- The Sustainability of Athens through its Atmosphere Upgrading    49 kb by    Roido, Mitoula & Mihalena, Evanthia | rmitoula@panafonet.gr    Short Outline Nowadays, in the light of the total restoration of the city of Athens, because of the Olympic Games, a unique opportunity is offered to confront the air pollution problem Abstract Athens, the Greek capital, seems to be a city which has grown by itself without any control, State intervention and with minimal planning. The policy followed includes breaking the rules of urban – planning design, where those existed, the over-exploitation of space, the total lack of any design and the government tolerance towards enroaching of land. There was thus created a city with no open spaces, with scarce greenery, over – constructions, a city which downgrades the quality of the life of millions of residents in the Attiki Basin. Athens has come to a point of having just 2,5% of greenery and 5% public open spaces reaching the limits of suffocation while the millions of its citizens suffer from sound pollution, nefos and traffic problems. At the same time, the attempts of harmonizing the functional needs of the citizen with various business activities at the public spaces of the capital, has proved extremely problematic and has led the various governments to a dead end. The pollution of the atmosphere is first and foremost the main negative factor greatly contributing to the downgrading of the Athens environment and threatening the human health of Athenians and its visitors. Due to the great number of vehicles used in the center of the city huge quantities of unburnt HC and NOx are emitted. Furthermore, during the rush hours, carbon monoxide and fumes are produced in large quantities. The combination of the phenomenon of global warming and the long periods of sun-shine in the city create an atmosphere difficult to bear. The past few years, however, photochemic smog has been reduced and the atmosphere of Athens has been improved because of the measures taken by the State. (eg. control in fume emissions, the use of non-sulphur fuels and unleaded petrol). The downgrading of the atmosphere, a condition the Athenians have gradually got used to, is due to the disappearance of open spaces the increase in the use of concrete, big constructions preventing the creation of vital currents of air and mainly the reduction of green spaces. The “concrete” threat is imminent at the Basin of Attiki, a threat appearing to get bigger in the forthcoming years with the “excuse” of organising the 2004 Olympic Games and is expected to have devastating effects to the existing atmosphere problems in Athens. Nowadays, in the light of the total restoration of the city because of the Olympic Games, a unique opportunity is offered to confront the air pollution problem which troubling Athens the last decades. Athens should be protected as it is demanded by its history, its “dignity” and its special physiognomy. Who can doubt that the blue clear sky is not perhaps the greatest physiognomy element of Athens. Keywords Athens, sustainability, atmosphere Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2002: The Pulsar Effect   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper