Introduction

In the largely grey-brown, tarmac, glass and concrete world of the contemporary city, green is currently the favourite urban colour. Whether one is reading city policy documents, commercial publicity, newspapers or sites on the web, ‘green cities’ have blossomed everywhere. Sometimes the term is appropriated by property developers promoting new residential complexes.1 Quite often it has been adopted to encapsulate a range of urban sustainability programmes – interest in which has grown strongly since the United Nations Brundtland Report (1987) incorporated sustainability into everyday use.2 Urban branding and marketing have conjured up a veritable forest of ‘green cities’ from Britain to Germany and Indonesia and in India where Trivandrum in Kerala, we are told, is the ‘evergreen city of India’.3 Frequently self-described ‘green cities’ give barely a nod towards green space, though material on ‘urban greening’ seems to have a higher green space quotient. Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister of Singapore, has been widely praised for the ‘greening of Singapore’ through the creation of parks.4 ‘Green space’ as such is less often mentioned but the number of references is rising. In 2006 the British Parliament published a report on Enhancing Urban Green Space, and in 2013 the mayor of London announced a major increase of London green space with new parks and tree plantings.5 Currently, the European Commission is funding a large 7th Framework project ‘Green Surge’ on the governance of urban green spaces in major European Union cities.6