The benefits of greenspace

Copenhagen is a gorgeous city, one full of green space and natural settings. City life is often hectic and over scheduled; many inhabitants come home from a long day in desperate need of an escape from stress. Urban green spaces, especially those of Copenhagen, are a great way to relieve this stress and find peace in a relaxing environment. Copenhagen has done a great job in making green space a priority in the every day life of a city dweller. Their goal to make a green space accessible to everyone in the city by a 15 minute walk has not yet been achieved; despite this fact, they are very close to reaching their goal. The benefits of ample green space are endless and can be categorized into three main subsections: social, ecological and economic.

Social benefits include the ability of children to interact with their peers from a very young age. They begin to develop these skills much earlier than those children who are confined. To social interactions within their classrooms and indoor play dates. As we saw at many of the urban larks today, there are many playgrounds and tools that allow children to use their imagination with their peers. Much of the playground equipment in the Danish parks is very interesting. For example there were ships, hollow televisions and countless other types of equipment to incite inspiration in the minds of Copenhagen's developing youth.

From an ecological standpoint, Copenhagen is an extremely green city. The urban green spaces of this city allow Copenhagen to decrease its CO2 emissions tremendously by having such a large volume of plant life within the boundaries of the city. This has been accomplished in many ways, some much less obvious than others. Although there are a plethora of parks and recreation spaces, there are also garden rooftops hidden throughout the city. These interesting creations reduce energy consumption significantly by proving heat and cooling insulation to the buildings that they reside atop.

Economically, green spaces give the areas where they are located many proactive advantages. For example, by having such a green friendly point of view, many residents of Copenhagen own bikes instead of cars or they utilize public transportation in their daily commute to the office. This mind set has decreased the number of cars on the road to such an insignificant number that parking lots across the city of Copenhagen have been removed and parks and other types of green spaces have replaced them. By decreasing this demand for parking, Copenhagen as a city has been able to change the function of there urban spaces to provide its residents with more opportunity to enjoy the outdoors and have more scenic views after those long days in the office. Further, urban green spaces have proven to be a great tool in reducing issues with mental health and other related topics. This in turn has decreased the every day costs of health care, improving the overall health of Copenhagen residents by a significant amount. Although being such a green city has a very large price tag, it has proven to be worth the sacrifice in the grand scheme of things; so much so that in several surveys, residents of Copenhagen have been proven to be some of the happiest people in the world.

Danish Prehistoric Greenspaces

The Danish culture is one that has grown tremendously throughout its history. I believe that this fact is mostly due to their ability to adapt to significant change within their environment. They were also able to utilize the resources available to them.  As humans, the Danes were able to survive many times over because when faced with issues with their environment, they chose to overcome those obstacles opposed to giving up and dying out.

The rolling hills and flat lands of the Danish landscape have made the country a mostly agricultural environment although this was the case in prehistoric times. During this era, the Danes were considered hunters and gatherers. They would travel from place to place following their food as the herds migrated toward more favorable weather conditions. A prime example was when their primary food source, the rain deer, migrated north. They traveled so far north that it became impractical for the Danes to follow in pursuit and they eventually stopped chasing the rain deer altogether. The rain deer were able to do so because of their fur coat composed of hollow hairs allowing them to withstand the cold temperatures of the north. Since the Danes were not the type of people to sit down and starve to death, they found a new food source known as the aurochs and continued on with their lives as hunter gatherers. But with everything, all good things must come to an end eventually, and years down the road the aurochs became extinct. The Danes were once again faced with a choice; they could either find another source of food to follow from one area of the country to the next or to try something new. In the end they decided to try something that they had never done before and settle down and inadvertently mark the start of an agricultural society.

              

When the Danes made the transition from hunter gatherers to farmers, they utilized the flat nature of the land to plant crops and form a more stable food source to support their following. They used the fertile soil of the plains to establish farms and from there communities began to form and more and more individuals began to settle in these areas. Daily life for the Danes became dramatically different when they changed the way that they used the land. They began raising cattle soon after and no longer needed to worry about what area of the land they would need to travel to in order to survive.  As a result of the creation of a new civilization, the land was deforested by the Danes and the landscape was sculpted to suit the needs of a farming community. As a result, many of the rolling hills were flattened to accommodate favorable conditions for farming.

The Danish are a very innovative people and their ability to adapt to the offerings of the land proves that the landscape does affect them in a very significant and vice versa. Over their several thousand years of existence, they have changed their lifestyle to suit the needs and desires of their people based off of the offerings of their land. They have successfully adapted to a great deal of changes and their ability to do so proves that the landscape can have a profound effect on their survival.