green belt. Swathe of undeveloped land (e.g. agricultural land, forest, heath-land, wild country, etc.) around a town or city, protected to prevent it being built on. Loudon proposed such a benefit to London, partly to contain its sprawl, as early as the 1820s, and the idea was subsequently adopted by the promoters of garden cities and New Towns. The green belt around London preserved large areas of countryside in several counties where otherwise development would have been difficult to resist. See stein, clarence.

Bibliography

Me. Miller (1992, 2002)

green belt Area of open land maintained as a barrier between adjoining built-up areas. The concept of green belts was first put forward (1898) by Ebenezer Howard in his plans for Britain's garden cities. Howard used them to distinguish residential from industrial sections. Green belts provide protection from factories and intensive commercial areas.