The Federal Office for Building and Regional Planning

Research Project: Green Urban Labs

Project briefing

Urban greenery significantly impacts the quality of life in our cities. Green open spaces assume a variety of health, business, climate and ecological functions. But cities are constantly changing: life, housing, work and recreation change, growth and contraction rearrange framework conditions. This also has an effect on green open spaces. How can green space be safeguarded, cultivated and developed? What do new uses and purposes for urban greenery look like? Who are the partners that have to work together for this? In model projects – the ‘Green Urban Labs’ – municipalities tested new ways of strengthening urban greenery.

Background and objective

The importance of green open spaces for the quality of life in our cities is undisputed. They serve as places of recreation, encounters and sports. They are part of a city’s or neighbourhood’s identity and contribute to their attractiveness. At the same time, they are habitats for flora and fauna and of enormous importance – both for adaptation to climate change and for biodiversity and its benefits for the ecosystem. The preservation and development of urban greenery are therefore among the central tasks and prerequisites of sustainable urban development.

Nevertheless, municipalities are facing new challenges regarding their green spaces. Urban residents have new needs: Changed forms of work, recreation and housing lead to new requirements for green open spaces. Moreover, open green spaces in denser urban areas are confronted with an intensifying competitive situation. They are increasingly the focus of urban development as potential building land. Not least in socially disadvantaged locations, a balanced supply of green space is often put off – in the face of compulsory municipal responsibilities of greater urgency. The disadvantage then manifests itself in the unequal access to green open spaces. And in view of limited municipal finances, in many places the budgets for the care and upkeep of urban greenery are quite tight. In this research project, the aim was to find new answers to these challenges for the purpose of sustainable urban development.

The contractors of the research project were Urbanizers and gruppe F Freiraum für Alle GmbH.

Green Urban Labs Strategien und Ansätze für die kommunale Grünentwicklung Individual publication

Contact us

  • Stephanie Haury
    Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development
    Division RS 2 "Urban Development"
    Phone: +49 228 99401-2308
    Email: Stephanie.Haury@bbr.bund.de

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