Today, with the launch of The Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore, it became easier to answer these questions – and more importantly, to begin to develop solutions to park shortages. ParkScore is the most comprehensive park rating system ever developed, combining advanced GIS analysis and data collected by the Center for City Park Excellence.

San Francisco came out on top of the ParkScore rankings, edging out Sacramento, Boston, and New York. Credit: Flickr user Phillie Casablanca.

The Trust for Public Land analyzed the park systems of the nation’s forty most populous cities, and ranked them according to three categories:

Acreage: a city’s acreage score is based equally on two data points – median park size and the percentage of the city’s area covered by parkland.

Access: a city’s access score is based on the percentage of the city’s population that lives within a half-mile walk of the nearest park, taking into consideration the layout of the road network and barriers to access such as railroads, freeways, and fences.

Service & Investment: a city’s service & investment  score is based equally on two data points – total spending per resident and playgrounds per 10,000 residents.

Park access in Dallas, which placed 21st overall in ParkScore. Areas without walkable park access are either red (very high need) or orange (high need), depending on three demographic factors: density, income, and presence of children. Interactive maps for all cities are available at the ParkScore website.

Combined, these factors provide a fair and comprehensive basis for comparison within cities, between cities, and over time. ParkScore is designed to help city residents quantify their need for more and better parks, and for city governments to craft effective and efficient plans to create excellent park systems.

There is a wealth of information in ParkScore that we will delve into in much greater detail in the coming months. For now, here’s an overview of the best urban park systems and those most in need of improvement. Visit the ParkScore website for all the in-depth rankings, maps, and information.

National Urban Biodiversity Week evolved from New York City Wildflower Week, a 10-day annual event now in its fifth year. The event is sponsored by Nature Block Party, a non-profit organization, in partnership with Project Noah, an interactive web and mobile application that enables users to track wildlife sightings, and the National Wildlife Federation, a grassroots conservation advocacy organization.

According to Marielle Anzelone, the event’s founder, the goals of National Urban Biodiversity Week are to:

• Create an urban constituency for nature by connecting people through hands-on opportunities
• Build a national conversation around urban biodiversity issues
• Encourage new ways of thinking about urban environments

Creatures from gray squirrels to roosting red tailed hawks remind us that nature is everywhere (the Project Noah sightings for New York alone show species as diverse as great egrets in Prospect Park to osage-orange in Inwood Hill Park).  Events like those that comprise Urban Biodiversity Week highlight opportunities for ordinary citizens to protect urban wildlife; we can create and improve urban habitats in our parks and community gardens as well as street medians, roof gardens, and window planters.

Engaged urban constituents can also support large-scale habitat conservation and improvement. For example:

• In response to community priorities, the current plan for the new downtown waterfront park in Seattle includes marine features to provide safe passage for salmon.
• The volunteer-supported Native Plant Nurseries program sponsored by the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy propagates approximately 270,000 native plants per year to aid restoration projects within the park, maintaining the quality and integrity of the Bay Area’s protected natural lands.
• In recent years, private advocacy and fundraising has supported urban conservation land acquisitions across the country.  Last fall, The Trust for Public Land led efforts to conserve a 570 acre parcel 5 miles from downtown Albuquerque in partnership with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. The new Middle Rio Grande National Wildlife Refuge will protect critical habitat of the endangered southwestern willow flycatcher and provide new recreational opportunities for over one million local residents.

East view of the Mall from the Washington Monument. Credit: 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 the Potomac River, and north from the Thomas Jefferson Memorial to Constitution Avenue, the National Mall is primarily under the jurisdiction of NPS, but multiple governmental agencies and organizations also have ownership over lands and roads within and adjacent to the National Mall.  These other entities, the Architect of the Capitol, the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian Institution, the Department of Agriculture, the General Services Administration, the District of Columbia, and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, all provided critical input into the National Mall Plan.

A nine-month National Mall Design Competition targeted three focal sites for redesign, and in April, the Trust for the National Mall chose four finalists for each area from a pool of 58 entries.  Those finalists were on display for public comment, until a panel of eight judges consisting of landscape architects, academics, architects, critics, and historians, selected the three winning teams last week.  The three sites to be redesigned are:

• Constitution Gardens, a natural area adjacent to the Reflecting Pool and World War II Memorial, which has suffered from poor drainage and underuse.
• Washington Monument Grounds, including Sylvan Theater, an underutilized performance space near the National Monument.
• Union Square, located directly west of the Capitol building, home to the Capitol reflecting pool and Grant memorial.

And the winners of the design competition are:

• Rogers Marvel Architects & Peter Walker and Partners for Constitution Gardens near the Lincoln Memorial, whose designs include an overhauled water basin for model boats and ice skating, and a new restaurant pavilion to overlook the park.
• OLIN & Weiss/Manfredi for the Washington Monument grounds, whose designs include a wooded canopy for Sylvan Theater, and a new pavilion with a cafe for the walkway to the nearby Tidal Basin.
• Gustafson Guthrie Nichol & Davis Brody Bond for Union Square Union Square and the Capitol Reflecting Pool, whose designs remove the reflecting pond that lies parallel to the Capitol and adds a pond at the nearest grass panel on the Mall.  (This design plan will be forwarded to the Architect of the Capitol.)

The Trust for the National Mall, NPS’s not-for-profit fundraising and advocacy partner, will conduct a $350 million fundraising campaign over seven years to support the capital costs of revitalizing these three spaces.  The Trust will begin fundraising for its two projects, while the Architect of the Capitol will handle fundraising for Union Square.  The entire National Mall Plan should cost about $700 million.  The next phase of the competition will identify and evaluate costs ahead of implementation, with roughly half of the costs coming from the private sector.

West View from Washington Monument, with World War II Memorial in foreground, Lincoln Memorial in back, and Constitution Gardens on right. Credit: Coleen Gentles

The National Mall Plan aims to better accommodate the high level and diversity of use the National Mall receives.  With 25 million visitors each year, the National Mall is one of the most highly trafficked parks in the country.  As a result, it requires resilient design and a variety of visitor-serving facilities.

To this end, the National Mall Plan proposed enhanced circulation and access for pedestrians, a goal the NPS had already begun to support through park-wide investments in new signage.  It also proposed new performance space, food and beverage concessions, shaded seating areas, restrooms, and recreational opportunities and facilities.

The Plan recommends specific uses for each of the design competition sites, which are reflected in the designs of the finalists.  It prioritized improved food venues and enhanced pedestrian access at Constitution Gardens.  The redesigned Sylvan Theater will better accommodate local events, and additional facilities will offer food service, retail, and other visitor services.

Union Square was planned as a First Amendment demonstration and event space; however, in December, jurisdiction over the site was transferred from the National Park Service to the Architect of the Capitol due to security concerns.  It remains unclear whether the proposed plans and winning design for this location will be implemented.

The Mall’s scale and formality, combined with large-scale federal/institutional and roadway adjacencies, create a space that is most successful at showcasing monuments and memorials, and perhaps less effective at welcoming visitors and providing community space.  It provides few dedicated places to stop and linger: to have a picnic, play recreational sports (the Mall is particularly ill-configured for the kickball games it so often hosts), enjoy a cultural program, or rest between site-seeing destinations.

If properly executed with quality design, active programming, and able stewardship, the rehabilitation of these spaces will provide new destinations with food, seating, programming, and signature design.  These amenities can anchor and sustain the strong tourist economy and provide authentic and desirable gathering places for local and regional residents.  This constitutes a unique and untapped opportunity to integrated community spaces and national icons at the heart of the city.

This will be the Mall’s first major renovation in nearly 40 years.  Groundbreaking for the first project will take place by 2014, with the first ribbon-cutting expected by 2016, the Mall’s centennial anniversary.

View renderings of the winning designs here.

Madison Square Park Conservancy, Madison Square Park, New York

Jaume Plensa’s Echo sculpture in Madison Square Park, New York. Credit: Tom Giebel (Flickr Feed)

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 park was re-landscaped with well-defined walkways and open lawns to capture both formal and pastoral elements. In the late 19^th century, the neighborhood surrounding Madison Square Park was one of Manhattan’s most elite, flourishing as a bustling commercial district with fashionable residences and hotels.  But by the 1990’s, despite its prominent location and cultural significance, the park had fallen into disrepair with cracked and broken asphalt, eroded lawns, decaying monuments, visual clutter, insufficient lighting, and confusing signage.

In response, the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation asked the City Parks Foundation to take the lead in organizing a revitalization campaign in 1999.  The “Campaign for the New Madison Square Park” led to restoration in 2000-2001 and the creation of a “Friends” group in 2002.

The renovation restored elements of the original 19^th century design, and the park now features lush green lawns, colorful flowering shrubs and plants, World’s Fair-style benches, a restored fountain, a contemporary reflecting pool, new gateways, new paving, and ornamental lighting.  Another major accomplishment included the reinstallation of the 1920s-era Eternal Light Star (commemorating the end of World War I) with financial support from ConEdison, New York City Parks and Recreation, and Sentry Lighting.  Additional amenities in the park include six statues/monuments, a playground (with a Playground Associate during the summer), Star of Hope, a temporary outdoor art installation, and the Shake Shack food stand.

The “Friends” group was renamed the Madison Square Park Conservancy in 2004 to move from general advocacy for the park to more long-term care and maintenance. In addition to its annual budget, the Conservancy has raised over $10 million for capital improvements and for a permanent fund to support park maintenance.  (Any surplus revenues from operations go into the capital budget.)  Donor companies have included Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, New York Life Insurance Company, Credit Suisse First Boston, Rudin Management, and Union Square Hospitality Group.

The Shake Shack in Madison Square Park, financed and built by the Conservancy for $750,000 in 2004 (and operated by a third-party) was an instant success and is one of the highlights of current restaurant concessions in New York City parks.  It usually features long lines of customers waiting for frozen custard, shakes, concretes, Shack burgers, Chicago hotdogs, and “shroom burgers.”

A dense mix of office buildings, retail establishments and restaurants border Madison Square Park.  Restoration has also spurred new residential development, including approximately twenty luxury condominium buildings in the surrounding area over the past five years, with two more coming in 2012-13.  New hotels have also opened in the neighborhood.

A Business Improvement District surrounds Madison Square Park Conservancy, but there is no formal connection to the Conservancy.  There is more business retail than residential development surrounding the park, so visitation counts fluctuate throughout the year.  After two surveys of users last summer, the Conservancy estimates 1.25 million visitors during peak months (May through September).

The Civic Center Conservancy, Civic Center, Denver

Colorado tribute to Veterans Monument and the City and County Building in Civic Center Park, Denver. Credit: Cliff (Flickr Feed)

Civic Center Park fills the grand space between Denver’s two most important civic buildings – Denver’s City and County Building and the Colorado State Capitol. Accented with tree groves, its structures include the Greek Theater and its Colonnade of Civic Benefactors, the Voorhies Memorial and adjacent “Seal Pond,” a historic balustrade wall and historic Carnegie Library turned municipal building. With the Pioneer Monument nearby, the park itself contains three bronze sculptures: “Broncho Buster,” “On the War Trail,” and the Columbus Monument. It has an illustrious history, including designs by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., but in recent decades the 12-acre park was largely empty, lacking amenities, programming, and connectivity. With the City’s operational and capital budgets shrinking, there was a backlog of deferred maintenance.

In response, a group of private citizens passionate about revitalizing Civic Center Park – including Elaine Asarch (founding Conservancy board chair and current board member), Dennis Humphries (architect and recent chair of Denver’s Landmark Preservation Commission), Chris Frampton (current board chair and local real estate developer) and others – founded the Civic Center Conservancy in 2004. “We wanted to reintroduce people to this historic urban oasis and engage the community in its future,” said Conservancy Executive Director Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, who came to the job from the Denver Mayor’s office in 2009.

The Conservancy partners with the City and County of Denver to restore, enhance, and activate Civic Center Park, with efforts focusing on four key areas:  advocacy around design/infrastructure/policy; events and programming to activate the space; marketing and public engagement; and fundraising for capital improvements/activities/initiatives to support Civic Center’s ongoing revitalization.

Some major accomplishments of the Conservancy include advocating for Civic Center’s inclusion in the 2007 Better Denver bond initiative (which voters approved, resulting in almost $9.5 million for restoration), and providing input into the 2009 design guidelines for the park.

In its quest to elevate and sustain Civic Center as the vibrant cultural and community hub its founders envisioned more than a century ago, the Conservancy hosts a variety of arts and cultural programs, including the twice-weekly summer Civic Center EATS Outdoor Café (with 20+ food trucks, bistro-style seating and live music), an annual Independence Eve Celebration (featuring a free Colorado Symphony concert and a fireworks/light display that attracted more than 100,000 people in its second year and was broadcast live throughout Colorado), and a new Bike-In Movie Series on summer evenings. With these new programs, combined with longstanding annual festivals and general traffic resulting from the surrounding cultural and civic attractions, the park attracts over a million visitors a year.

We caught up with Dr. Miller as she was, typically, running — in this case, catching a plane from San Francisco to a speaking engagement in Kentucky. And we began by speaking about the idea of “Park Prescriptions” — a term she coined, and has become popularized, for a practice she began using with her patients — but which she made clear right away was the result of some collaborative brainstorming.

“I may have been the first to write about it, but it was really born of meetings with a whole lot of folks representing public lands, so I cannot take full ownership,” she explained. “I wrote about it in The Washington Post, and that really launched it, but it’s something that represented a movement that really was already happening.  Physicians can really influence behavior with their patients if they give structured advice to do things differently. It’s what I call a ‘structure prescription’: give them something specific to do for 45 minutes a day, give them a specific place to go and tell them exactly what they should do there.  I give them trail maps to parks, and the kinds of exercises they should do there….It literally is the same idea as getting medicine on a prescription pad.”

Dr. Miller has worked and lectured to spread this thinking, encouraging other physicians to do the same, and has advocated this sensibility being incorporated into public park planning and the public health discussion.

A prescription for nature

“In a nutshell, my goal is to make our public lands a part of our health care system. That’s the overarching reason I’m at the conference this summer, and I think it’s really exciting that I was asked to be a part of it because it’s not a typical place to find a physician, as part of this discussion. But a vital part of looking at our cities in the future is how to make them healthier. So it’s very creative thinking on the part of the conference, and a very exciting opportunity for me to have a voice in a very interdisciplinary approach to looking at how we build the [new] city. I’m there to give a perspective on how we can build cities to keep people healthy and even help them treat illnesses they already have.”

Dr. Miller is part of the plenary session, “Exploring The New Green City,” taking place on Monday, July 16 at 9 a.m., where the discussion will focus on the trends and challenges in designing new models for modern urban living, and the role of parks and green space in helping cities realize their greatest potential. Among the questions to be addressed: What should these cities look like? How can we create more beautiful cities? How can parks drive city building strategies? How can green space support healthier urban populations?

“Anyone can intuitively tell you,” she goes on, speaking above the airport boarding announcements, “that having access to nature and the outdoors has many beneficial effects. But in today’s busy world it can still be hard to get people to buy into it in a wholesale way. But now there’s hard research that shows being outdoors increases endurance, fights depression, improves Vitamin D levels, improves recovery time from an illness…Now we need to apply that knowledge. Many of our cities are very dysfunctional. There are no sidewalks, you need to cross freeways to get to outdoor space.”

So what should urban planners do? Where are some of the best models?

“We have to make [green space] accessible from every dwelling, so people can pass through [our parks], have a greater sense of what they can tap into. In many cities in Europe, regardless of where you live in those cities, there is public access to lead you into this artery of greenery…we need to do a better job of that, and in [providing in our parks] more structured activities — hikes, guided tours, senior exercise programs.”

And it’s about getting the word out. She tells the story of one patient  in northern California who didn’t even realize the healthful and stimulating opportunities for both physical and mental wellness within minutes of her own home.

“This patient, who lived near my office in Noe Valley had knee issues so severe that walking on any pavement hurt. But [a place called] Glen Park Canyon was right near her house and she’d never even heard of it; I saw her eyes grow wide when I spoke about it — a quarter mile loop through a nature trail that was literally 7 blocks from her front door.

“At first she drove to the trail head, and did the loop once.” But after a process of gradually upping the dosage on the park prescription, if you will, “Now, several years later, she does eight loops, two miles, and she no longer drives there, she walks, she’s lost 30 pounds, her knees are much better, she’s wonderfully fit, and she’s joined the Glen Park Conservancy Group to get the word out to others.”

Attendees of the plenary session may also get to hear Dr. Miller speak about another of her passions: healthful eating. Her book “The Jungle Effect” is “part travelogue, part nutrition adventure, part recipe book,” about what can be learned — and incorporated into western life — from some of the healthiest native diets around the world. She went to northern Iceland, to the Greek island of Crete, to Cameroon in west central Africa, to Okinawa in Japan, and to small villages in Mexico.

The journey was prompted by a patient who whenever she returned home to her native village in Brazil lost all this weight — and then immediately regained it when she returned to San Francisco. “I began thinking — these native diets have evolved over thousands of years — so I began exploring these traditional diets from all over the world, and brought them back to my practice….I tend to [incorporate] myself now into what I eat a lot of the lessons I learned from ‘Jungle Effect.’”

Which, just as she’s about to hop on another plane, leads to this obvious “travelogue” question for someone who tends to spend a fair amount of time at airports: How does one eat healthfully in an airport?

She laughs. “You try not to.”

– Steve Sonsky

For more information on how to register for Greater & Greener: Re-Imagining Parks for 21^st Century Cities, please visit www.urbanparks2012.org.

Screen on Discovery Green

The park features an outdoor concert pavilion, restaurants, a mist fountain for hot summer days, several distinct gardens featuring public art, and outdoor “reading rooms.” In its first three years, the park welcomed more than three million visitors and hosted more than 800 public and private events. The Discovery Green Conservancy works with hundreds of programming partners to present three dynamic seasons each year. The Conservancy raises all the funds needed for the programming and ensures that the park remains an accessible and inviting public gathering space in the center of the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States.

Downtown Anchor

Discovery Green was conceived not only as a public park, but as a landmark to attract convention revenue to the City, and as an anchor for downtown development.  That goal was achieved as adjacent development, a residential high rise, a commercial office tower, hotel and a mixed-use development–a combined $500 million investment–all came to fruition. Since the park opened, the adjacent George R. Brown Convention Center has hosted major conventions such as Microsoft and Society of American Travel Writers.  The model has been so successful that new parks in Houston are being designed with Discovery Green in mind.

Discovery Green will be featured on the City Parks Alliance homepage until the end of the month.

The “Frontline Parks” program is made possible with generous support from DuMor, Inc. and PlayCore.

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 urban planners. Creating new parks in a crowded, built-out city is a slow, arduous, and often expensive task. It can be done—it is being done in almost every city in the country—but it is not the only way to bring people and green space together. Much can be done outside the park fence, in the neighborhood, where the normal processes of urban construction, rehabilitation, and change occur at a faster pace.

Sometimes easiest to fix is the problem of accessibility. Some parks are underused simply because they are too hard to get to. Users may be blocked by steps, fences, walls, cliffs, railroad tracks, highways, waterways, or an unbroachable row of private residences. Some parks require a long jaunt to the other side just to gain entry. Others are literally visible from a home but unreachable by children without a chaperoned car ride.

Park access might be improved by constructing a ramp or pedestrian bridge in a key location, or by installing a traffic signal on a busy road. While such fixes might cost from $50,000 to several million dollars, that is a small price compared with what is routinely spent on highways and parking lots and would be more than offset by savings in health costs resulting from more frequent park use.

People are more likely to use parks that are close to places where they spend time: restaurants, shopping districts, libraries, gyms, and other meeting areas. In some cases parks can be sited close to such destinations. In other instances businesses and attractions can be allowed or encouraged to locate near existing parks. A mistaken Victorian sensibility sometimes holds that the “purity” of parks should not intersect with the “untidiness” of commercial areas. In fact, people like that proximity. They welcome the opportunity to buy picnic food or an ice cream cone to eat on a nearby park lawn or bench—and if that sojourn can be combined with a brisk walk, jog, or basketball game, so much the better.

Or, a large downtown destination park might be considered for a bike station, like the one offered at Chicago’s Millennium Park. There, for a membership fee, park users have access to one of 300 secure bike spaces along with lockers, showers, and a repair shop. For tourists, there are rental bikes. Completed in 2004 for $3.2 million, the facility today is so popular that it has a waiting list.

Best of all is the provision of plenty of housing near parks. This is an old concept with a new name: park-oriented development. From Lincoln Park in Chicago to Riverside Park in New York to Lake Harriet in Minneapolis, the parks surrounded by lots of people are the ones that can provide the greatest total amount of health benefits. But often U.S. cities are zoned so as to prevent that outcome. Some communities are averse to the look of taller buildings around parks; others may even think that the fewer people in the park, the better.

If denser development is not possible, park use can also be increased by improving accessibility through walking, bicycling, and public transit. (Automobile access is less desirable because it requires acres of parking and eliminates the health benefit of walking and cycling.) Ample park entrances, great sidewalks, and bike lanes on connecting streets; pedestrian-friendly perimeter roads with plenty of traffic signals and crosswalks; and easy grades and smooth trails for elderly and wheelchair-bound visitors: all these contribute to great access. In large parks, high-use destinations such as playgrounds, basketball courts, and swimming pools should be sited near the edge of the park, not deep in the interior.

"Catchment Circle." The area of a circle grows by the square of the radius. If a park is easy to reach by bicycle, 16 times as many people can get to it in the same amount of time it takes to walk from a mile away. Illustration: Helene Sherlock.

Bicycle access extends the “reach” of a park 16-fold over walking. This is because cycling is about four times faster than walking, and the “catchment circle”—the surrounding area from which park users can be drawn—increases by the square of the distance from the park (see diagram on right). Thus, improving bicycle access is an important way to get more people to the park (not to mention the health benefit from pedaling there and back).

Good public transit improves park access even more. It is no coincidence that eight of the ten most heavily used parks in American cities offer subway or light-rail access within one-quarter mile, and all of them have bus service that comes even closer. In New York City major parks almost invariably have subway service. Other parks well served by subway and rail include Boston Common, Forest Park in St. Louis, Millennium and Grant parks in Chicago, and the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

As new transit lines are built, it’s sometimes possible to align them with parks. Seattle’s new streetcar line terminates at 12-acre South Lake Union Park. The city is working to increase housing and commercial density in this near-downtown location, and the alignment of park and transit is particularly helpful in reaching the goal. “Especially at lunchtime,” says former Seattle Parks Foundation Director Karen Daubert, “you can see the crowds walking off the streetcar right into South Lake Union Park. It’s the perfect connection to this waterfront refuge.”

For larger parks, internal transit can also promote access. At 130-acre Washington Park in Portland, Oregon—home to the popular Rose and Japanese gardens—special Tri-Met buses not only connect to the nearest light-rail station but also make eight stops inside the park. The service is inexpensive (or free with a transfer), runs every 15 minutes, and is aggressively advertised by the park department, Tri-Met‚ and event promoters. The route gets about 500 riders per day on weekends and 420 on weekdays. From a health perspective, taking transit results in far more walking than accessing the park in a private automobile.

Here are a few examples of the ideas presented above:

Piedmont Park, Atlanta. Health-promoting park systems appreciate density. Credit: Ashley Szczepanski.

In recent years, Atlanta’s Piedmont Park has shown a marked growth in users. There are several reasons for this, including policies that have reduced auto traffic in the park, the rehabilitation of facilities, better signage‚ and additional programming. But also significant is the fact that more people now live in areas bordering or near the park. Unlike many other urban places, the Piedmont Park neighborhood is densifying, and the park itself is serving as a significant lure for development.

Between 2000 and 2009 alone, the City of Atlanta approved building permits for 16 new multi-unit rental and condominium apartment buildings within a half-mile of Piedmont Park, and the neighborhood gained nearly 100 single-family homes. All told, the park neighborhood gained 1,880 units, or about 4,500 people, over the decade. These people are the heaviest users of the park facilities. They compound their health benefit by often walking or running to the park rather than driving there.

“Piedmont Park is one of the single biggest assets we have in the neighborhood,” said Ginny Kennedy, director of urban design for the Midtown Alliance. “In everything we do, we encourage and try to reinforce access and visibility to the park.”

Perhaps most significant, the Midtown Alliance—whose goal is to make midtown Atlanta an “exceptional place to live, work, learn, shop, and play”—spearheaded the area’s 2001 rezoning. The changes enabled many more people to live and work near Piedmont Park and benefit from its health-promoting effects.

Midtown Greenway, Minneapolis. Health-promoting park systems locate parks and trails so as to benefit from other uses. Credit: Freewheel Bike Center.

Since its opening in 2000, Minneapolis’s Midtown Greenway has quickly become one of the best-used bike routes in the country, largely because it combines a park-like experience with true functionality. The mostly below-grade former rail line is quiet to ride, bordered with green, and unbroken by street intersections. Yet its almost six-mile length parallels a major commercial street only one block away, offering easy access to grocery and hardware stores, restaurants, video rentals‚ and pharmacies. “Fast, safe, and pleasant” is how Midtown Greenway Coalition Director Tim Springer describes the linear park—but it is also convenient. Instead of returning home from a bike ride and climbing into the car for errands, many Midtown Greenway users are able to multitask. The greenway leads them to their needs, and their needs lead them to the greenway.

The city has consciously helped. When a massive old Sears warehouse was converted into the Midtown Global Market, officials built a connection from the greenway and also landed a federal loan to create the Freewheel Bike Center‚ which provides storage, repair, rentals‚ and sales. Next door is a coffee shop. Nearby, the new Sheraton hotel has an outdoor patio overlooking the trail (and directs guests to rent bikes from Freewheel). The greenway also intersects with transit along the Hiawatha light-rail line, giving some Minneapolitans a car-free commute with morning and evening exercise to boot. All in all, the collocation of the park with diverse destinations has made this not only a greenway, but a “healthway.”

Want to know more ways urban park systems can best promote health and wellness?  Read this publication from The Trust for Public Land.

Visitors line up for food truck fare at the Prospect Park Food Truck Rally.
Credit: Elissa H. Izmailyan

The second season of the Prospect Park Food Truck Rally launched this Sunday in balmy spring weather.  On the third Sunday of each month from April through October, sixteen gourmet food trucks will greet crowds of eager New Yorkers at Grand Army Plaza, a paved area at the Park’s main entrance. Though the Food Truck Rally was initially designed to be a one-time event last May, it has become a monthly fixture in the park in response to its overwhelming success.

Across the nation, food trucks are increasingly popular in city parks.   A new type of vendor is energizing  park patrons, offering new options over and above the typical hot dog/pretzel fare, including everything from locally sourced Vietnamese cuisine (at Boston’s Rose Kennedy Greenway) to lobster rolls (at the Prospect Park Food Truck Rally).

Concession amenities of all kinds can support parks’ success by attracting attendance and extending the length of stay, creating concentrated hubs of activity.  A high quality and diverse food selection can increase these benefits, and food trucks can provide opportunities to enhance both.  With their inherent portability and commercial-grade kitchen equipment, food trucks can combine the flexibility of temporary concessions with the food quality of more permanent venues.  A rotating core of vendors can expand the variety of  concession offerings in a given location, and while vehicles of any kind can feel aesthetically out-of-place in park environments, food trucks can be positioned in highly trafficked hardscapes adjacent to or within parks.

Many parks have begun to host large, highly publicized food truck events with high levels of visitation. For example, the Food Truck Rodeo in Durham features approximately 30 trucks and live music, drawing activity to support the newly developed Central Park.  In Milwaukee, the downtown BID (EastTown) runs Food Truck Fridays in Cathedral Square, which offers a range of lunchtime options on summer Fridays, to support and sustain a lively downtown atmosphere.

Visitors congregate at the entrance to Prospect Park beside the Food Truck Rally.
Credit: Elissa H. Izmailyan

The Prospect Park Food Rally attracts thousands of visitors each month. According to David Weber, President of New York City Food Truck Association (NYCFTA), the organization that runs the Rally, “While just one food truck is more like a service to support another activity…you get 16 food trucks and it serves as a magnet and becomes a destination.”  Major events can overcome barriers to access and draw park users from a broad region; a NYCFTA event at Governor’s Island, which is accessible only by ferry, drew 17,000 people.

While events of this scale must be properly managed  to mitigate the adverse impacts of visitation, they can also generate a range of benefits to parks, including:

• Attracting visitation:  In addition to drawing high attendance to concession areas, food trucks can increase attendance throughout parks.   Weber describes the Food Truck Rally as a “gateway into the park,” providing a node of activity at the park entrance that welcomes regular and first-time visitors.
• Providing an amenity:  Park patrons enjoy the presence of food trucks and food truck events, as evidenced by their high levels of success. Welcoming food trucks to parks responds to patron preference and may sustain higher levels of park use and enjoyment.
• Generating revenue for parks:   Food trucks typically pay rents to park managers in exchange for the right to vend on-site, which can be dedicated to support park operations.

Park conservancies are an outgrowth of private citizens wanting to do more for public spaces than government can do on its own.  Gaining steam across the U.S. over the past three decades, conservancies of varying sizes and models have been established out of concern for parks that government entities had neither the capacity nor the resources to maintain, program or enhance adequately.

This is part one of a three-part series looking at the histories of six different city park conservancies.

Buffalo Bayou Partnership, Buffalo Bayou, Houston

The Common in Sesquicentennial Park, Buffalo Bayou, Houston. Credit: Jim (Flickr Feed).

In 1976, after a lawsuit forced Houston to begin a massive upgrade of its sewer system, the water quality slowly began to improve in the city’s streams (known locally as bayous). By 1984 Buffalo Bayou, the city’s main waterway, was clean enough for visionaries to begin thinking of it as a valuable natural resource complete with parks and other waterfront opportunities – and as a node for downtown economic development.  Under the leadership of Mayor Kathy Whitmire, a blue-ribbon panel spent two years producing the Buffalo Bayou Task Force Report which outlined a concept for redevelopment as well as a proposal to create a non-profit entity to implement the plan.

Mayor Whitmire then exerted further leadership by stimulating an implementing entity, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership (BBP), a group of civic, environmental, business and governmental representatives, to transform and revitalize 10 miles of Buffalo Bayou into a park system “that joins land and water to become the green heart of Houston.”

The Partnership’s jurisdiction follows Buffalo Bayou from Shepherd Drive to the Ship Channel Turning Basin.  It includes approximately 250 acres of parkland on either side of the waterway.

The Partnership was created in 1986 to work on a major park project for Houston’s 150^th birthday, but for its first nine years it operated as only a volunteer group.  In 1995, staff was hired and more projects were initiated, including acquiring easements for a hike and bike trail. The Partnership didn’t intend to purchase large tracts of property but that approach was thwarted when the majority of landowners rejected selling or donating easements in favor of full fee simple sales.  BBP had to rethink its strategy and undertake major fundraising.  Since its inception, the Partnership has raised and leveraged nearly $150 million for bayou enhancements, including $23 million for Sesquicentennial Park, $4 million for Allen’s Landing, $12 million for Sabine Promenade, and $20 million for land acquisition.  Being a property owner has allowed the Partnership to be a significant player in development decisions along the bayou.

Currently, BBP is leading a $55-million park improvement project to transform a 158-acre, 2.3-mile-long city park just west of downtown.  The vision is to develop a beautiful, natural green space with vistas of the downtown skyline, user-friendly access points and recreational areas.  A strong public-private partnership, including Houston’s Kinder Foundation, Buffalo Bayou Partnership, City of Houston and Harris County Flood Control District has been formed to carry out the ambitious project.  A Kinder Foundation catalyst gift of $30 million will fund basic park improvements. The Harris County Flood Control District is sponsoring a $5 million flood reduction/eco-system restoration project.  The remaining $20 million are being sought by the BBP.  Once completed in 2015, the park will be maintained and operated by BBP.

Detroit 300 Conservancy, Campus Martius Park, Detroit

Campus Martius Park, Detroit. Credit: Detroit 300 Conservancy.

A bright spot in the challenging economic situation in Detroit is Campus Martius, the new center-city park that attracts two million visitors a year and has helped stimulate almost $1 billion in nearby redevelopment. The entity operating Campus Martius is the Detroit 300 Conservancy.

Campus Martius (which means “Field of Mars” or “military ground”) had existed since 1788 but had not had a glorious history, eventually being asphalted over for streetcars and automobiles. In the late 1990s, when Mayor Dennis Archer was casting about for a suitably major project to serve as the centerpiece of the city’s tricentennial celebration in 2001, he selected it for re-creation. Detroit 300, Inc., the non-profit organization leading the celebration, adopted the Campus Martius reconstruction as part of its Legacy Project, and the park opened in 2004.

Only 2.5 acres in size, Campus Martius is a hub of activity with two retractable stages; the Woodward Fountain; waterwalls; monuments; lawns and gardens; a seasonal ice skating rink; a bistro café; seating for more than 3,000 people on walls, benches, steps, and movable chairs; and the “point of origin,” a medallion embedded in the stone walkway that sits over an early 1800s survey marker of Detroit’s coordinate system. Campus Martius plays host to over 200 concerts, events, and festivals each year, including the Motown Winter Blast and the Detroit Jazz Festival, each of which draws more than 100,000 people.  The innovative programming, pedestrian accessibility, strong connection to the surrounding neighborhoods, and availability of public transit make Campus Martius a distinct destination and a landmark downtown public space for residents, workers and visitors alike.

Designing and constructing the park cost $20 million. (There was no cost for land acquisition, and all roadway infrastructure expenses were covered by the Detroit Economic Growth Corporation.)  Funding came largely from corporations and the philanthropic community led by The Kresge Foundation.

The major reinvestment around Campus Martius includes street level cafés, retail shops and the new one-million-square-foot world headquarters of the Compuware Corp. (which told the city it would not have relocated if the park had not been built). Other companies are following suit: in 2010, Quicken Loans moved 3,000 employees into the area and has purchased over 2 million square feet of adjacent historic high-rise buildings. Additionally, GalaxE.Solutions announced it would spend $4.2 million to restore part of a nearby building and create 500 jobs over the next four years.  Other investments in the area include the restoration of the historic Westin Book Cadillac Hotel and Residences, new restaurants, a CVS Pharmacy, and residential lofts and condos on Woodward Avenue.

“Campus Martius is a huge economic driver of development,” said Detroit 300 Conservancy President Robert Gregory. “The park has transformed a desolate area into a vibrant, active and year-round space with residential, retail, and restaurants along its borders.  It’s a great place to be socially, right in the core of the business community.”

In 2010, Campus Martius received the inaugural Urban Land Institute Amanda Burden Urban Open Space Award and was also named one of the “Top Ten Great Public Spaces” by the American Planning Association.