Regional park

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Regional parks as concepts of urban-regional open space development

Under regional parks are understood in Germany instruments of regional planning for a landscape-related regional management in urban regions . The establishment and implementation of regional parks serves to strategically strengthen open space issues compared to other issues relating to the use of space (such as residential construction or commercial development) in terms of multifunctional open space development. As regional parks are informal instruments, they do not have any restrictive effects.

features

An essential feature of the regional parks is their project orientation. Projects in areas such as local recreation, sport, landscape art , preservation of cultural heritage , urban agriculture and nature conservation are implemented under the umbrella of regional park plans or strategies for the city . From a regional economic perspective, this multifunctional development of the urban landscape also serves as a strategy to strengthen the so-called soft location factors .

Regional parks are regional brackets of local and inter-municipal open space projects. As lead projects for the region, they bundle and network decentralized landscape development measures. Regional parks generate models and measures for the qualification of the urban landscape. They open up the potential for developing new design and usage qualities for the interlinking of open space and built-up space in the cultural landscape of an urban region. In the increasingly important transition area between town and country - the so-called Zwischenstadt - models for sustainable urban-rural development can be tested in this way.

Regional parks - unlike the nature parks , biosphere reserves and national parks standardized in the Federal Nature Conservation Act - are not formal protected areas. Regional Park aims and derived planning contents are indeed often in country's development plans , regional plans or landscape plans adopted; However, regional parks do not develop their essential control effect for the protection and development of open spaces through these formal instruments, but through the cooperative development and implementation of projects. Intermunicipal cooperation and cooperation with land users, land owners and civil society organizations are key success factors in regional park development.

Regional park development organizations are publicly financed project companies (legal form GmbH ), regional planning associations, or development associations .

Examples of regional parks in Germany

The Emscher Landscape Park and the RheinMain Regional Park have been pioneers in regional park development in Germany since the early 1990s .

Pole pyramid in the RheinMain Regional Park

The Emscher Landscape Park was a key project of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Emscher Park from 1989 to 1999 . The upgrading of the industrial landscape in seven north-south green corridors and a newly defined east-west green corridor is a main task of the regional park development in the northern Ruhr area . Park projects on former industrial sites, landmark art projects , the ecological reconstruction of the Emscher river system and region-wide cycling and hiking routes are among the things that make up a. the material basis of the Emscher Landscape Park. In the 1990s, the Emscher Landscape Park was sponsored by the Ruhr Area Municipal Association (KVR) and the IBA Emscher Park planning company. The main players since then have been or are the Ruhr Regional Association (legal successor to the KVR) and Projekt Ruhr GmbH. In addition, the importance of communal or inter-communal engagement, which was institutionalized in inter-communal working groups during the IBA era, is increasing. The currently valid regional plan is the Emscher Landscape Park 2010 master plan .

The RheinMain regional park has been in existence since the early 1990s on the basis of the commitment of the regional planning association (surrounding area Frankfurt until 2001, since then the planning association for the Frankfurt / Rhein-Main conurbation ) and the non-profit companies founded with its participation ( regional park umbrella company since 2005 and various intermunicipal organizations that operate locally Implementation companies ) designed and implemented. An essential element of the regional park is a network of park-like paths, the regional park routes, which connect various open space projects. It forms the backbone of the formally secured regional green corridors, which should be made tangible as a coherent system of attractive open spaces. The Frankfurt Green Belt has also been integrated into the regional park development as an extensive municipal concept for the protection and development of open spaces.

The chain of regional parks in Brandenburg and Berlin has been developed since the end of the 1990s on the basis of state planning principles (joint state development program of the states of Berlin and Brandenburg and joint state development plan for the closer integration of Brandenburg-Berlin). Eight individual regional parks, which extend from the outer areas of the Berlin districts far into the Brandenburg city periphery of the federal capital, are to be designed by local actors (including Berlin districts, Brandenburg districts and municipalities, farmers, local recreation service providers, representatives of civic engagement). With the development of a local recreation industry and the sustainable management of open spaces, possibilities are to be shown to profit from the preservation of open spaces in economic terms. As a state planning offer without the establishment of a central regional park management and without regulated financial support, the development of the regional parks depends on the commitment of the municipalities and the other local actors. The development progress of the regional parks is therefore extremely different.

Further examples of regional parks or regional park-like approaches to informal open space development in urban regions are:

Conference of Regional Parks and Green Rings (KORG)

Under the name "Conference of Regional Parks and Green Rings (KORG)" there has been an informal network of (city) regions at federal level since 2012. KORG is committed to the qualification and strengthening of open space in Germany and currently unites 13 regional parks and Green Rings in Germany.

Regional parks in the planning practice of other European countries

The Green Belts (e.g. around London ) or the Mersey Waterfront Regional Park in Great Britain , the Agglopark Limmattal in Switzerland, the Vienna Green Belt or the Groene Hart van de Randstad in the Netherlands are comparable to the German regional parks, but are not so called.

The 45 Parcs Naturels Régionaux in France and the 105 Parchi Regionali in Italy , on the other hand - apart from exceptions in Milan and Paris - are more comparable to the German nature parks due to their rural spatial reference and their formal constitution .

literature

  • Gailing, Ludger: Regional parks - Fundamentals and instruments of the policy of open spaces in conurbations . Dortmund contributions to spatial planning 121, Dortmund 2005, ISBN 3-88211-153-4 .
  • Gailing, Ludger: Regional parks as urban-regional development strategies - intercommunal cooperation for the urban landscape . In: Deutsche Zeitschrift für Kommunalwissenschaften (DfK), Volume 46, 2007 / I, pp. 68–84.
  • Hartz, Andrea / Kühne, Olaf: The Saar Regional Park - a view from a postmodern perspective . In: Raumforschung und Raumordnung Vol. 65, No. 1/2007, pp. 30–43.
  • Lehmann, Meike / Rautenstrauch, Lorenz: Regional Park and Regional Management: Synergies between two newer regional planning approaches? . In: DISP 150, issue 3/2002, pp. 46-53.
  • Project Ruhr GmbH (Ed.): Masterplan Emscher Landscape Park 2010 . Essen 2005, ISBN 3-89861-476-X .
  • Schmauck, Sebastian: Regional parks as an informal control element for nature and open space protection in Europe. Dissertation. Technical University of Kaiserslautern.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ KORG Germany
  2. ^ KORG Germany profiles of the members