Urban parks

DEFINITION: Areas within cities that are set aside for recreation and green space

Urban parks reflect efforts to reform cities and increase environmental consciousness by reintegrating nature into the urban landscape.

The appearance of the earliest urban parks in the mid- to late nineteenth century arose from a broader urban reform movement. Reformers responded to rapid industrialization, urbanization, and land development by calling on cities to create and develop parks within city limits. This reflected a new environmental ideology that sought to reconcile nature and the city and change the way urban residents related to the natural world. From 1860 to 1900, cities in the United States spent millions of dollars to build parks, including New York’s Central Park, Boston’s Emerald Necklace, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, and Chicago’s Lakefront.

Frederick Law Olmsted, one of the most influential landscape architects of the nineteenth century and leader of the urban park movement in the United States, participated in nearly every major urban park project in the nation. Olmsted believed that an urban park functions as the “lungs of the city.” He argued that parks improve public health by increasing access to fresh air, trees, and sunshine—natural amenities that gritty, industrial cities lacked. According to Olmsted, parks promote spiritual restoration by providing an antithesis to the anxieties of the human-made, unnatural urban landscape. He also asserted that parks can prevent urban vice or riots by providing outlets for the urban underclass. Olmsted’s park design legacy remains a cornerstone in urban planning.

During the twentieth century, the design and purpose of urban parks shifted from the Olmstedian emphasis on the park as pleasure ground to an emphasis on the park as multiuse recreation facility. Urban park designs began to include baseball fields, golf courses, tennis courts, ice-skating rinks, playgrounds, and even zoos.

Much of the impetus for the environmental movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s began in cities. Air pollution from automobiles and industrial manufacturing and water pollution from industrial dumping, sewage disposal, and toxic waste disposal were among the most pressing environmental issues. Urban residents began to mobilize around these issues, demanding change.

Although much of the resulting legislation addressed pollution problems in the cities, many citizens and environmental activists were also concerned that accelerating urban expansion and suburbanization were destroying the last remaining open spaces surrounding many cities. Nearly one hundred years after the first urban park movement, a new urban park movement emerged. It was tied to two developing political coalitions: the national environmental movement and the antigrowth movement. In some cities, local groups lamented the insufficiency of the existing parks and pressured civic leaders to protect open space, to increase the sizes of parks and open spaces, and to control urban development. Environmentalists argued that open spaces should be protected as unique and important ecosystems. In many cities, outlying open spaces became integrated into regional and city park systems.

The importance of urban parks became more than a local issue. The subject of parks and other areas for recreation became a national political issue. In the United States, for example, a congressional report released during the 1970s stated that US cities lacked sufficient outdoor recreation opportunities. The National Park Service was charged with acquiring and maintaining national recreation areas (seashores, lakeshores, and other areas) located in or near urban areas. Among the new national urban parks that were designated were Cape Cod National Seashore (Massachusetts), Gateway National Recreation Area (New York and New Jersey), Golden Gate National Recreation Area (California), Cuyahoga Valley National Recreation Area (Ohio), and Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (California).

Urban parks represent one way of reconnecting to nature and “greening” the city. Greening the city can take many forms, including the creation of urban farms, the planting of trees along street meridians, the cleanup of neighborhood parks, and the rehabilitation of derelict or abandoned sites into small parks or gardens. Such projects are often carried out by neighborhood groups, nonprofit organizations, or local schools. These modest, small-scale efforts represent the fundamental cultural rediscovery of nature within the urban environment and can provide powerful learning experiences.

Urban parks are also integrated into local economic development projects. During the 1980s and 1990s, many US cities redeveloped their lakefronts or other waterfronts. Many redevelopment projects interspersed open spaces, small parks, picnic tables, and water fountains among office buildings, hotels, and residences. These projects served to reconnect urban residents to the natural environment while simultaneously revitalizing local economies and boosting local property values. The integration of parks and nature in such developments is evidence of the degree to which environmental sensitivity has become important in urban design.

Urban parks continue to play an important role in city life. Many are mixed-use places that offer a range of activities from solitude and reflection in a quiet, shady grove to social interaction in outdoor cafés and aquariums. Such parks are symbolic of efforts to redefine broader relationships between humans and the environment through the reintegration of nature in the most human of all creations, the city. The environmental movement has become increasingly concerned with changing people’s perceptions of and behaviors toward the natural environment. Urban parks, however large or small, whether self-contained or integrated into mixed-use sites, testify to the interdependence, not opposition, of nature and people.

Bibliography

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Cranz, Galen. The Politics of Park Design: A History of Urban Parks in America. 1982. Reprint. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1989.

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