Look, don’t touch: the limits of public green spaces
Hey there, it’s Gustav from the Design team. Let’s take a stroll through the parks and gardens of German cities – and see how much space they get compared to the traffic.
I recently watched a documentary series about cars and their impact on everyday life. One part struck me in particular: what urban spaces used to look like before the introduction of cars. Roads and squares seemed to have changed from shared spaces to traffic corridors, where social life is more of an obstacle than a feature. Kids played in the streets, people crossed the road wherever they wanted, and social life happened right there, on the street.
According to the documentary, many rules and laws were added to keep the traffic flowing – like “jaywalking” which became a crime – and parents were urged to keep their children out of the way. It gave me the impression that what had once been part of daily public life slowly became off-limits.
That is something I’ve been interested in for a while: good urbanism. I ride my bike every day through the urban area of Potsdam, I care about public spaces, and I often notice how many of them feel commercial or restricted. That made me curious about how Potsdam compares to other German cities in terms of traffic and non-commercial space.
For this comparison, I chose three datasets from the Statistische Ämter des Bundes und der Länder. They track a wide range of land use categories, but usually mix commercial and non-commercial areas, which makes it hard to differentiate between them. The only sub-category that comes close to non-commercial spaces is “gardens and green spaces”.
Even that comparison isn't perfect. In Potsdam, the biggest park – Sanssouci – is stunning, but it’s also a historical site, and the rules make sure it stays that way. No stepping on grass, no riding your bike, no playing with water, no tree climbing for the kids. All perfectly understandable for preservation, but it means Sanssouci feels more like an open-air museum than a public space. It attracts plenty of tourists, but for locals looking to simply enjoy their free time, the rules are the same: look, but don’t touch.
There are other parks in Potsdam that actually feel more open, like Volkspark in the north, where you can walk freely, sit on grass, play with water, and even climb trees. But it isn’t really free either. Every day of the year, there is a small entrance fee, and in the summer, it often hosts events that require buying an extra ticket just to get inside. Usable, yes — but only if you can afford it.
I started this piece with an interest in how my own city compares to others in Germany when it comes to public, non-commercial space. The data suggests the situation might not be as bad as I first thought. But the caveats remain: parks that feel more like museums, spaces that cost money to enter, and rules that make them less enjoyable.
That’s why the data on green spaces doesn't tell the full story, and why there’s still more to be done to make sure public spaces are truly public. Still, I’m lucky to live in a city that is, at least on paper, quite green.
I hope you enjoyed the trip into the greenery as much as me, and that you might see public spaces of cities a bit different now. Join us next week for a chart by Shaylee!
Datasets from the Statistische Ämter des Bundes und der Länder used:
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