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

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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Connecting Park Departments to Community Efforts

Posted on August 20, 2009 by Ben Welle

An article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer describes efforts in that city between residents and the parks department to make their parks better places. In March, more than 100 people packed a room at the Lake City Library, concerned about violent crime and persistent drug deals in the area. The neighborhood’s Little Brook Park had [...]

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Seattle’s Bands of Green

Posted on December 12, 2008 by Ben Welle

Seattle is working to build a trail along its Lake Union, that will increase connectivity between parks and neighborhoods a stone’s throw from downtown. The effort aims to complete a loop around the lake.  An article in the Seattle Post Intelligencer describes that when complete, the result will be the six-mile Cheshiahud Lake Union Loop [...]

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The Benefits of Connectivity

Posted on October 3, 2008 by Ben Welle

A mini-travelogue on Seattle’s trails and bike network in the Post-Intelligencer recently shows the value of park connectivity — something Olmsted knew the value of and something cities across the country are still trying to achieve. But the coolest things about this ride are the water and the string of parks along the way — [...]

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