Giving up the singular focus on density and car-dependency as markers of suburban development, allows us to move into a more complex conceptual landscape to describe what is actually on both sides of the greenbelts that hedge in urban agglomerations.
Roger Keil, academic lead for the Global Suburbanisms Major Collaborative Research Initiatives (MCRI) project, has noted in a small essay on the nature of greenbelts that they are not necessarily as contiguous as we might like to think of them, nor are they universally conceived of in the same way. In this sense, are greenbelts to be thought of as boundaries limiting the urban, or as areas of negotiated land use?
Read more at the main Global Suburbanisms website: Boundaries: Shackling suburbia or outlining the post-metropolis?