parks

public spaces in Beijing

The role of public space can vary greatly from city to city. In Beijing, public space focuses on health and community, a reflection of Chinese beliefs in balance, prevention and longevity dating back thousands of years.[read more]

Cities have long been seen as the antithesis – or, at least, the absence – of nature. Yet in recent years, environmentalists started rethinking their long-held prejudices against urban areas. The rise of neighborhood-based environmental justice movements, beginning in the 1980’s, forced us to confront the human side of pollution and...[read more]

Residents in downtown Los Angeles are leaping for joy because a brand new park is coming to the revitalized historic core.  Spring Street Park, which broke ground last October, will be the first public park in the neighborhood.  According to the 2010 U.S. Census, 15,000 residents moved into downtown between 2000 and 2010,...[read more]

Robert Hammond is Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of Friends of the High Line, the non-profit conservancy that manages the High Line, a public park built atop an abandoned, elevated rail line on the west side of Manhattan. Hammond was awarded a Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome, as well as the Rockefeller Foundation’s...[read more]

The South Platte River has become a cherished recreational asset for residents and visitors to Denver. Thoughtful, visionary planning and public-private partnership have restored and transformed the city’s waterfront from what was once called an “urban dump” to refuge for wildlife and people alike. Local efforts to improve the river have...[read more]

The Trust for Public Land has released its most recent data on city park systems from across the country, showing that the 100 largest cities added more than 120 parks in the past year.Despite aggregate increases in acreage and facilities across the U.S., many city park departments are struggling with funding shortages. Operational...[read more]

As you might have guessed, we like Montreal's parks. In September, I wrote about my hike in parc du Mont-Royal. See more Mont-Royal photos at our Flickr page. Other enjoyable design elements of the city include its street tree gardens, (we first wrote about them in August 2010); small squares; and infrastructure. If you followed our Where in NYC? (Subway Series), you know we like subway art. Like NYC, Montreal's Metro stations house art.[read more]

I'll admit that I had no idea a reasonably large national park existed within the boundaries of New York City. Even after a short-lived but legitimate childhood obsession with national park trivia, and after having worked in a national park in Wyoming for a little while, this urban recreational area escaped me. That is until opening...[read more]

Strootman Landscape Architects, a Dutch firm, transformed a set of courtyards in a conventional office building in Arnhem into an escape for grown ups. There, playful, textural design elements are abstractions of iconic Dutch rural scenes. “Giant pebbles refer to a river beach, pines refer to...[read more]

Like the High Line Park in Chelsea, a new esplanade along New York City’s East River smartly reuses transportation infrastructure. However, instead of taking shape on top of existing rail infrastructure, this new promenade on the water follows a path directly underneath and along side the F.D...[read more]

An eighth excerpt from the recently released book published by Island Press called Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities. In this post, we look at some cities who have created parkland by adding community gardens to underutilized spaces. Community gardens are a vastly underappreciated and underprovided...[read more]

Mike Messner, the investment fund manager, is the primary force behind the budding “Redfields to Greenfields” movement, which has been picked up by more than 10 major cities in the U.S. The basic idea, which makes great sense, is to turn toxic real estate into parks, elevating nearby property values, and turning a downward spiral of...[read more]