Greening metropolitan growth : integrating nature recreation, compactness and spaciousness in regional development planning

This article reports the findings on analyses of landscape morphology by density and green space distribution of the Stockholm county region, correlations between morphology and socio-economic data and assessments of two regional development scenarios for 2030 modelled in the proposed regional plan (The Office of Regional Planning and Urban Transportation in Stockholm 2010). Today, Stockholm is a relatively green and spacious metropolitan region with a small compact city core. We found the correlations between compactness (product of floor area and nature recreation area) and highly mixed parcels (R 2 = 0.729, p < 0.001), between compactness and overweight (R2 = 0.47, p < 0.001) and between accessibility to nature recreation and reduced psychological well-being (R 2 = 0.40, p < 0.001). It seems that new housing developments and income levels are driven by compactness in the city centre and spaciousness (quotient of nature recreation area and floor area) in the suburban periphery. The scenario FÖRDELAD is more spread out and spacious in the periphery and the scenario TÄT is more compacted in the city centre; however, both scenarios decrease in compactness and spaciousness in the inner suburbs. We consider that the decline in spaciousness in inner suburbia would be accepted if compactness also increased a situation that is not part of either scenario. The apparent risk of this development is that suburbia will lose its attractiveness and this will fall to a level that it will fuel even more peripheral sprawl. With support from the correlation studies and other sprawl research, we suggest that this planned development could have severe negative consequences for sustainability and attractiveness, which are claimed to be the core goals in the proposed regional plan.QC 20120216greenbelt, socio-economics, landscape morphology, nature recreatio