Strategies for Day-Use Recreation Management in West Germany's Urban Forests

Abstract

A change in the emphasis of outdoor recreation activities toward more 'self-mobile' sports has created new needs and hence greater challenges for urban forest recreation resource planners in the United States. German city planners and forest managers, facing these same problems, have successfully developed a system to provide urban forest recreation for the vast population of Germany despite the relatively limited space. German planning strategies include the underlying themes of 'multiple use' and 'people management' in the peripheral city forests and the theme of multiple recreational outlets within the inner-city areas. These strategies may provide an attractive model for American recreation planners who also have as their goals creating cities not only ecologically sound, but which radiate a character of 'livibility' in urban life.