The objective of this ongoing research is to analyse the social potential of urban green spaces to create opportunities
to integrate youths, elderly people, foreigners, unemployed and other social groups into the urban life of large Swiss
agglomerations. Urban green-space data are linked with social demographic data for these particular social groups.
Three large cities in the different language regions of Switzerland have been selected for a comparative study: Geneva
(French-speaking), Lugano (Italian-speaking) and Zu¨ rich (German-speaking). The green-space data derived from
vector25, the digital landscape model in a vector format of the Swiss Federal Office of Topography, and the social
demographic data from the 1990 Swiss census are compiled for further processing with the geographical information
systems ARCINFO and ARCVIEW. In this way, a contribution to the development of a GIS-based research methodology
is made. The goal of this approach is to obtain a highly aggregated planning tool for urban forestry and green-space
development.