Provision of urban green spaces: Some insights from economics

Abstract

The social demand for urban green spaces (UGSs) is increasing as a result of rapid urbanisation. To ensure the efficiency of public spending, their provision should be based on economic criteria. We highlight a range of issues in UGS policies and provide some economic instruments. UGSs confer costs and benefits that are not always taken into consideration. They lead to market failures as markets are not efficient in allocating them in a way that maximises their social value. First, we discuss how economics can be used to answer the question of public or private provision. Next we present methodologies to elicit the total economic value of UGSs. We then show how the public provision can result in non-optimal situations traducing the strategic behaviours of elected representatives. Finally, we discuss some key points within UGS production and maintenance as well as the main tradeoffs in terms of public policy.