**5. Benefits of urban green spaces**

Urban green spaces have many functions and benefits. These functions and benefits are important for to improve life quality in the urban areas. Green spaces provide linkage between people (who lives in the urban) and nature. So, these areas are very important for the urban people.

Urban green spaces are important as functions and meanings for (Alm, 2007):


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functional network of green spaces is important for the maintenance of ecological aspects of sustainable urban landscape, with greenways and use of plant species adapted to the local

condition with low maintenance cost, self-sufficient and sustainable (Haq, 2011)

Fig. 6. Green areas are important for biodiversity, Samsun, Turkey.

Using vegetation to reduce the energy costs of cooling buildings has been increasingly recognized as a cost effective reason for increasing green space and tree planting in temperate climate cities. Plants improve air circulation, provide shade and they transpire. This provides a cooling effect and contributes to lower air temperatures. A park of 1. 2 km by 1. 0 km can produce an air temperature between the park and the surrounding city that is detectable up to 4 km away. A study in Chicago has shown that increasing tree cover in the city by 10% may reduce the total energy for heating and cooling by 5 to 10% (Haq, 2011)

Areas of the city with enough greenery are aesthetically pleasing and attractive to both residents and investors. The beautification of Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, was one of the factors that attracted important foreign investments that assisted rapid economic growth. Still, indicators are very strong that green spaces and landscaping increase property values and financial re-turns for land developers, of between 5% and 15% depending on the

**5.3 Economic and aesthetic benefits** 

Energy Savings

Property Value

type of Project (Haq, 2011).

The benefits of urban green areas were described as detailed below under the main headings.
