This research becomes an effort to describe the city of Larissa with indicative numerical elements that concern the characteristics of the city, the spaces of suburban green, as well as the spaces of green (parks and squares) that are found incorporated within the urban fabric. At the same time, an attempt is made to record the policies and methods that describe what happened with the clearance of public spaces.

The research is part of a wider interest of the laboratory and the authors on issues of public open spaces (It is part of an ongoing PhD thesis conducted by Triantaffyllos Kallakoudas) and it was presented in the 2005 AESOP congress.

Analysis of current planning policy and the urban design tools in Greece for the provision of public open spaces and testing of the results in the city of Larissa.

Lack of management and design for the existing open spaces and inappropriate planning tools for the creation of new ones. The answer to the provision of public open spaces is of course partly in constraining and controlling development but to a large extent the municipality must take advantage of the opportunities offered by the city plan. Still the most important thing is to revise and modernise planning tools according to the changing needs of the public, but for this to happen there is the need of a long term vision in order to monitor and provide for future trends. In many cases and certainly in the case of Larissa the local authorities were very slow in responding to the changing need of the public and the pressures for expanding the city. There was no clear vision for the future of the city and in the few cases that the plan predated development there was a lack of political will to enforce it.

Municipality of Larissa
Triantaffyllos Kalliakoudas

15/07/2005

Triantaffyllos Kalliakoudas, Maria Vrassida

research

Urban Policy > Transport and infrastructure > Services & amenities

Public space