The Urban Landscape

The urban landscape comprises the sum total of the un-built land within and around our towns and cities. Indeed urban buildings and structures themselves can also be thought of as a part of the urban landscape, in that their form and distribution defines the matrix of public and private open spaces which form the urban landscape, as well as providing the backdrop to it. The urban landscape is the sum of all these parts, but it is also needs to be understood as a whole which is greater than their sum. The European Urban Landscape Partnership will seek to further a holistic and integrated understanding of Europe’s urban landscape.

Parks and green spaces naturally form a vital component of the urban landscape, but so do many other elements. These include streets and squares, cemeteries and allotment gardens, housing landscapes and industrial sites, waste ground and urban agriculture. These elements also include open air swimming baths and waterfronts, school playgrounds and suburban gardens, railway and canal corridors, historic parks and derelict sites, sports grounds and campsites, urban woodlands and nature reserves, reservoirs and roadside verges…. The list is long and the urban landscape is rich and complex, indeed there is hardly a plot or urban land which does not in some way contribute to the urban landscape. It is time for it to be given the attention it so richly deserves.

Although the urban landscape is where the vast majority of European’s live and work, it appears to be strangely invisible to many people, in particular to many urban policy makers. Even the European Union’s recently published ‘Thematic Strategy for the Urban Environment’, which focuses on a wide range of issues, fails to make any mention of the urban landscape, despite its call for an integrated approach. Its only oblique reference to the subject is in relation to biodiversity, which is hardly the main justification for the importance of the urban landscape.

One of the main reasons for the invisible nature of the urban landscape is that we are not used to perceiving it in its totality. While this seems to be true in the case of many policy makers, it appears to apply equally to municipal administrations, which for understandable practical purposes split up the responsibility for the planning, design and management of the urban landscape between numerous departments. Yet it is important that decisions taken for pragmatic reasons do not mean that we loose sight of the overall strategic importance of the urban landscape as a vital resource for our towns and cities.

In fact the urban landscape is central to most, if not all of the issues which are currently seen as being important for Europe’s urban areas: it is the strategic resource which can enhance the quality of life for their citizens; ensure an attractive environment for investors; act as an important basis for health of the urban population; provide the corridors for environmentally friendly transport systems; strengthen social cohesion as the place of public communication and interaction, and even make available the necessary spatial infrastructure for urban water management.

The European Urban Landscape Partnership aims to put the urban landscape on the city map...