The New York Times just ran a story about the increasing use of fees to gain revenue by local governments, ranging from trade licenses to public parks. This issue has been around for a while. As government has devolved down to the local level, these budgets have found themselves strained in the last twenty years. [...]
Filed under: funding, maintenance/management | Tagged: fees | Leave a Comment »
We get this question a lot, and there are a lot of meanings people use or perceive. For the The Trust for Public Land’s survey of city park systems, the general answer is that a park is anything set aside for the public from natural areas to plazas to trails to neighborhood parks. Taken all [...]
Filed under: planning | Tagged: research | Leave a Comment »
Urban naturalist leads education efforts for New York City parks. (VOA) “Parks and green space make our communities better places to live. And that’s what smart growth is all about.” (Smart Growth Around America) Placemaking through zoning. Can parks be considered in this, too? (Planetizen) Replacing Central Park with an airport: genius! (Manhattan Airport Foundation) [...]
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TPL President Will Rogers pens a piece for the Huffington Post, linking parks to health, a connection that many studies have already made but one that is not always recognized. An excerpt: These results come as a little-noticed provision in proposed federal health care legislation would provide billions for park infrastructure improvements. The health benefits [...]
Filed under: health | Tagged: federal policy | Leave a Comment »
Last week, TPL released the results from its annual survey of park systems in the nation’s 77 largest cities. We thought it worthy to delve into the data a bit in a couple of posts. We’ll start off with acreage, a measure that can be looked at a couple of different ways, using the top [...]
Filed under: planning | Tagged: research | 3 Comments »
Jonathon Rose talks about building a neighborhood that is urban yet connected to nature in the below video. Here’s a quote from Rose in the video: Our view of how one “biophilia-izes” a city, or greens a city starts with the individual building – the building should have green roofs, green back yards and be [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure, planning | Leave a Comment »
The NY Times 36 Hours travel series goes to Oslo, visiting parts of this city’s vibrant public realm, from the pedestrian street Karl Johans Gate, its new Opera House, redeveloped waterfront and finally, the 80-acre Vigeland Sculpture Park. The…park (official website) is the work of the sculptor Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943), who not only designed the [...]
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Anthony Flint of the Lincoln Institute and author of the recently released book on Jane Jacobs pens a piece for the Boston Globe outlining a blueprint for a good city, using the lessons from both Jacobs and her adversary Robert Moses. Flint specifically points out the role of increasing density in making housing more affordable [...]
Filed under: economics, planning | Tagged: density, jane jacobs | Leave a Comment »
An article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer describes efforts in that city between residents and the parks department to make their parks better places. In March, more than 100 people packed a room at the Lake City Library, concerned about violent crime and persistent drug deals in the area. The neighborhood’s Little Brook Park had [...]
Filed under: renewal | Tagged: seattle | 1 Comment »
A new study shows that walkable neighborhoods with nearby amenities, from retail to parks, have higher home values. The study (pdf) was conducted by CEOs for Cities and reports that: After controlling for all of these other factors that are known to influence housing value, our study showed a positive correlation between walkability and housing [...]
Filed under: economics, planning | Tagged: research | 1 Comment »
