Cities Can Have Health Promoting Park Systems Through Proximity, Accessibility, and Co-Location

Posted on April 20, 2012 by Peter Harnik

The closer the park and the easier to get to, the more likely it will be used. Conversely, people who live far from parks are apt to utilize them less. These obvious truths have implications for public health, but recognizing the problem does not automatically offer simple solutions for mayors, city councils, park directors, or [...]

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Proceed Without Caution: Cities Add Parkland by Closing Streets and Roads to Cars

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Peter Harnik

A thirteenth 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 added parkland by closing streets and roads to automobile traffic. In every city there are hundreds of acres of streets and roadways potentially available as park and recreational facilities. While parks [...]

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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 [...]

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Register Now for the 2012 International Urban Parks Conference

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Angelina Horn

Registration has now opened for this summer’s International Urban Parks Conference!  Join us July 14-17 in New York City for Greater & Greener: Re-Imagining Parks for 21st Century Cities. Presented by City Parks Alliance in partnership with NYC Department of Parks & Recreation, Greater & Greener will take place in the city that pioneered the [...]

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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 [...]

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An Interconnected Park Web: How Greenways Create Healthy Communities

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Coleen Gentles

We recently came across an article by Randall Arendt discussing how greenway networks are the “useful bridge between ‘new urbanism’ and conservation design.”  His article talks about using greenways as the connector to parks, neighborhoods, schools and mixed-use centers, allowing for urban and rural ideas to merge and produce a superior hybrid community form.  He argues that [...]

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“A Design that Celebrates the People”: Normal, IL Traffic Circle Wins Smart Growth Award as New Civic Space

Posted on December 30, 2011 by Coleen Gentles

Earlier this month, EPA announced the winners of the 2011 National Award for Smart Growth Achievement.  We are excited to report that Normal, Illinois is the recipient of the award in the Civic Places category for their traffic roundabout. We’ve written before about how the town’s new traffic circle has successfully managed traffic flow at [...]

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City Parks Alliance Seeks Nominations for “Frontline Parks” Section on Website

Posted on December 2, 2011 by Angelina Horn

“FRONTLINE PARKS” highlights urban parks that are creating economic, environmental and social capital through new kinds of partnerships.  This feature on CPA’s website (www.cityparksalliance.org) promotes inspiring examples of urban park excellence, innovation, and stewardship across the country. Twelve parks – one each month – will be featured on CPA’s website home page in 2012.  Each [...]

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To Form a More Perfect Union Station: Redesigning Columbus Plaza for Pedestrians

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Coleen Gentles

Washington, D.C.’s Union Station is a major destination for tourists and commuters, with about 29 million people visiting it each year.  As a first glimpse of the city for many people traveling by rail or car, Union Station was designed as a grand entryway to the nation’s capital.  It’s classical Beaux-Arts architecture influenced other popular [...]

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Revitalizing D.C.’s “Forgotten River” with Parks and Trails

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Ryan Donahue

Urban rivers, though cities often owe them their very existence, are accustomed to neglect. The enduring image of the 1969 inferno on Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River, a catastrophe that helped launch the modern environmental movement, is perhaps the most striking example, though many others have suffered through less dramatic but equally devastating decay. Washington, DC has [...]

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