“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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The Environmental, Financial and Health Benefits of Urban Forestry

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Jordan Thaler

The USDA Forest Service – Northern Research Station (NRS) released a report entitled Sustaining America’s Urban Trees and Forests, offering an overview of the current status and environmental, financial and health benefits of America’s urban forests and how these forests vary in different regions of the country. The report defined urban forest as “all publicly [...]

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The Urban Agriculture Movement: Partnerships in Motion

Posted on January 28, 2011 by Coleen Gentles

It’s fairly common for cities to have community gardens located on public parkland.  But what if these gardens were not just isolated patches of green space serving only the neighborhood they are located in?  What if these gardens were actually part of a larger citywide movement to promote urban sustainability? A recent article on Urban [...]

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When Parks, Transportation and Water Collide

Posted on October 22, 2010 by Coleen Gentles

Sometimes small towns are the communities pushing the envelope on innovation. What happens when you take a regular traffic circle, cover it with a lawn, add some trees for shade and then a fountain for kicks?  Well, in Normal, Illinois they did just that as a means for reducing downtown congestion in this college town. But the [...]

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Transforming the Trinity River in Dallas

Posted on October 6, 2010 by Peter Harnik

Blogging about the 2010 American Society of Landscape Architects Annual Meeting and Expo, September 10-13, held at the Convention Center in Washington, D.C. For years I’ve been hearing bits and pieces about the massive, multi-billion-dollar project to fix Dallas. No, not everything about Dallas, just one of its biggest challenges – creating parkland along its [...]

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Is There Room for Wildlife in City Parks?

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Elissa Hoagland Izmailyan

ASLA’s The Dirt recently covered the 2010 Dumbarton Oaks Garden and Landscape Study Symposium. This year’s focus was “Designing Wildlife Habitats,” which looked at ways to preserve biodiversity in rural and urban environments. America’s cities are an appropriate laboratory for such a movement, given that many city-dwellers’ encounters with wildlife are limited to rats, raccoons [...]

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Revitalization in Olmsted’s Small Town

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Ben Welle

A small town in Pennsylvania designed by Frederick Olmsted is trying to turn a corner after years of decline by building on its history as a city designed to be in tune with nature. The AP’s Ramit Plushnick-Masti writes how Olmsted designed Vandergrift, 35 miles northeast of Pittsburgh and its streets to follow the river. [...]

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Goats for Park Revitalization

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Ben Welle

Revitalization starts with goats, or so it goes for Baltimore’s Druid Hill Park. The city’s Parks and People Foundation is undertaking a $10 million renovation of a decrepit mansion on the edge of the historic 745-acre park that will house an environmental learning center, the group’s main offices and trail connections to the rest of [...]

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Trash Compactors in Philadelphia

Posted on September 2, 2009 by Ben Welle

GOOD magazine takes us to Philadelphia to look at the city’s new trash compactors. LOVE Park (or JFK Plaza as it is formally known) is seen in the background. more about “Trash Compactors in Philadelphia“, posted with vodpod

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Energy Efficient Parks

Posted on December 22, 2008 by Ben Welle

Many park agencies and park friends groups are trying to go “green” by reducing their carbon footprint. In many ways, this has nothing to do with parks themselves, but tactics to reduce energy consumption that would apply to many other companies or government entities. In any case, the Tacoma, Washington city parks agency just hired [...]

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