ИСТИНА

The current state, change and future prospects of green space at the examples of a Polish, a Russian and an Eastern German city are discussed. Urban green provides a complex picture in post-socialist cities across Europe: Due to strongly hierarchical, non-democratic societal structures and limited financial budgets during the period of state socialism, green spaces in cities were goods of very strict and top-down planning and low degree of participatory co-management. Political and economic transition after 1989 brought fundamental change to cities, their people, the urban societies and, associated, also to urban nature. This change embraces an improvement of air and water pollution, an ecological restoration of water courses in parts of the cities, but also more attention to urban green spaces as places for physical and mental recreation, aesthetics, urban history and biocultural diversity. It underlines the role of urban green for quality of life of urban population when looking at newly increasing air pollution by car traffic and related health problems, green has a specific and important role as nature-based solution against pollutants and respiratory diseases including asthma or breathing difficulties as well as skin, cardiovascular diseases and mental health problems.