The Three Pillars Of Environmental Sustainability

2.4.2 Environmental Sustainability and Urban greening

The meaning of Environmental Sustainability is deeply rooted in Morelli’s concept of the three pillars of sustainability shown in Figure 2.4. Figure 2.4 (b): The Three Pillars of Sustainability (Morelli, 2011)

According to the above concept for complete sustainability problem to be solved, all three pillars of sustainability must be sustainable (Morelli, 2011). Of the three pillars, environmental sustainability is regarded as the most important one and if it is not promoted, the other pillars cannot be made strong because they are dependent on the greater system of the environment in which they exist (Haq, 2011). Whether one considers sustainability to exist as a

Many urban green spaces are not connected to one another and are easily threated and overwhelmed by other urban land uses dominating in those areas. The same view is shared by Varese and Bertelli (2001) who are of the opinion that the failure of greening policies in many cities is due to the fact that urban green spaces are too often conceived as a mere aggregation of single green units existing episodically, and independent from each other. As a consequence, those who work tirelessly to conserve, develop and improve urban green spaces are frustrated due to lack of progress (Kronenberg, 2014). In addition, Varese and Bertelli (2001: 14) go on to say, “Unlike the traditional urban planning which used the instrument of green belts as static borders used to limit city growth, the green network of today shows a lack of versatility in linking up different ecological elements of a city”. If well connected, green spaces provide good quality view in the design of such networks and result in the increased attractiveness of respective urban areas (Anderson et al.,

This can be attributed to socio-economic factors influencing people’s recreational attitudes. Some studies have noted that people in low income households are more likely to adopt low levels of activity and are least well served by affordable facilities. On the other hand affluent residents are likely to have close proximity to different types of facilities. This unequal distribution of green space could account for some of the cross-cultural and socioeconomic variations in the use of different green spaces (Morris, 2003; Maheswaran,