Urban Green Infrastructure for Shrinking City: Case Study - City of Osijek

Abstract

Urban planning of contemporary city is challenged to ensure a quality environment, inclusive green infrastructure towards sustainable urban development. Recent studies of urban green infrastructure consider green areas in cities in the context of different cultures, different social and economic circumstances, as well as diverse urban trends. Changes of the green urban infrastructure in Eastern European cities have been endangered by construction abuse but also by changes caused by urban shrinking or urban sprawl. The aim of the paper was to provide a framework that enables creating a data base of urban green infrastructure regarding its functions for the shrinking city. The framework was created for several urban levels starting from the whole city area, urban district, urban neighbourhood and the green element. Three objectives were set in the paper: a) to review the existing classifications, typologies and functions of green infrastructure b) to provide a proposal for an analytical framework for multilevel classification of urban green infrastructure and c) to analyse green infrastructure of the city of Osijek, eastern Croatia, according to city plans and documents. For the Osijek case study, the population density, the share of green infrastructure was presented for the whole area of the city and at the level of the city districts. The most populated and the least populated district were further examined according to the neighbourhood morphology and green functions. Lack of the classification of urban green infrastructure for the neighbourhood level was elaborated and a framework was proposed.