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 »
Many readers of this blog will know that we often write about the role of parks within smart growth for their social, environmental and economic benefits. And this relates to climate change as well (see this earlier post). They help filter air and water, provide spaces for people to stretch, socialize and recreate in compact, [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure, planning | 3 Comments »
The community garden movement, born in the 1970s, has gained momentum throughout the past decade. According to the Trust for Public Land’s Center for City Park Excellence, there are at least 650 community gardens under park agency jurisdiction alone in major U.S. cites. Jeffrey Hou, Julie Johnson, and Laura Lawson provided insight on the movement [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure, planning, renewal | Tagged: community gardening, seattle | Leave a Comment »
ASLA’s The Dirt recently covered the 2010 Dumbarton Oaks Garden and Landscape Study Symposium. This year’s focus was “Designing Wildlife Habitats,” which looked at ways to preserve biodiversity in rural and urban environments. America’s cities are an appropriate laboratory for such a movement, given that many city-dwellers’ encounters with wildlife are limited to rats, raccoons [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure, planning | Tagged: connectivity, mental health, sustainability | Leave a Comment »
Commemorating the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognized 22 of New York’s residents and community organizations for their work in environmental protection with its “Environmental Quality Award.” Among those recognized were a handful of outstanding organizations who work in New York City’s parks and public spaces, including GrowNYC, Brooklyn’s El [...]
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How can parks fit into the smart growth movement? Kaid Benfield, director of NRDC’s Smart Growth Program writes two nice posts about what he calls the environmental paradox of smart growth. He notes in his first post: Environmental impacts will occur with development; to limit them, we must concentrate them, and this can mean increasing [...]
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Great cities have great parks, and great parks have great horticulture. One person who knows the most about this is Lynden Miller, the director of the Central Park Conservatory Garden and public garden designer of many of New York City’s other outdoor oases. Drawing on lessons learned from revitalizing the Conservatory Garden, Madison Square Park, [...]
Filed under: facilities, green infrastructure, maintenance/management, partnerships | Tagged: books, horticulture | 1 Comment »
There’s a good deal of activity going on in Congress that could benefit parks and public spaces in cities, with two recent efforts showing up that have promise and would help cities in different but both very good ways: Smart Growth Around America describes the Green Infrastructure for Clean Water Act, which would incentivize and [...]
Filed under: funding, green infrastructure, planning, transportation | Tagged: federal policy | Leave a Comment »
One emerging trend in cities is to turn small underused or under-appreciated spaces into green features or social spaces. Just look at New York City’s Plaza Program, which has transformed spaces through planters, public art, chairs and benches on rights-of-way that had previously been traffic lanes or just barren asphalt areas. New York City transportation [...]
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The greenest cities are the most compact cities, says David Owen in his recent book Green Metropolis, pointing to New York City’s urban form as a model for sustainability. For the most part, Owen is right on and the book is a good read. Citing high transit use, walkability and tightly packed buildings, he notes [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure, planning, transportation | Tagged: david owen, density | 1 Comment »
