TO BE OR NOT TO BE GREEN? THE CHALLENGE OF URBAN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE POST-SOCIALIST CITY. CASE STUDY: CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPE

International audienceThe sustainable development is an important issue for our society. Thus, urban green spaces are a key element in order to assure a sustainable urban development. Although, most often they are associated as having only an aesthetic function, the urban green spaces perform important socioeconomic and environmental functions. Therefore, ensuring the existence of a great number of green spaces within an urban area is one of the objectives of the new European policies for urban planning, taking into account the sustainable urban development trend promoted by the new European strategies and also the fact that in the last decade we have been confronted to an intensive land artificialization due to the extensive phenomenon of urban sprawl. Thus, the purpose of this research is to analyze the spatial distribution of green urban spaces in the Central and Eastern European post-socialist countries, members of the European Union, as well as the population accessibility to the green urban spaces. The main question of the study is how the EU urban planning policies has influenced the countries from the Central and Eastern Europe in maintaining and developing the urban green spaces. Do they assure an equitable accessibility to the urban green spaces for all the population in their fastest developing cities of their countries – the capitals? Or are there spatial disparities in what concerns their location patterns? Using a quantitative methodology, doubled by the use of GIS tools and statistics, this research aims to question the eventual typologies regarding the spatial distribution of green spaces as well as their quantitative aspects (their number, the area etc.)