Innovative perspectives on the urban-rural interface: the Amsterdam Extension Plan, the County of London and the Greater London Plans, and the Copenhagen Finger Plan

Abstract

The urban expansion develops in a rhythm and scale without precedents, becoming a topic of world scope with social, environmental and economic consequences. Currently it is difficult to establish a clear limit between urban and rural. The territories of urban rural interface (I-UR) have the value of being able to act as articulators between the rural and the urban system. As a result of this phenomenon, this article tries to establish a strategy to see how the I-UR space is planned. This is organized through the study of urban plans that raise an innovative urban - rural relation: The plan of expansion of Amsterdam, the County of London plan and the Greater London plan, and the Copenhagen plan. The work presents a topological look on these emblematic documents. In these plans, there are three types of solutions: The establishment of a space of I-UR framework where the rural soil is designed by the same precision as the urban one, a "green belt" that sets a limit to what is urban and a system of "green wedges" which penetrate into the city.