To What Extent Can the Green Belts Prevent Urban Sprawl?—A Comparative Study of Frankfurt am Main, London and Seoul

Xiaoping Xie,Martin Baildon,Martin Behnisch,Hanna Kang,Tobias Krüger

doi:10.3390/su12020679

Abstract

A salient issue facing contemporary urban development in many countries is that the physical areas of major cities are growing at a faster rate than their populations. The popularity of the green belt concept among advocates is that it can effectively counter urban sprawl while safeguarding the countryside from urban development. This paper is intended to measure the efficacy of the green belt in preventing urban sprawl through an international comparative study in three cities of different sizes, and which have experienced different urban growth pressures, namely Frankfurt am Main (Germany), London (UK), and Seoul (South Korea). The study adopts the urban sprawl measurement methodological framework defined by Jaeger et al. to process GHSL data in order to examine the urban sprawl index in the three case study cities. This quantitative evidence-based comparative study demonstrates that the designation of green belts has failed to prevent urban sprawl both within urban centers and at a wider regional level.

Highlights

Discourse on the effectiveness of green belt policies revolves around a key issue facing contemporary urban development in that the physical areas of many major cities are growing more rapidly than their populations
This paper intends to measure the efficacy of the green belt in preventing urban sprawl in different size cities and under different urban growth pressures through an international comparative study
In Frankfurt am Main and London, the population density within the inner-city areas has increased and resulted in a decreasing of resident-population based urban sprawl values, the absolute values of urban sprawl are still at a higher value, according to European classification given by the European Environment Agency [40]

Summary

Introduction

Discourse on the effectiveness of green belt policies revolves around a key issue facing contemporary urban development in that the physical areas of many major cities are growing more rapidly than their populations. The population of cities in less developed countries doubled between 1990 and 2015 and their urban extents increased on average by a factor of 3.5 [28] To this end, international comparative studies on the efficacy of green belt in preventing urban growth crossing a wide spectrum of city sizes are crucial. The intense pressure of exceptionally rapid urban growth has been too much to contain [26] Against this background, this paper intends to measure the efficacy of the green belt in preventing urban sprawl in different size cities and under different urban growth pressures through an international comparative study. For the purposes of this research, efficacy is defined as the effectiveness achieved by the green belt in preventing urban sprawl as a growth management tool It intends to address two research questions with evidence-based analysis:. The last section (Section 5) is our conclusion and summary

Methodological Framework

Input Data and Data Processing

The London Green Belt

The Seoul Green Belt

Findings

Conclusions