Built areas 183As a long-termpriorityplanning strategy, creating green wedges in existing
built areas would normally be slow and very difficult. However, establishing
major connected greenspaces near the edge of metro areas can create future
wedges or a ring of major parks for the city as it expands outward.
[A7]Afewmetropolitan areas have mainly ‘‘ scalloped” borders of medium-length lobes
and coves(Color Figures2--39).
Thescallop borderdesign (e.g., Bucharest; Color Figure 10 )degrades slightly
more regional greenspace than does a compact metro area, as described above,
but it degrades noticeably less greenspace than does a lobed metro area. Fur-
thermore, little strip development along major transportation routes is present
tointerrupt major stream/river corridors or regional wildlife movement. The
border scalloping provides ready access to surrounding regional greenspaces for
people living in the outer portion of the metro area. Indeed, examining the
pros and cons of scalloped-edge natural patches is informative (Forman1995).
Overall though, combined with a high density of small green patches in the
central portion, a metro area with scalloped borders seems to be a reasonably
good design.
Evidence of regional planning
[A8]Ten extremely different metro-area-form and urban-region-ring attributes
identified suggest that regional planning, emphasizing at least one of the attributes, has
been used in 60 % of the urban regions(Figure7. 11).
Spatial planning is common for small spaces and rather uncommon for broad
areas. The issue comes to a head in urban regions where so many people live
and resources are so finite, but political/administrative units, often overlapping,
typically are so many. Based on the regional attributes identified, apparently
regional planning has been significant in a majority of the urban regions. Fur-
ther work, or the reader, will have to decide whether the attribute or attributes
chosen for emphasis has led to a wise plan and a suitable urban region. In fact,
thedegree to which regional attributes reflect planning or simply unplanned
human and natural changes warrants evaluation. Several significant attributes
may be embedded with unequal weight in a plan, so in this analysis only the
heavyweight one(s) clearly emerges. Regional planning of urban regions and
metropolitan areas is ahigh priority.
Beijing is noteworthy here because it has a single (strong) government for vir-
tually its entire urban region, about 200 km in diameter. In this case, regional
planning might be relatively easy, avoiding the paralysis often produced by many
overlapping political/administrative units characteristically present in urban