Urban green spaces and urban forests as impulsors of sustainable cities: Case study Jardines de la Hacienda park

Abstract

The current document addresses the relationship between the sustainable cities and ecosystem services from an economic perspective. This was performed by comparing the economic value of the ecosystem services provided by an urban green space and the public expenditure in related subjects of the City of Querétaro, Mexico, in order to analyze the aptitude of the urban green spaces in public expenditure to direct the urban spaces to sustainability. The analysis was elaborated through a spatial and economic study using mixed techniques of forestry, Geographic Information Systems of the iTree software and simple statistics taking the Jardines de la Hacienda Park, Querétaro as the study area. As a result, it was obtained that the monetary value of the park 12.7 million of Mexican pesos, figure that represents the 0.92% of the Total Municipal Budget in 2017, last year reported during the preparation of the study. This demonstrates the feasibility of urban green areas to route the developing cities to a framework of sustainability and improve the quality of life of the population.