Urban Public Space Management Outlook of Ahmedabad's Parks and Gardens: Framework to Evaluate the Performance of the Public Park

‘A measure of a city’s greatness is to be found in the quality of its public spaces, its parks and squares’ - said John Ruskin, illustrating the increasing urbanization in the world cities. With the growing population and rapid urbanization resulting in environmental degradation, the demand for urban green spaces for recreation and leisure are increasing but the resources remain static or might decrease. The per capita green spaces in the cities are decreasing where the representation of recreational spaces is nominal. The urban green recreational spaces are the centre of activities in the city. The parks and gardens are a part of the civic utility; its development, maintenance, up-gradation is the accountability of the department of gardens and parks in the city council. With the emerging practice of Public-Private Partnership (PPP) outsourcing of the public utilities for development, operation and maintenance is the common practice where the ownership rights of the infrastructure and property lie with the city council. The planning and creation of new green recreational places in the growing city which are accessible for the citizens to use become an extensive process. Hence to cater to the increasing demand, it is important to manage and maintain existing green infrastructure in the city in a sustainable manner. Urban green space management is inclusive of ecological, cultural, social, accessibility, comfort and available infrastructure of the space. The paper attempts to quantify the performance indicators of the urban green spaces specifically captivating the learnings of Ahmedabad as a case.