Open space planning models: A review of approaches and methods

Land use planning systems, worldwide and in Israel, are now taking into account environmental, social, economic and cultural developments. These systems are intended to solve issues related to the conflict between developmental requirements and the need to preserve cultural and natural resources. The importance of open spaces is increasingly recognized when addressing these issues, while their special characteristics affect planning decisions. These characteristics led over the years to the emergence of various approaches and planning methods, guided by essentially different concepts of open space priority functions. The purpose of this article is to review commonly used models of open space planning and their guiding principles, point out some of their merits and limitations as planning tools, and organize these in a comparative classification framework according to their potential use as a response to the demands for open space and conservation of existing natural values.