Growing Community Gardens in Cities

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Peter Harnik

An eighth excerpt from the recently released book published by Island Press called Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities. In this post, we look at some cities who have created parkland by adding community gardens to underutilized spaces. Community gardens are a vastly underappreciated and underprovided resource for cities, both at ground level and on rooftops. As reported [...]

Filed under: green infrastructure, programming, renewal | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Grapeland Water Park and Mary Bartelme Park Selected as July’s “Frontline Parks”

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Angelina Horn

Each month, City Parks Alliance recognizes two “Frontline Parks” to promote and highlight inspiring examples of urban park excellence, innovation, and stewardship across the country.  The program also seeks to highlight examples of the challenges facing our cities’ parks as a result of shrinking municipal budgets, land use pressures, and urban neighborhood decay. July’s Frontline [...]

Filed under: facilities, green infrastructure, partnerships, programming | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Houston Skatepark and Charles River Esplanade Selected as June’s “Frontline Parks”

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Angelina Horn

Each month, City Parks Alliance recognizes two “Frontline Parks“ to promote inspiring examples of urban park excellence, innovation and stewardship across the country in the face of shrinking municipal budgets, land use pressures and urban neighborhood decay. What does a daffy have in common with a downward dog? Both are moves you might see in [...]

Filed under: facilities, green infrastructure, partnerships, programming, renewal | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Secrets of the Private Sector: How Parks and Recreation Agencies Can Flex Their Marketing Muscles

Posted on June 15, 2011 by Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan

According to a survey by The Trust for Public Land’s Center for City Park Excellence, almost half of the nation’s largest park departments do not spend any money on public outreach. Counting those that do, the average amount spent on marketing comes to only 46 cents per resident per year. Is marketing a smart investment [...]

Filed under: economics, health, partnerships, programming | Tagged: , , , , , | 1 Comment »

“Dr. Park, I presume?”

Posted on February 3, 2011 by Ryan Donahue

This post looks at the role that doctors play in park prescription programs, while a later follow-up will look more deeply about the contributions of park departments that have partnered with clinics. The growing prevalence of obesity and illnesses related to inactivity underscores the importance of cooperation between the medical community and parks departments. This [...]

Filed under: health, partnerships, programming | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Dumpster Diving on New York’s Park Avenue

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Coleen Gentles

Credit: Alan Miles NYC (Flickr Feed) Of the many unique activities New York is known for, the most entertaining this summer involved closing roads and opening pools, specifically dumpster swimming pools.   For the third summer in a row, New York’s Department of Transportation presented the Summer Streets program, closing almost seven miles of posh Park [...]

Filed under: facilities, programming | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

London’s A-Mazing Trafalgar Square

Posted on August 27, 2010 by Coleen Gentles

Sometimes all it takes is an unusual piece of greenery to draw visitors to a part of town not very known on tourist maps. London, England’s Trafalgar Square temporarily received a laurel and thuja hedge maze at the foot of Nelson’s Column earlier this month as part of the West End Partnership’s summer marketing program.  The program [...]

Filed under: green infrastructure, international, programming | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Recreational Programs a Hot Commodity in Chicago

Posted on March 3, 2010 by Ben Welle

The Chicago Tribune describes the nearly crazed demand for the Chicago Park District’s recreational programming. Th article indicates that a rush to get into classes was happening in “thousands of homes across the city Monday, as parents frantically attempted to get their children into the 10-week spring classes including gymnastics ($47), basketball ($20) and children’s [...]

Filed under: economics, health, programming | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

More on Winter Parks

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Ben Welle

With snow falling everywhere east of the Missouri River, we thought it a good time to further mention some things that make parks lighten the load of winter’s cold and ice. Most of this actually involves embracing it. One example is the Winter Carnival or Festival. Whether it be St. Paul’s Winter Carnival, Ottawa’s Winterlude [...]

Filed under: programming | Tagged: | Leave a Comment »

The Rise of Soccer: What Does it Mean for Parks?

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Ben Welle

Andrew Turco of the Regional Plan Association has some good thoughts on accommodating soccer as it rises in popularity in the U.S.: Not only does this new population of soccer players put a certain type of new demand on grassy public space, but even within this diverse group of players, different sub-groups place different demands [...]

Filed under: facilities, programming | Tagged: | 4 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 34 other followers