History
The Old Testament outlines a proposal for a green belt around the Levite towns in the Land of Israel Moses Maimonides expounded that the greenbelt plan from the Old Testament referred to all towns in ancient Israel. In the 7th century, Muhammad established a green belt around Medina. He did this by prohibiting any further removal of trees in a 12-mile long strip around the city. In 1580 Elizabeth I of England banned new building in a 3-mile wide belt around the City of London in an attempt to stop the spread of plague. However, it was possible to buy dispensations which reduced the effectiveness of the proclamation.
In modern times, green belt policy was pioneered in the United Kingdom in the 1930s after pressure from the CPRE and various other organizations. There are fourteen green belt areas, in the UK covering 16,716 km², or 13% of England, and 164 km² of Scotland; for a detailed discussion of these, see Green belt (UK). Other notable examples are the Ottawa Greenbelt and Golden Horseshoe Greenbelt in Ontario, Canada. Ottawa's 20,350 hectare greenbelt is managed by the National Capital Commission (NCC). The more general term in the U.S. is green space or greenspace, which may be a very small area such as a park.
The concept of "green belt" has evolved in recent years to encompass not only "Greenspace" but also "Greenstructure", taking into account all urban greenspaces, an important aspect of sustainable development in the 21st century. The European Commission's COST Action C11 (COST - European Cooperation in Science and Technology) is undertaking "Case studies in Greenstructure Planning" involving 15 European countries.
An act of the Swedish parliament from 1994 has declared a series of parks in Stockholm and the adjacent municipality of Solna to its north a "national city park" called Ekoparken (the "Eco park"; it stretches from the parks surrounding the royal palaces of Ulriksdal and Haga in Solna, through the Brunnsviken area, down to the former royal hunting grounds of North and South Djurgården).
Read more about this topic: Green Belt
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