Every week, we bring you the latest news in placemaking, landscape architecture and urban planning, the nature-mental health link, and much more. Check back each week for new roundups and items.
How Much Public Space Does a City Need?
“How much of Manhattan is dedicated to public space? For starters, there’s Central Park, but the island’s oasis is only 1.3 square miles, 5.6 percent of the borough’s land area. You might remember those swaths of green way uptown, like Highbridge Park and Inwood Hill Park (the only natural forest left in Manhattan), but together they’re just another one-half square mile, accounting for a mere 2.1 percent. Add in all the well-worn parks from Marcus Garvey to Bryant, the slivers of open space along the rivers, privately-owned public spaces like Occupy’s Zuccotti Park, newfangled innovations like the High Line, and Janette Sadik-Khan’s pedestrian plazas. Maybe 15 percent at best? Guess again. When we think about public space, we picture parks and greenways, but overlook the largest single public space asset in any city’s rolls: streets. Include the pavement New Yorkers traverse every day in your public space calculation and the city’s most prosperous borough hits the magic proportion: 49 percent.”
What We Like – And Don’t Like – About Our Cities
“American city dwellers place a high value on their cities’ food offerings, from restaurants to farmers’ markets. We also love historic buildings and good public spaces. Traffic, not so much. These findings are from a new study released last week by Sasaki Associates, a Massachusetts-based design and planning firm. The study, although limited to six cities, is rich with interesting findings that should help inform the agendas of urban planners and advocates. The findings should also matter to environmentalists, because successful cities are key to a sustainable future. To get the environment right, we need to create and maintain urban environments that people love.”
Affordable Housing Plan Could Destroy 15 Community Gardens
“At least 15 community gardens on city-owned property could be bulldozed to make way for new buildings under the de Blasio administration’s affordable housing plan, community advocates said. The Department of Housing Preservation and Development published a list this week of city-owned sites that housing developers can apply to build on, shocking those who tend to and enjoy the green spaces.”
Belo Foundation Announces Plans for New Downtown Park
“The Belo Foundation has announced it owns the majority of land needed to build a new park in the Farmers Market District of downtown Dallas. “Continuing its commitment to help create urban parks and green space in Downtown Dallas, The Belo Foundation has obtained ownership of the majority of the proposed site of Harwood Park,” the foundation wrote in a press release Tuesday. “Over the last 15 months, the Foundation has purchased 1.57 acres of the 2.32 acres of privately-owned land included in the 3.8-acre proposed park site. The Foundation has done this of its own volition, and in order to facilitate the acquisition of the land, has not made the City of Dallas aware of its initiative until now.”
