The Regeneration Of Public Parks

The Urban Parks Programme, financed by the Heritage Lottery Fund, has sparked a new enthusiasm for the regeneration of Britain's parks. This unique reference book gives a valuable overview of all the elements of public park design. It emphasizes our parks' diversity and richness, and offers practical guidance as to their renovation and future care. It is essential reading for all those involved in the design, upkeep and regeneration of public parks.

Urban planners have paid more attention to the concept of the pocket park as modern cities become denser and buildings taller. As the pace of urbanisation accelerates and populations increase, particularly in larger cities, there becomes much less park space available for people to enjoy. With less investment and area required, 'Pocket Parks' could provide a solution. They fulfil the need for highly sought-after leisure spaces, which can operate in high-density city environments, bypassing the hurdle of space. These beautiful green areas increase the ecological benefits of the urban environment, helping to enrich and satisfy the local residents' lives. Pocket Park Design introduces the outstanding landscape architects and designers who create pocket parks. Pocket parks should be located where they are safe and convenient to access, as well as providing open spaces that are comfortable, functional, and pleasant for park visitors. While the areas of a pocket park will generally cater to a variety of demographics, specific spaces or activity areas may be provided for dominant user groups, such as children, workers, or the elderly. This book studies the pocket park's characteristics, as well as the relationship between humanity and the surrounding landscape. It will be a great source of inspiration to landscape designers.

The first public parks were created on urban 'greenfields'. Once these designated sites had been used, cities looked towards post-industrial sites, and built parks in places that had suffered from environmental degradation, neglect, abandonment and conflict. With finite stocks of urban post-industrial land now also approaching exhaustion, more ways of making parks are required to create inclusive, accessible and resilient urban places. Future Park invites Australian built environment professionals and policymakers to consider the future of parks in our cities. Including spectacular images of public spaces throughout the world, the book describes the economic, social and environmental benefits of urban parks, and then outlines the threats and challenges facing cities and communities in an age when more than half the world's population are urban dwellers. Future Park introduces the need to embrace new public park thinking to ensure that benefits continue to be realised. Future Park illustrates imaginative and resourceful responses to real challenges by highlighting recent proposals and projects. These projects coalesce around four broad themes – linkages, obsolescences, co-locations and installations – responding to contemporary urban paradoxes, and ensuring parks continue to play a vital role in the lives of our cities.

Spon's Landscape and External Works Price Book 2004 offers the only comprehensive source of information for detailed external works and landscape costs. It covers all the items to be found in hard and soft landscape contracts and is therefore an indispensable reference book for quantity surveyors, landscape architects and contractors - essential for compiling estimates, specifications, bills of quantities and works schedules. A full index and list of manufacturers and suppliers gives easy reference to all items. The L and E comes with a 'free' CDROM that enables the reader to view the entire book on screen, cut and paste prices into other tender documents, export to other major packages, perform simple calculations, index search, produce estimate and tender documents, adjust rates and data. This complete package means that Spon's Landscape and External Works Price Book 2004 is now better than ever and is a resource that no building firm, surveyor or architect should be without. New features for the easier-to-read 2004 edition include: information on, and incorporating, the new CIJC three year age agreement, effective from Monday 30th June 2003; additional plant items to reflect the increased mechanisation of site handling of materials; new paving and kerb items; additional measured rate items for work in small gardens; non-rigid constructions, pumps and rocks associated with water features.

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.

This report contains guidance on good practice in municipal park provision. It is based on 12 main case studies, supported by a further 26 supplementary case studies. Areas covered include planning, managing, competing, delegating, maintaining, building, monitoring and involving.

Waste and Urban Regeneration examines the Nanjido region of Seoul and its transformation from Nanjido Landfill to the World Cup Park, and its relation to the urban ecology within the context of the city’s urban development during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The study analyses the urban ecological meanings of the site’s two distinct forms by consolidating them with the Lefebvrian urban theory and relational ecological theories. This book looks at environmental transformations and their link to South Korea’s political and economic changes; how Seoul City controlled waste populations, the borderline characterisations of the inhabited landfill and its community, the regeneration of the landfill into the post-landfill park and site-specific artworks which explored the conflict between the invisible presence of the landfill’s garbage and its history. As one of the first accounts of a landfill and landfill-turned-park of South Korea, this study is a must-read for academics and researchers interested in waste management, ecology, landscape theory and history.

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.