Interesting article here on parks and public spaces in Abu Dhabi, a city of almost one million in the United Arab Emirates. Basically, the city was designed around the car, and now the most popular public spaces are not the parks but so-called “leftover spaces” that appear where people are but weren’t really meant to be people places. The parks, rather, are said to be ill-designed and ill-connected.
When you think of Central Park in New York City, or Bryant Park — the most used park in the world perhaps — it seems that there are two reasons for people being there: 1) features and uses that attract people, and are designed to do so; 2) good urban design connecting people to the parks; and 3) other people — that is, once people are there, more people will come (if you have 1 and 2, you most likely will get 3 automatically.)
In any case, the article seems to hit on these themes.
Filed under: planning Tagged: | connectivity, international
