Peter Harnik discussed his new book Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities on The Brian Lehrer Show. Listen to the 11 minute radio clip online at WNYC. Berlin’s newest park, the former Tempelhof Airport, continues to receive press as an unprogrammed, minimally designed, great new greenspace (Los Angeles Times) New bike valet program for NYC’s SummerStage events at East River Park [...]
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The New York Times ran a story on how the city is attracting retirees and making the city more amenable to seniors. Among other items such as light timing at intersections to allow more walking time and places to get a drink of water, the article refers a few times to how parks are a [...]
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Cities around the world are shutting down streets for pedestrian, cyclist and mass transit thoroughfares and plazas, wrote John Mattson in an article in Scientific American last month. Case in point is New York City’s move to shut down portions of Broadway around Times and Herald Squares. These car-free areas in the heart of Manhattan [...]
Filed under: planning, transportation | Tagged: streets | 1 Comment »
The New York Times had a nice piece the other day on the city’s 50 plus fountains. If there is any quintessential park design feature, it may be the fountain. They were included in earlier plazas (think Rome), the larger parks of the 1800s such as Central Park and all of its cousins acro0ss the [...]
Filed under: facilities, funding | Tagged: fountains | 1 Comment »
Let’s all have elevated rail line parks. Chicago, Philadelphia, Jersey City and Detroit all look to have their own version of New York’s High Line Park (NY Times) And speaking of the High Line, Phase II is scheduled to open Spring 2011 (The Dirt) Plans for a total smart-growth city in China have halted for [...]
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We asked Peter Harnik to answer some questions about his new book, Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities, that covers how cities can plan for parks as well as how to create them in “all built-out” settings. Your book addresses many age-old questions about parks and cities. Let’s start with the big one — [...]
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Anahad O’Connor of the New York Times tests the claim that exposure to plants and parks can boost immunity. The finding: yes. According to the article: For those who can take the heat and cope with the pollen, spending more time in nature might have some surprising health benefits. In a series of studies, scientists [...]
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The US Department of Transportation this week awarded nearly $300 in grants as part of the administration’s livability initiative to better coordinate transportation, housing and commercial development investments to serve the people living in those communities. The funds come from the Urban Circulator Grant Program and the Bus and Bus Livability Grant Program. Streetcars were [...]
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A new study shows that the best way to minimize driving may be through developing around destinations accessible to jobs, shopping and recreation — and coupling that location with walkable block sizes, a good street network and mixed uses. The report was a result of a “meta analysis” by Reid Ewing and Robert Cervero, that [...]
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Ellen Dunham-Jones spoke in a TED presentation on retrofitting suburbia. If you’re interested in how metro areas can retrofit their suburbs into places that turn underused parking lots, mall sites and other moribund areas into walkable places with shops, housing, parks and accessible transit, this video is a worthwhile twenty minutes. In particular, Dunham-Jones mentions [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure, planning, renewal | Tagged: suburbs | 1 Comment »
