Paris ranks last in a new 'green cities' rating
As reported by RFI, a team of American scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated how many trees residents of different cities around the world can see while walking along the streets. Based on Google Maps images, the Senseable City Lab created a so-called 'green map' of cities – Treepdia. A special algorithm developed in the lab calculates the so-called 'Green view index' (GVI) of cities, overlaying it on Google Maps.
Instead of the traditional method of calculating the area of parks and squares in an urban environment, this American lab proposed a new way to assess cities by the amount of green spaces. After all, not every city dweller sees trees in everyday life: on the way to work, taking children to school, or shopping at the store.
According to the Treepdia classification, the 'greenest' city in the world turned out to be Singapore, whose 'green index' is 29.3%. This means that every resident's view opens up a landscape consisting of one-third green spaces. In second place are Canadian Vancouver and Australian Sydney with identical GVI of 25.9%. In third place is Johannesburg (23.6%). In Europe, the greenest megacities are Frankfurt (21.5%), Geneva (21.4%), and Amsterdam (20.6%).
The 'green map' currently includes only 27 cities, of which Paris ended up in last place with the weakest index of 8.8%. The creators of the map point out that 'a chronic lack of greenery in the everyday landscape of city dwellers' leads to increased stress and related diseases. They hope that the index they developed will be included in the system for assessing the level of well-being of cities.