Green Densities – Urban core area and associated bulding stock, population and vegetation in the urban regions of Berlin (Germany) and Qingdao (China).

Recreational green spaces are associated with human thriving and well-being. During the COVID-19 pandemic a spotlight has been shed on the importance of these spaces such as recreational green in close proximity to the place of residence. In a novel approach, we apply a multiscale analysis using different density measurements, correlations between density and green space, as well as the influence of architectural form and spatial structures to understand the accessibility of recreational green on the micro-scale of a building block. For this purpose, we use geospatial-data analysis and in-depth neighborhood studies to compare two cities in Asia and Europe revealing different ways of organizing density in the built environment and identifying a derivation of approaches for sustainable development in dense urban regions. The geodatabase includes information on building footprints, derived settlement units and core urban areas for the Berlin-Brandenburg urban region and Qingdao urban region and population grid. Vegetation has been isolated from satellite images using NDVI for both study regions, neighborhood site borders, neighborhood site buildings, neighborhood site vegetation and calculated green densities. The research was done by SpACE Lab at ISU (TU Braunschweig) in collaboration with the College of Urban Planning (CAUP) at Tongji University Shanghai (China).