Frontline Park for May: Hunting Park

Posted on May 29, 2012 by Angelina Horn

Each month, City Parks Alliance recognizes a “Frontline Park” 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. This 87-acre [...]

Filed under: crime & safety, economics, facilities, funding, maintenance/management, partnerships, renewal | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

Spring Sprucing “America’s Front Yard”: Finalists Announced for National Mall Redesign

Posted on May 11, 2012 by Coleen Gentles

Eighteen months ago, the National Park Service (NPS) in conjunction with the Trust for the National Mall, created the 2010 National Mall Plan, a vision for the kinds of resource conditions, visitor experiences, and facilities that would best fulfill the purpose of the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Stretching west from the U.S. Capitol to [...]

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

Park Conservancy Models Part II: Madison Square Park Conservancy and The Civic Center Conservancy

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Coleen Gentles

This is part two of a three-part series looking at the histories of six different city park conservancies.  Read part one here. Madison Square Park Conservancy, Madison Square Park, New York Madison Square Park was officially dedicated in 1847. In 1870, soon after the creation of New York City’s first Department of Public Parks, the 6.2-acre [...]

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

Park Conservancy Models Part I: Buffalo Bayou Partnership and Detroit 300 Conservancy

Posted on April 13, 2012 by Coleen Gentles

Conservancies are private, non-profit, park-benefit organizations that raise money independent of the city and spend it under a plan of action that is mutually agreed upon with the city.  Conservancies do not own any parkland nor do they hold easements on it; the land continues to remain in the ownership of the city, and the [...]

Filed under: green infrastructure, planning, programming, renewal | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Urban Population Growth Creates New Demand for Parks

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan

The Brookings Institution recently released a comprehensive report on metropolitan demographic changes over the past thirty years, which highlighted the increasing concentration of the U.S. population in major metropolitan areas.  Overall, metropolitan areas have grown consistently since 1980, and now over 80% of Americans live in metropolitan areas, i.e. cities and their suburbs.  Though suburban [...]

Filed under: economics, green infrastructure, planning, renewal | Tagged: , , | 2 Comments »

Brooklyn Bridge Park: New York’s Latest Innovative Harbor Attraction

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Angelina Horn

One of New York’s newest parks, Brooklyn Bridge Park blends the historic with the latest in landscape innovation to create what the weblog Gothamist calls “the most spectacular and stunning addition to the city’s parks system in recent memory.” Located on the site of a former port that shuttered in the 1980s due to dramatic [...]

Filed under: economics, funding, green infrastructure, partnerships, planning, renewal | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

Bike with the Commish: Touring the Hudson River Greenway with NYC Parks Commissioner Adrian Benepe

Posted on March 28, 2012 by Angelina Horn

The New York City Department of Parks & Recreation holds sway over 5,000 different properties encompassing 29,000 acres of land — nearly 15 percent of America’s largest city. The person who just passed the 10-year mark as NYC Parks Commissioner, Adrian Benepe, still lives with his wife and sons in the Upper West Side Manhattan [...]

Filed under: green infrastructure, health, partnerships, planning, renewal, transportation | Tagged: , , , | Leave a Comment »

A Tale of Two Trails: Designs Released for New York’s High Line Phase III and Chicago’s Bloomingdale Trail and Park

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Coleen Gentles

New York and Chicago are often pitted as rivals with regards to parkland acreage (38,060 acres vs. 11,959 acres, equating to 4.5 and 4.2 acres per 1,000 residents, respectively), and this month was no different.  Last week both cities released designs to the community for the next latest and greatest thing in the park world [...]

Filed under: green infrastructure, planning, renewal | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

Cincinnati Mayor Mark Mallory Discusses Downtown and New Riverfront Park

Posted on March 16, 2012 by Coleen Gentles

Smart Growth America recently completed video interviews with several mayors and other prominent elected officials nationwide, and will be releasing them over the next several months. The first is with Mayor Mark Mallory from Cincinnati — he speaks to the need to invest in downtowns and to make the right kinds of infrastructure investments to trigger job creation [...]

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

Benefitting From a Cover Up: How Concealing Urban Highways Can Create Parkland

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Peter Harnik

A twelfth 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 concealing or burying highways. Urban radicals want automobiles banned. Urban moderates can perhaps live with cars as long as they’re neither seen nor heard. In European central [...]

Filed under: green infrastructure, planning, renewal, transportation | Tagged: , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Next Page »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 34 other followers