Public Green Space in Paris : Sustainable Development Discourses in the Objective of Le Grand Paris

Sustainable Development challenges will increasingly concentrate in cities as the urbanization in Europe and the rest of the world continues and governments must implement policies to ensure benefits of urban growths are shared sustainably. When more people move into the cities, the intimate contact with nature is lost since nature has not always been a priority in the history of urban planning. A biophilic approach is considered in this study, where the concept of inclusion of nature is perceived essential for the human life and previous empirical evidence supports the theory of presence of nature being substantial to human wellbeing. Because of the population density, Paris is an interesting example of the development of a megacity in a post-Kyoto context. The development project for the Paris urban area, called Le Grand Paris, intends to develop Paris on several levels. The aim with this study is to examine driving forces for nature as a part of an urban setting that can contribute to the development of intelligent sustainable urban planning for the future. Using qualitative methods to gather empirical data and a discourse analytical framework, this study intends to increase the understanding of perspectives, incentives and discords in the perceptions of urban green space and Sustainable Development. The problem statement is: How is urban green space carried out in the perspectives of cultural, economical and ecological values of citizens and planning documents in the context of Le Grand Paris project? The results establish that that need of increasing vegetation in the city of Paris is pressing in order to enhance quality of life and increase effects of ecological services. The continuing urbanization of Paris will intensify the need of social-ecological interactions, which require approaches through processes of democracy and participation in order to contribute to intra- and intergenerational socio-ecological justice for a sustainable Paris.