisme.
• Decret 305/2006, de 18 de juliol, pel qual s'aprova el Reglament de la Llei d'urbanisme.

STUDIES AND TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION

Technical documents:

• Fenton, K., 2015. Active Design. Planning for health and wellbeing through sport and physical activity. Sport England.
• Greater London Authority on behalf of the Green Infrastructure Task Force, 2015. Natural Capital Investing in a Green Infrastructure for a Future London.  
• Monmouthshire County Council, 2015. Green infrastructure. Supplementary Planning Guidance. 
• Planning Department the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSARG), 2016. Green and Blue Space Conceptual Framework. Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
• Tiran, J. et al., 2017. Baseline study on the status quo of regional UGS governance and European good practices.  Interreg Central Europe
• Vancouver City Council, 2020 Greenest City 2020 Action Plan Part Two: 2015-2020. Vancouver City Council.
• Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning, 2017 Planning a Green-Blue City. A how-to guide for planning urban greening and enhanced stormwater management in Victoria. .
• World Health Organization, 2016. Global Report on Urban Health: equitable healthier cities for sustainable development. World Health Organization.
• World Health Organization,2016. Physical activity strategy for the WHO European Region 2016–2025. World Health Organization.

Scientific papers:

• Adachi-mejia, A. M. et al. (2017) ‘Geographic variation in the relationship between body mass index and the built environment Anna’, Preventive Medicine. Elsevier Inc. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2017.03.018.
• Andreas, S., Fromme, H. and Bolte, G. (2016) ‘Built and socioeconomic neighbourhood environments and overweight in preschool aged children . A multilevel study to disentangle individual and contextual relationships’, Environmental Research. Elsevier, 150, pp. 328–336. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2016.06.024.
• Van den Berg, M. M. et al. (2017) ‘Do Physical Activity, Social Cohesion, and Loneliness Mediate the Association Between Time Spent Visiting Green Space and Mental Health?’, Environment and Behavior, p. 001391651773856. doi: 10.1177/0013916517738563.
• Chen, H. et al. (2017) ‘Does where you live matter to your health ? Investigating factors that influence the self- rated health of urban and rural Chinese residents : evidence drawn from Chinese General Social Survey data’. Health and Quality of Life Outcomes, pp. 1–11. doi: 10.1186/s12955-017-0658-0.
• Chen, P. and Shen, Q. (2016) ‘Built environment effects on cyclist injury severity in automobile-involved bicycle crashes’, Accident Analysis and Prevention. Elsevier Ltd, 86, pp. 239–246. doi: 10.1016/j.aap.2015.11.002.
• Dadvand, P. et al. (2016) ‘Green spaces and General Health : Roles of mental health status , social support , and physical activity’, Environment International. Elsevier Ltd, 91, pp. 161–167. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2016.02.029.
• Flacke, J. et al. (no date) ‘Mapping Environmental Inequalities Relevant for Health for Informing Urban Planning Interventions — A Case Study in the City of Dortmund , Germany’. doi: 10.3390/ijerph13070711.
• Gao, M., Ahern, J. and Koshland, C. P. (2016) ‘Perceived built environment and health-related quality of life in four types of neighborhoods in Xi ’ an , China’, Health & Place. Elsevier, 39, pp. 110–115. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.03.008.
• Hogan, M. J. et al. (2016) ‘SC’, Social Science & Medicine. Elsevier Ltd. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.06.030.
• Kerr, J. et al. (2016) ‘Perceived Neighborhood Environmental Attributes Associated with Walking and Cycling for Transport among Adult Residents of 17 Cities in 12 Countries : The IPEN Study’, Environmental Health Perspectives, 124(3), pp. 290–298.
• Kolbe-alexander, T. L. et al. (2015) ‘The relationship between the built environment and habitual levels of physical activity in South African older adults : a pilot study’, pp. 1–9. doi: 10.1186/s12889-015-1853-8.
• Lee, S. et al. (2017) ‘Fear of Outdoor Falling Among Community-Dwelling Middle-Aged and Older Adults : The Role of Neighborhood Environments’, 00(00), pp. 1–10. doi: 10.1093/geront/gnx123.
• Malambo, P. et al. (2017) ‘Association between perceived built environmental attributes and physical activity among adults in South Africa’, BMVCPublic Health. BMC Public Health, 17, p. 213. doi: 10.1186/s12889-017-4128-8.
• Markevych, I. et al. (2016) ‘Neighbourhood and physical activity in German adolescents : GINIplus and LISAplus’, Environmental Research. Elsevier, 147, pp. 284–293. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2016.02.023.
• Mccormack, G. R. et al. (2016) ‘Supportive neighbourhood built characteristics and dog-walking in Canadian adults’, Can J Public Health, 107(3), p. e250. doi: 10.17269/CJPH.107.5360.
• Mueller, N., Rojas-Rueda, D., et al. (2017) ‘Health impacts related to urban and transport planning: A burden of disease assessment’, Environment International, 107(August), pp. 243–257. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2017.07.020.
• Mueller, N., Rojas-rueda, D., et al. (2017) ‘Urban and Transport Planning Related Exposures and Mortality ’:, 125(1), pp. 89–96.
• Nicklett, E. J., Lohman, M. C. and Smith, M. L. (no date) ‘Neighborhood Environment and Falls among Community-Dwelling Older Adults’. doi: 10.3390/ijerph14020175.
• Nutsford, D. et al. (2016) ‘Residential exposure to visible blue space ( but not green space ) associated with lower psychological distress in a capital city’, Health & Place. Elsevier, 39, pp. 70–78. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2016.03.002.
• Perchoux, C. et al. (2015) ‘Accounting for the daily locations visited in the study of the built environment correlates of recreational walking (the RECORD Cohort Study)’, Preventive Medicine. Elsevier Inc., 81, pp. 142–149. doi: 10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.08.010.
• Thompson, C. W. et al. (no date) ‘Mitigating Stress and Supporting Health in Deprived Urban Communities : The Importance of Green Space and the Social Environment’. doi: 10.3390/ijerph13040440.
• Triguero-mas, M. et al. (2015) ‘Natural outdoor environments and mental and physical health : Relationships and mechanisms’, 77, pp. 35–41. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2015.01.012.
• Wood, L. et al. (2017) ‘Public green spaces and positive mental health – investigating the relationship between access , quantity and types of parks and mental wellbeing’, Health & Place. Elsevier Ltd, 48, pp. 63–71. doi: 10.1016/j.healthplace.2017.09.002.
• Zijlema, W. L. et al. (2017) ‘The relationship between natural outdoor environments and cognitive functioning and its mediators’, Environmental Research. Elsevier, 155(November 2016), pp. 268–275. doi: 10.1016/j.envres.2017.02.017.

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