Great pictures and profile of Roberto Burle Marx, designer of major parks and the famous tile sidewalks of Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro (NY Times) With development pressure off, open spacers flex their dollars (Ctr for Public Integrity) Streetsblog San Francisco tackles the city’s privately owned public spaces (Streetsblog SF) The actual Little Rock and [...]
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This post on ULI’s Ground Floor blog goes into the data showing reductions in vehicle miles traveled, or VMT and increases in transit ridership. Basically, VMT is going down more than transit ridership is growing. Kaid Benfield follows up on Robert Dunphy’s ULI post and makes the point that compact communities can allow people to [...]
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Two years ago the Center for City Park Excellence released an article and study on landfills that have been converted into city parks, of which there are at least one in just about every big city. Two noted parks are Boston’s 100-acre Millennium Park and New York City’s soon to open 2200-acre Fresh Kills Park [...]
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A city park (and our National Mall) fills full of more than one million people for inauguration day.
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Some may be wondering if the new Obama administration has appointed its director for a new Office of Urban Policy. As far as we can tell, it hasn’t yet. But according to Bob Kapstatter of the New York Daily News, it is waiting for the urban-related cabinet approvals. One of our deeper Deep Throats has [...]
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Some more information from City Parks Alliance supporting funding that could go towards city parks in the upcoming stimulus package…. Urban parks are critical to creating sustainable, livable and vibrant cities. Numerous studies have shown that parks support public health, workforce development, the economy, the environment, education and community cohesion. Yet urban parks are severely [...]
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The inaguration of Barack Obama as our 44th President is set to bring millions to our National Mall. What a better time to highlight the troubles of our nation’s front yard, and the opportunities a new administration and stimulus package could bring. Christopher Knight of the LA Times penns a piece explaining the issues: Tragically, [...]
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Over at the PPS blog Making Spaces, Ethan Kent has a nice post up about Ljubljana, Slovenia’s successful efforts to create vibrant public spaces in the cold winter. Says Ethan: Temperatures average below freezing during the darkest month of the year in Slovenia. However, the country’s public spaces are overflowing thanks to a government program [...]
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On a given city block, what is the revenue potential of a creating a new park as compared to that of new residential or commercial building(s)? Say your city has a downtown parking lot. The average value of the adjacent developed properties is $2 million per property. The city is short on downtown park space [...]
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