Abstract
In the urban-rural fringe areas of numerous large Southeast Asian cities, residential districts are facing serious environmental problems due to a lack of proper land-use plans and urban greenery management schemes. The preparation of green spaces is essential for the amelioration of many residents' living environments. Despite this, the spatial and functional conditions of residential green spaces are vague in particular; green spaces inside dominant gated subdivisions have been rarely examined. For this study, we focused on green spaces prepared within subdivisions in the urban fringes of Bangkok, Thailand and examined spatial distribution, quantity and institutional backgrounds of these green spaces. We found that legal obligations to a housing developers and rising market demands for the preparation of green spaces have a strong influence on the currently increasing number of in-subdivision green spaces. We propose that it is necessary to more strictly implement a legal framework to allocate in-subdivision green spaces, as well as to develop comprehensive management schemes in dealing with both in- and out-subdivision green spaces.
