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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In the Age of the Creative Economy, Parks Boost Cities’ Competitiveness

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan

Last month, Amazon.com spent more than $600 million to acquire three adjacent parcels in Seattle’s South Lake Union neighborhood for its new headquarters campus. The parcels are within brief walking distance of South Lake Union Park, a new destination park and the focal point of the burgeoning neighborhood. Creative and technology firms respond to their [...]

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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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From Bluebelts to Greenbelts: Converting Wetlands and Stormwater Storage Ponds to Parkland

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Peter Harnik

An eleventh 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 from wetlands and stormwater storage ponds. For environmental, financial, and legal reasons, urban stormwater management is getting much more attention – and the result is helping to [...]

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From Dumps to Destinations: Converting Landfills to Parks

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Peter Harnik

A tenth 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 from capped landfills. New parks can be fashioned out of old garbage dumps. It’s not as bad as it sounds. Balloon Park in Albuquerque, Cesar Chavez Park in [...]

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Creating Parkland via Rail Trails

Posted on September 9, 2011 by Peter Harnik

A ninth 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 converting abandoned railroad corridors into rail trails. In 1963 famed Morton Arboretum naturalist May Theilgaard Watts wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune. [...]

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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 [...]

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Walking on Water: Covering Reservoirs Can Create Parkland

Posted on February 22, 2011 by Peter Harnik

A fifth 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 covering their reservoirs. Open drinking water reservoirs have been often-beloved icons in the United States for well over a century. Highland Park Reservoir (1879), McMillan Reservoir [...]

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“Greening Cities, Growing Communities” Offers Lessons on Community Gardens

Posted on June 7, 2010 by Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan

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 [...]

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Tapping Reservoirs as City Parks

Posted on January 28, 2010 by Ben Welle

Need a park in your neighborhood but don’t have any space? According to a recent article by Peter Harnik and Aric Merolli, one place to look is the large number of urban water reservoirs sitting inside cities. With new regulations requiring municipalities to cover reservoirs or institute water filtration systems, new “land” is being created [...]

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