The incompatibility in urban green space provision: An agent-based comparative study

Abstract

The benefits of sustainable planning and green neighbourhood are perceived by people worldwide. However, failures in implementing the greening strategies, such as the shortage and unequal accessibility of urban green space (UGS) have been discovered, which are generally attributed to incompatible interests of rational stakeholders. By applying the Mechanism Design (MD) theory, also called reverse game theory, this study aims to explore the relationship between UGS spatial layout and agents’ utilities in urban planning under the contexts of growing cities. Taking two projects in Hong Kong and New York as case study, an agent-based cellular landscape model is established to demonstrate the changes of agents’ utilities with UGS layouts and to identify the incompatible interests in UGS optimisation. The two cases represent the planning under public and private land ownership in general. It is found that the reduction of buildable land is the biggest obstacle for providing UGS, while land sale income and expense for purchasing public land are the incompatible factors for cities under public and private land ownerships respectively. This study provides an approach to examining the incompatibility of multiple agents with economic and social considerations of UGS provision that would facilitate green development in growing cities.