ABSTRACT
Green urban planning has attracted growing attention over the past ten to twenty years (Fabos 1995, Fabos and Ryan 2006). One important reason for this – at least from a Norwegian perspective – is the densification policy that was introduced in the 1990s and that put additional strain on green spaces inside town and city boundaries. Up until then, urban development had for the most part come about as a result of urban expansion, and the urban growth that has taken place since World War II has been extensive in terms of land use. The publication of the Brundtland Commission report ‘Our Common Future’ (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987) led to urban development in Norway being perceived as unsustainable (Næss 1992) due to poor utilization of land resources and the extent of urban sprawl across the landscape. Arguments in favour of more densely populated urban development were linked to reducing CO2 emissions and private car use, protection of cultivated land, conserving biological resources in both forest and agricultural production, safeguarding biodiversity and recreational activities in undeveloped rural areas and so on. A report to the Storting (the Norwegian Parliament) in 1993 therefore ascertained that Norwegian urban development should be densified (Miljøverndepartementet 1993), a decision that was not without controversy. One of the reasons for this being that densification may affect green spaces, something which was also acknowledged in the parliamentary report, in which the need to prioritize and plan the conservation of green spaces was emphasized: ‘green’ urban planning therefore regained favour, something that had not been the case for some years.
