The Importance of Green Spaces in Urban Areas

How Green is the ‘White City’?

Walking down old cobbled roads, taking in architectural styles ranging from modernist to gothic revival and questioning the existence of tall skyscrapers alongside the riverfront are all key elements of a Belgrade one can experience while taking in the urban environment. However, it is the green spaces such as tree-lined streets, public parks, community gardens, hidden urban forest trails and sustainable infrastructure that make the experience undoubtedly enjoyable in the first place.

Urban green spaces are defined by exactly what they sound like — natural, vegetative areas and spaces that exist in urban areas. Aside from their visual and aesthetic appeals, they provide both physical and psychological benefits to communities, proving their inclusion in urban planning to be essential. As they help regulate temperatures, reduce floods and provide cleaner air, studies have shown that green spaces also positively impact residents’ mental health by helping reduce stress, improve mood and even help build community solidarity. 

In Belgrade — a city where residents regularly observe new privatized construction sites taking over public areas — the importance of green spaces proves to be key; however, not among those in power to implement change for the better.

Belgrade’s central municipalities host less than one square meter of green space per resident, a very small percentage, particularly when compared to cities like Vienna — one of the world’s greenest cities — which has around 120 square meters of public green space per resident.

Aleksandar Anđelković, a professor at the University of Belgrade’s School of Forestry and Environmental Engineering, who specializes in the protection of land and water resources, states that there is no officially known number of how much green space is actually in the city.

As a counselor in the city assembly, Anđelković asked to receive records documenting the percentage of the city’s space dedicated to green spaces (not including forests) such as parks and recreation areas, something that he still has not received. In 2019, the city released a document regarding the general protection and regulation of Belgrade’s green spaces, which states that the current total availability of green space (including forests) is 12.38%. Two years later, an official document known as “GUP 2041” released by the Urban Planning Institute of Belgrade found that the number of green spaces at that moment was actually closer to 9%.

It was during a city council meeting around a month ago that Anđelković requested updated records of green spaces for 2024; although the request was denied, a city official informed him that the number has risen around 5%. In any case of how accurate this statistic is, it still only amounts to a total of around 15% of public green space, a number incredibly low when compared to other capital cities in the Balkans like Ljubljana and Zagreb, which have about 67% and 72% of green spaces, respectively, according to the European Environment Agency.

It’s important to note that the trend of diminishing green spaces has been prevalent among many metropolitan areas due to rapid urbanization in the past few decades. The issue in Belgrade, however, continues to be exacerbated by illegal construction trends that are attributed to projects that are realized without adequate permits and therefore bypass zoning regulations where green spaces are planned and protected.

In 2023, the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network’s (BIRN) Serbia office found that there were around 300 illegally constructed buildings since 2015 in the city of Belgrade, amounting to the size of almost half a million square meters (or 4,843,759.69 square feet) a number that is likely a lot higher. The months-long investigation relied on the examination of the country’s official satellite image records as public records regarding legal affairs of urban developments. They are not available to the public.

Aside from being illegally built, many of these structures lack sustainable materials that have the potential to help with issues like water run-off and flooding, posing another question regarding their environmental impact. Anđelković additionally notes that the rise in car use has contributed to the prioritization of wider streets as well as another worrying trend — city officials cutting down trees without proper regulation, placing priority on two parking spaces compared to a 4o-year-old tree.

The Ministry of Space, a nonprofit research organization, reported that 10% of Belgrade’s green spaces disappeared in the span of 20 years, particularly emphasizing the issue of increasing temperature regulation, as well as flood protection and cleaner air.

“I think it’s important for the city to listen more to people like me, who are advocating for the increase of green areas in the city because we do not mean anything bad for our fellow citizens, our administration, or the city,” said Anđelković. “We are actually advocating for a better environment and life.”

The Green Along the Lakefront

There isn’t a doubt that urbanization has cropped up in all parts of the world, particularly on large scales in major cities like Chicago. Although the city may not directly experience the same trend of illegal building practices, Chicago is subject to the well-known American trend of placing value on car-centric infrastructure. According to Peiyuan Li, a senior research associate at the Discovery Partners Institute at the University of Illinois, the United States as a whole is not very ideal when it comes to sustainable and conservation infrastructure. 

Citing fragmented spaces like large empty parking lots that lay empty for five, 10 years without plans to be converted into public green spaces that can serve communities, Li has found that 16% to 17% of Chicago’s urban area is covered by trees, a number that ranges from neighborhood to neighborhood and is particularly sparse among South Side residents.

Although Chicago has a larger percentage of green space than that of Belgrade, it is still significantly low compared to other cities. However, city officials are working to remedy the issue by pursuing regular climate action plans. While most of these reports and actions focus on eliminating carbon emissions, a large part also advocates for more trees planted in the city that focuses on working with localized city officials to help their communities become more green.

Actionable Benefits

Tree-lined streets and vast green parks can be found across Chicago, giving residents options to find sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the city. Although 98% of the city’s residents live about a 10-minute walk from a public park, areas on the West and South sides of the city are considered high-priority areas for parks, according to an annual study done by the Trust for Public Land.

Lydia Farro, a Chicago-based designer, acknowledges that while the city as a whole could have more nature preserves and trees, describes her local green space — the vast Horner Park found alongside the North branch of the Chicago River and host of one of the few nature preserves in the city — to have a fundamental impact on her lifestyle. “Watching birds here, and at other stops along the river, has honestly felt life-saving in times of desperation.

“Coming to Chicago, parks more broadly, have always left me with a beautiful dichotomy: getting to escape into alone time while also feeling much more connected to my community that immediately surrounds me.”

Despite the aesthetic and mental benefits that public green spaces provide to residents, the environmental impact should also be regularly cited, something that both Anđelković and Li believe is not adequately noted by the public — an issue that can be attributed to a lack of awareness and knowledge. “Most of the time, trees’ benefits aren’t perceivable,” explains Li. “For example, they reduce carbon emissions and CO2, but we cannot see CO2 and we don’t experience CO2. In that case, people will probably underestimate what kinds of benefits trees can bring us.”

By properly quantifying the value of the benefits that come with having more trees and green spaces in urban areas while placing an emphasis on public education and awareness, the potential for the preservation and creation of such spaces becomes far stronger. 

When a significant number of residents are aware of the benefits, many more may begin participating in community-oriented activities such as creating urban gardens and planting trees on private property. Although change doesn’t happen overnight, actively placing pressure on government officials to listen and pursue and prioritize sustainable practices that promote green spaces on a wider scale.

Header by Jana Simovic