Have you heard of the Mayors Challenge? It’s an initiative put forth by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, that’s a competition to identify bold ideas that solve major challenges and improve city life – and can spread to other cities. The grand prize winning city will receive a $5 million innovation prize; four runner-up cities will receive $1 million each.
305 cities have submitted their ideas to the Mayors Challenge, and eventually the field will be narrowed to 20. Our attention was caught by a list of examples that the Mayors Challenge features on their web site for inspiration — in particular, the story of the greening of New York City.
In 2007, Mayor Bloomberg launched PlaNYC, a program aimed at making the city more livable and efficient. A key element of PlaNYC was a commitment to creating or re-imagining 4,000 acres of New York City land, so that all New Yorkers live within a ten-minute walk of a park.
The need in NYC back in 2007 was clear:
The need for open spaces was especially acute in New York City, which in 2007 had fewer acres of green space per person than almost any other American city, despite the fact that Mayor Bloomberg and his team had created more than 300 acres of new parkland in his first five years in office.
Progress has been great: “In the last year alone, the program brought more than 240,000 New Yorkers within a ten-minute walk of a park. Today, 75.6% of all New York City residents share in this benefit.”
For more about how New York is successfully greening its city, click here.
