Paper

Challenges of Metropolitan Scale Green Infrastructure: The Sydney Green Grid

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Abstract

In 2017, the Government Architect of New South Wales launched a draft policy known as Greener Places (Government Architect NSW 2017a). The new policy is underpinned by the Sydney Green Grid (SGG), an initiative pitched as transformative in its power to promote sustainable development, improve connectivity and enhance green infrastructure (GI) networks across the metropolitan region and the state (Government Architect NSW 2017b). How successful will the SGG be in delivering “greener places” for urban areas across the state?

This paper exams the claims of the transformative power of the SGG with a focus on two related objectives. First, because the SGG is predicated on principles of GI, a brief literature review highlights the potential challenges of GI as a planning strategy. Secondly, the paper explores how the SGG relates (if at all) to precedents for metropolitan green space planning precedents in Sydney—what in fact will the SGG transform? The paper extends previous research on metropolitan scale green space planning in Sydney by bringing the SGG into focus and introducing a critical perspective derived from the GI literature. The findings reveal that in Sydney the coherence of landscape concepts and principles underpinning the metropolitan planning strategies is difficult to sustain.

Keywords: Green Infrastructure, Green Grid, Sydney

How to Cite:

Evans, C. B., (2019) “Challenges of Metropolitan Scale Green Infrastructure: The Sydney Green Grid”, Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning 6(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.7275/hg99-2q37