The ongoing process of regional reform in Latvia involves the vision of both rural and urban territories. The nexus between the city and the countryside and inclusion of it into realistic policy is deemed a good approach for solving failures of the European cohesion policy. To study cohesion between rural and urban areas, there is a need to identify the meaning of two concepts – the city and the countryside. The field rural and urban territories interact is the regional spatial level. And to manage regional development the normative framework is important. Aim of the research is to find does the new regional reform in Latvia is in close cohesion with the New Urban Agenda, especially linkages of rural and urban. Development politics included in research tend to include a question regarding rural-urban interaction, but only in some points. Documents of the United Nations included in research provide a very clear definition of the actions to be taken to ensure cohesion between urban and rural territories. The next step would be to assess and understand how to achieve. The issues of creation and opportunities of cohesion have been discussed in Latvia. It is not clear does the ongoing regional reform in Latvia will achieve declared goals regarding rural-urban interaction after ongoing discussions with the local municipalities.

City residents do not always have an opportunity to visit larger parks or nature areas on a daily basis as the rhythm of their daily life does not allow them to spend enough time in a natural environment. More and more time is spent on the way to the place of work or home. As well as tourists on visiting the city use main streets as touristic routes. On the one hand, major central streets affect ecological balance of the city due to the heavy traffic and contamination from it, but on other hand, they are mostly visited public areas because of the public transport and various public buildings and touristic objects concentrated there. Thus, street green space plays an important role in the city landscape pattern and often requires much more diversity of plantings, humane and safer environment than other areas of the city. Street green space can be very limited especially in the centre of the city with dense building areas or places where historic pattern of buildings does not allow to expand green areas. But it is possible to find small green spaces or green pockets in several places along the street. Green pockets that developed as multifunctional, ecological and aesthetical green spaces can compensate insufficiency of street greenery. The socio-economically active, medium-size city of Rezekne in Latvia has been chosen as a pilot area for the assessment of potential to develop green pockets along main streets of the city. The central street of Rezekne is the main axis of the urban landscape which provides access to the city from other regions, although it is historic heritage area with active public life. Unfortunately, within the development of the city there were needs to increase the flow of the main street by reducing the green space. Therefore, it was not possible to develop classic street greenery of tree alleys. Due to the random spatial structure of buildings along the main street, there are open spaces of different size and shape between or in front of buildings. Those are appropriate for development of green spaces. The approach of green pockets was adapted for the main street of Rezekne as a tool for enhancing ecological, functional, social and aesthetic quality of street green space. As well as, this makes it possible to give the street landscape a diverse and multifunctional image and provide necessary functions and environment for residents and tourists. The aim of the article is to analyse problematic issues of the greenery of major central streets of Rezekne and present an approach of green pockets as a tool for their solving.

The role of the greenery in the urban environment is priceless – both for maintaining ecological balance, and for enhancing visually aesthetic quality, as well as home for small habitats and the key to urban identity. The development of greenery structures in a city or part of a city is often chaotic and spontaneous – developing greenery only for certain objects and not linking it with one another. Planning of greenery in the urban environment is influenced by several regulatory documents, which mainly focus on the preservation of the existing greenery structure and the restrictions on the planning of the greenery. Unfortunately, the detailed guidelines for the planning of the greenery are not sufficiently reflected in the existing normative documents. The concept of greenery is one of the tools for urban planning that, together with other planning tools (infrastructure, spatial planning, architectural design, urban planning, economic urban development planning, etc.), forms a single framework for urban planning tools that helps to develop urban environment smoothly and identify priorities. The aim of the research is to develop a model of the concept of greenery of urban areas, which in practice can be used on the Latvian scale, as the planning document of greenery in local governments. The development of greenery plans and concepts has become topical in recent years and more and more municipalities are interested in this planning tool, which helps to plan the distribution of finances for maintaining the structure of greenery and developing new structure. In the last ten years, four concepts of greenery for medium-sized cities have been developed in Latvia.

The common tendency in higher education is specialisation. Landscape has been subject of interest in sociology from its beginnings, and social aspects are one of mane characteristic parts of landscape. Even more – sociology is strong theoretical basis of landscape architecture. The research is made with aim to understand theoretical basis of landscape sociology as developing academic discipline. Methodology used in research is systematic literature review, which provides range of tools to identify connections in theory. Literature review was done to define landscape sociology as important academic discipline in higher education of landscape architecture. Landscape and sociology as academic disciplines have long history, but landscape sociology as separate discipline is still developing. It is important include landscape sociology in landscape architecture higher education.

In the modern world, with the development of technology, it becomes possible to create design art objects from the developed sketch to the implementation of the project in material using computer graphics. Thanks to vector graphics programs and the emergence of laser and milling equipment with numerical software (CNC), designers were able to transfer the drawing to the material using material cutting technology. The object of the study is vector graphics programs, laser and milling cutting technology. As a result of the study, the authors conclude that thanks to software products and the development of technologies and equipment, designers were able to simplify the process of making decorative products.