Development of indicators for UGI and environmental justice in the Munich Northern Region

In the last decades, much attention was given to making inner cities liveable again, often with success. Inner cities have been greened and became attractive living quarters for the affluent. Yet, it also pushed less desirable functions and the less affluent to peri-urban areas.
Often peri-urban areas and its inhabitants have to deal with multiple burdens: social-cultural, environmental as well as a lack of access and availability of qualitative green spaces which represent a focal point for providing ecosystem services and opportunities for inclusiveness. However, for the fruition of green open space this requires considering various aims and expectations as well as cultural backgrounds and socio-economic situations of the different individuals who live and work in these areas. We aim are to better understand the correlation between social-cultural patterns, biocultural diversity, and green open spaces on different scale levels.
The City and Region of Munich tries to cope with the downsides of its success. The Bavarian State Office for Statistics and Data has estimated for the region of Munich a growth of 3.2 million inhabitants by 2035. By 2030, the City of Munich expects to have about 1.72 million inhabitants, which is an increase of almost 15% from 2013 (Munich: Future Perspective, 2013). Consequently, the pressure on housing, in particular on affordable housing is increasing and with it the need for qualitative green public spaces as these green areas are becoming more crucial to maintain the quality of life.
In our study, we analyse the region of Munich on three different scale levels: (i) region level with a particular focus on the northern part of Region between Freising and Munich; (ii) Munich city level; and (iii) district level zooming in on the northern district of Feldmoching. Currently, this area, situated within the urban fringe, has a more peri-urban character with a crossover from functions, rural and urban features as well as intensive built-up and natural areas. Yet, as recently as March 2017 this areas has been designated as the latest urban expansion area of Munich, which means this area will in the coming decades shift from peri-urban area to urban area. For each of these three levels, we make use of a spatial analysis based on indicators from Green Surge research on biocultural diversity (Vierikko et al., 2015). Input for the study comes from a data collection from local census, land use spatial maps and desktop studies to address the indicators for biocultural diversity. Results from the different scale levels about availability of green spaces, urban growth and social pattern will be intersect in order to define indicators for the liveability of the area in the prospective of its growth.