Every week, we bring you the latest news in placemaking, landscape architecture, the nature-mental health link, and much more. Check back every week for new roundups and items.
Foreclosure Crisis Opens and Closes a Treasure Trove of Parks
“Atlanta is in the midst of developing the ambitious BeltLine linear park and transit project, which will greatly increase overall park space in the city. But many areas beyond the BeltLine will remain park poor. Beginning in about 2008, the homes and neighborhoods shaken empty by the foreclosure crisis seemed to be exactly the kind of cheap, easily acquirable land the city could use to fill in some of those holes.
But that’s turned out to be almost exactly opposite the case.”
Salazar Establishes Enduring America’s Great Outdoors Program at Interior Department
“Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar today signed a Secretarial Order establishing the America’s Great Outdoors program in the Department of the Interior, formalizing the department’s support for President Obama’s landmark initiative to create a 21st century conservation and recreation ethic to reconnect Americans, especially young people, with the natural world.”
A Tricky Spot for Los Angeles’ New Grand Park
“According to Christopher Hawthorne, architecture critic for The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles has very few truly urban parks. Most reside along the periphery of the city, along the beaches and coastline or in the mountains. So the new 12-acre, rectangular $56-million Grand Park, which opened in downtown Los Angeles in July, represents an attempt to “rewrite that civic story line†and create “a central gathering spot, in the heart of downtown, for all of dizzyingly diverse L.A. County.†Unfortunately, the location for this bold attempt at creating a more public civic realm in L.A. isn’t ideal though. So the attempt, which is â€imperfect but encouraging,†may be seen as just one small, incremental step in transforming L.A. into a less-car centric place.”
How Sports Teams Are Making Cities Greener
“NRDC’s new report, Game Changer: How the Sports Industry is Saving the Environment, documents the collective impact of a range of innovative and cost-effective steps being taken across all professional leagues to go green.”
