Tuesday marked the last day of “Greater & Greener: Re-Imagining Parks for 21st Century Cities,†the excellent summit put on by City Parks Alliance in New York City. But while the panels are over and the attendees have scattered back home across the globe, the ideas and discussions that sparked at the conference will launch some great new initiatives and movements.
Lots of interesting news also came out of the conference this week — so here is this week’s roundup, with a Greater & Greener bent!
For a Better Quality of Life, We Gotta Have Parks
“When most people think about cities, they envision skyscrapers — the 20th Century’s enduring vertical urban legacy. But when I picture a 21st century city, I think in inches, not thousands of feet. I see blades of grass. I see Prospect Park in New York, Millennium Park in Chicago or the Platte River Greenway in Denver — the spaces in between the buildings. My ideal city vista is from the green ground up — a spectacular point of view on its own but one that can also pay off with enhanced quality of life and a dazzling return on investment. And it’s a point of view more cities are embracing.”
Our Newly Lush Life
“Whenever you doubt that the future can improve upon the past or that government can play a pivotal role in that, consider and revel in the extraordinary greening of New York. This city looks nothing — nothing — like it did just a decade and a half ago. It’s a place of newly gorgeous waterfront promenades, of trees, tall grasses and blooming flowers on patches of land and peninsulas of concrete and even stretches of rail tracks that were blighted or blank before. It’s a lush retort to the pessimism of this era, verdant proof that growth remains possible, at least with the requisite will and the right strategies.”
Helping Parks Sustain Themselves
“Some major sustainability themes have emerged as over 850 landscape architects, government officials, city planners and park enthusiasts meet in New York City for the Greater and Greener International Urban Parks Conference. Among the issues highlighted on Monday were the recycling of rainwater and reclaiming former landfills and brownfields as park spaces. Addressing the conference, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg emphasized that parks help the local economy by boosting property values and improving the quality of life. He noted that the city has spent over $3 billion on park improvements in the past decade.”
How Urban Parks Enhance Your Brain
“A research team led by Marc Berman of the University of Michigan gave participants a standard memory and attention test then assigned some of them to walk through downtown Ann Arbor, and others to walk through the impressive campus arboretum. The participants were tested again upon their return, and beyond a doubt the group that took the nature walk scored significantly better.”
