Settlement and Green Infrastructure Characteristics in Dynamically Growing Urban Areas

One of the determining tendencies worldwide in recent landscape change is urbanization that reflects at the same time the transformation of human lifestyle and settlement space, the growing expansion of urban areas in line with the increasing urban concentration of population. It is also important to map these settlements in terms of the evolution of the landscape-settlement relationship and the character of the green space network within the settlements. In Hungary in the second half of the 20th century, the number of settlement areas – that significantly changed in size, in structure and in building stock – was under fifty. The largest of those towns, which are roughly evenly distributed throughout Hungary\u27s settlement network, are the „patches” defined as independent landscape character types, settlement landscapes, in the landscape character research project (KEHOP-4.3.0-VEKOP-15-2016-00001) (Web ref. 1). In this research, we analysed urbanised settlements and their associated built-up areas as a continuation of the landscape character research project (KEHOP-4.3.0-VEKOP-15-2016-00001) (Web ref. 1). We typified the spatial structure of the analysed settlements and defined the green space character, the degree of built-up areas and the relationship between the built-up areas and the green spaces. Based on the results, we determined that the role of green space areas within the structure of settlement areas is always significant in some ways, but at the same time the character of them is different: the majority of the settlement areas analysed, despite being the most urbanised at national level, are loosely built-up with significant green space, the smaller, more densely built-up areas, on the other hand, have a high proportion of green spaces bordering the built-up areas. In addition to the spatial typology of the urbanised settlements and their territories, this study illustrates in detail through three settlements with different structure the characteristics of the spatial structure and the networks of green infrastructure elements