Rethinking Urban Parks

A study of public recreation space and how urban developers can encourage ethnic diversity through planning that supports multiculturalism. Urban parks such as New York City’s Central Park provide vital public spaces where city dwellers of all races and classes can mingle safely while enjoying a variety of recreations. By coming together in these relaxed settings, different groups become comfortable with each other, thereby strengthening their communities and the democratic fabric of society. But just the opposite happens when, by design or in ignorance, parks are made inhospitable to certain groups of people. This pathfinding book argues that cultural diversity should be a key goal in designing and maintaining urban parks. Using case studies of New York City’s Prospect Park, Orchard Beach in Pelham Bay Park, and Jacob Riis Park in the Gateway National Recreation Area, as well as New York’s Ellis Island Bridge Proposal and Philadelphia's Independence National Historical Park, the authors identify specific ways to promote, maintain, and manage cultural diversity in urban parks. They also uncover the factors that can limit park use, including historical interpretive materials that ignore the contributions of different ethnic groups, high entrance or access fees, park usage rules that restrict ethnic activities, and park “restorations” that focus only on historical or aesthetic values. With the wealth of data in this book, urban planners, park professionals, and all concerned citizens will have the tools to create and maintain public parks that serve the needs and interests of all the public.

Proposing and demonstrating the ways in which we need to rethink urban green spaces as cities, societies and environments evolve, renowned scholar Cecil C. Konijnendijk explores urban green spaces as essential parts of cities. Chapters offer a comprehensive look at how their roles have changed over time and will continue to do so, moving from their conventional purpose as areas for recreation to become spaces contributing to climate adaptation, biodiversity conservation and economic development.

What type of cities do we want our children to grow up in? Car-dominated, noisy, polluted and devoid of nature? Or walkable, welcoming, and green? As the climate crisis and urbanisation escalate, cities urgently need to become more inclusive and sustainable. This book reveals how seeing cities through the eyes of children strengthens the case for planning and transportation policies that work for people of all ages, and for the planet. It shows how urban designers and city planners can incorporate child friendly insights and ideas into their masterplans, public spaces and streetscapes. Healthier children mean happier families, stronger communities, greener neighbourhoods, and an economy focused on the long-term. Make cities better for everyone.

Great City Parks is a celebration of some of the finest achievements of landscape architecture in the public realm. It is a comparative study of thirty significant public parks in major cities across Western Europe and North America. Collectively, they give a clear picture of why parks have been created, how they have been designed, how they are managed, and what plans are being made for them at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Based on unique research including extensive site visits and interviews with the managing organisations, this book is illustrated throughout with clear plans and photographs– with this new edition featuring full colour throughout. Tate updates his seminal 2001 work with 10 additional parks, including: The High Line in NYC, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam. All the previous city parks have also been updated and revised to reflect current usage and management. This book reflects a belief that well planned, well designed and well managed parks and park systems will continue to make major contributions to the quality of life in an increasingly urbanized world.

Research in Social Factors, also called Environment and Behavior Studies or Person-Environment Relations, is research into the human experience of the built environment. Even since its heyday in the 1970s and 1980s, as a response to the perceived failures of Modernism, Social Factors continues to ask questions about how people use space, and what meaning that space holds. This edited collection brings together cutting-edge research and contemporary issues into one book. Divided into two parts, the chapters in this collection demonstrate the continuing relevance of, and the wide array of topics in, the field. The first section, History and Future Outlook, addresses the field itself, investigating its history and common terms and updating seminal work. The second section, Perspectives on the User, surveys contemporary research into the human side of design, understanding the built environment through the lens of valuing “the user”, a term which encompasses everyone from Native Americans to children to adults with disabilities to entire cities devastated by tornadoes. Contributors to this volume include emerging and established scholars, as well as practitioners, and touch on issues of sustainability, history, culture, new media, disaster recovery, health, and recreation. This book will particularly appeal to scholars looking to keep abreast of current issues, students of the field endeavouring to understand their chosen subject, and practitioners exploring new strategies in understanding the clients they serve. The array of topics and perspectives examined here demonstrates a renaissance of Social Factors.

"Each case study in Rivertown considers the critical questions of who makes decisions about our urban rivers, who pays to implement these decisions, and who ultimately benefits or suffers from these decisions." --book cover.

For years American urban parks fell into decay due to disinvestment, but as cities began to rebound—and evidence of the economic, cultural, and health benefits of parks grew— investment in urban parks swelled. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently cited meeting the growing demand for parks and open space as one of the biggest challenges for urban leaders today. It is now widely agreed that the U.S. needs an ambitious and creative plan to increase urban parklands. Urban Green explores new and innovative ways for “built out” cities to add much-needed parks. Peter Harnik first explores the question of why urban parkland is needed and then looks at ways to determine how much is possible and where park investment should go. When presenting the ideas and examples for parkland, he also recommends political practices that help create parks. The book offers many practical solutions, from reusing the land under defunct factories to sharing schoolyards, from building trails on abandoned tracks to planting community gardens, from decking parks over highways to allowing more activities in cemeteries, from eliminating parking lots to uncovering buried streams, and more. No strategy alone is perfect, and each has its own set of realities. But collectively they suggest a path toward making modern cities more beautiful, more sociable, more fun, more ecologically sound, and more successful.

As the number of passenger cars in the world increases daily, so too does Earth's supply of parking spaces. In some cities, parking lots cover more than one-third of the metropolitan footprint--but their design and function has not been rethought since the 1950s. Here, urban designer Eran Ben-Joseph shares a different vision for parking's future--aesthetically pleasing, environmentally and architecturally responsible. He provides a visual history of this often-ignored urban space, introducing us to some of the many alternative and nonparking purposes that parking lots have served. He shows us parking lots that are lushly planted with trees and flowers and beautifully integrated with the rest of the built environment. With purposeful design, Ben-Joseph argues, parking lots could be significant public places, contributing as much to their communities as great boulevards, parks, or plazas.--From publisher description.