In the face of shrinking staff, minimal budgets and high demand for construction space, how can local governments harness green space to improve quality of life in cities? City representatives met with GREEN SURGE researchers, European Commission representatives and non-governmental organisations in Brussels (Belgium) on 13 October 2015 as part of the GREEN SURGE project to share their views and stimulate new innovative solutions.

The City of Edinburgh (United Kingdom) took a strategic approach to achieve set targets related to the quality and accessibility of green spaces. They were able to demonstrate that for every £1 invested in the city’s green spaces, £12-14 is generated in social, economic and environmental benefits. Marzahn-Hellersdorf, Berlin (Germany), manages to continually improve green infrastructure in the borough despite dwindling staff numbers by collaborating with non-governmental organisations, e.g. to build a parkour park, a bee garden, a public wedding park, introduce urban cattle and hold regular festivals.

Milan’s (Italy) tactic was to join forces with local community gardening organisation Il Giardino degli Aromi. The groups are channelling people power in a bid to integrate Parco POP into a green network – so far 23,000 citizens have submitted a petition to overrule the building rights and keep their park. Utrecht (The Netherlands) got right down to the grassroots, opening over half of the city’s urban green infrastructure projects to the public’s ideas and realising over 90 percent of the resulting submissions, from roadside vegetable patches to trees in oversized illuminated flowerpots. The day closed with the Ruhr Region’s (Germany) take on how even an unlikely space can be ‘multifunctional’ in the most inspiring way, as 60km of motorway was brought to a standstill for a day in 2010 to host a picnic for nearly 3 million people.

For more information on the GREEN SURGE project, visit greensurge.eu.