Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities

by Peter Harnik, Mayor Michael Bloomberg (Foreword)

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.

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 15, 2010

Reviews

[Paul Signorelli · Rating 5 out of 5]

Peter Harnik's "Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities" is an engagingly concise exploration of innovative approaches to developing urban public spaces. He does a magnificent job, in 160 pages of text and additional resources listed at the end of the book, in exploring two significant themes: issues to consider in discussing the creation, nurturing, and maintenance of urban parks, and how successful parks advocates across the United States are finding ways to create more open space and to better use the current spaces we have. The table of contents itself serves as a resource for inspiration and a checklist for those of us interested in seeing how well our cities stack up against other's as we review the list of ideas for "finding park space in the city"; buying it; utilizing urban redevelopment; community gardens; old landfills; wetlands and stormwater storage ponds; rail trails; rooftops; sharing schoolyards; covering reservoirs; river and stream corridors; cemeteries; boulevards and parkways; decking highways; closing streets and roads; removing parking; and adding hours rather than acres. Harnik comes across as both realistic and visionary: "To be fair, none of us can fully comprehend the complexity of the urban labyrinth. It may be possible to construct something visually pleasing with evenly spaced green polygons on a color-coded map or to arrange artful golf courses in a 'simulated city' computer game, but real-life cities have too many physical impediments, political interferences, and cultural and economic exceptionalities for simple standards to rule (pp. 1-17)," he writes. We may not be able to fully comprehend that urban labyrinth, but through our individual involvement in developing, supporting, and sustaining community collaborations, we make the urban labyrinth less difficult to navigate. And we find yet another opportunity to reduce conflict and divisiveness by working together upon the common ground we find and cherish.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very useful account of the different spaces cities could benefit from as green areas to improve urban life. It provides very valuable insights from urban planning, expanding the idea of what makes a city park a successful park. It also has a neat, short historical overview of city parks.

[Julie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Harnik has done a great job exploring innovative ideas for creating first class parks as a way of connecting people to green space and at the same time revitalizing the city. I learned a lot from this book and likely will use it for a class I teach next year.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you're not planning to become an urban planner or completely obsessed with improving park systems, you might not love it. For me, it was perfect.