Draft 2

Urban Oasis:Escaping the Sprawl

© 2010 Project for Public Spaces, Inc.

As students of landscape architecture, webelieve that a successful design should be green,helpful to our surroundings, and friendly to theenvironment.

In today’s cities, it is becoming more difficult to find areas to escape. With ever growing populations, denser cities, and decreasing green space, what can be done?

Copyright © 2006 Kikuchi & Associates. All rights reserved.

Cities have always been the central hub for entertainment, dining, and living. As cities have grown, populations haveincreased, structures have gotten larger, and man’sinpact on the environment has reached an unwanted high.

As a city’s emmitions increase, it is important forcity governments to step in and help create what is known as a “green City.” There are eleven areas that a city can work on to become green. The areas include: “Air Quality,electrical Useage and Production, EnvironmentalPerspective, Environmental Policy, Green Design, GreenSpace, Public Health, Recycling, Socioeconomic Factors, Transportaion, and Water Quality. (National GeographicSociety 2009).As urban sprawl claims more natural green space, it isimportant for cities to mandate that certain percentagesbe created as green spaces.Pocket parks are a simple means ofbringing greenery into an urbanenvironment. Pocket parks can fitwell along street corridors and between buildings. (Figure 1 & 2).

(Photo by Tricia Travis) Figure 2

© 2010 Project for Public Spaces, Inc.Figure 1

Pocket Parks, by definition, are urban open spaces at a small scale. Usually only a few house lots in size or smaller, they can be tucked into the urban fabric where they are serve the immediate population (Blake 2008).

Along with the capability to fit into most spaces, pocket parks offer many benefits to neighborhoods as well as the city, itself. Pocket parks are a way to install greenery within a city without creating large park systems. Cities such as Copenhagen, Denmark have set goals that 90% of their population can walk to a park in less than 15 minutes. (Danish Architecture Centre). If cities instill regulations into developments that acertain percentage be green space, microclimates can be created. Microclimates areclimates of a small area that differ from the surrounding area (Mazza 2009). Trees and shrubs are areas to create shade and wind shelter (Figure 2). When cities installdesigns that utilize more greenspaces, Heat Island Effect and city temperatures can begreatly decreased (Figure 1).

stocksy.co.ukSan Miguel Ranch Figure 1 ffigure 2

Cities today are becoming more and more green to meet the need for a cleanerenvironment. As cities grow, older structures are usually deemed unwanted and are torndown to create new space. In most cases, new buildings are usually constucted to take their place, but pocket parks are being utilized more often to enhance the look of the city as well as enhance the environment.

Pocket parks are usually designed and constructed through a groupeffort. Individuals often see abandoned spaces as eyesores in their neighborhood. A community group can either take matters into their own hands or they can talk to their city government (KIB Inc. 2009). (Figure 1and 2). Cities such as Toronto, OT have come up with a unique way to help their lower income neighborhoods. Toronto’s City Government decided to hold an open design competition. This design competition focused onsmall-scale, abandoned spaces that could be filled with pocket parks.Many designers accepted the challenge, and before long, Toronto hadmultiple options for enhancing its residential green spacces (Chodikoff 2006). Many other cities have “Gone Green” by installing pocket parkswithin their neighborhoods. New York City, Philadelphia, Atlanta, andManhattan have all begun mass efforts to create well-designed pocketpark green spaces in their high density areas (Blake 2008).

Figure 1 Figure 2

Urban sprawl can simply be stated as a communities spreading out over the land. Rather than building vertically, sprawl is caused mainly by residential areas, single family homes, and other one to three lev-el establishments. Urban sprawl consumes farm land, forests, grass lands, and animal habitats that many would consider vital to maintain. One benefit of a pocket park is that they create small scale, natural habitats (Nordh 2009). Along with easing the pressures on animals, pocket parks can ease other areas of the city. City parks are often the only experience with green space that city-living idividuals get on a daily basis. Pocket parks create more interactive spaces as well astaking the pressure off of city parks. In the future, many cities will attempt to copy Coppenhagen in its ways. In an ideal world, individualswould be able to walk a green network all the way to where they needto be (Danish Architecture Centre).

© 2003 - 2010. Tom Kirkendall

Dcoetzee

As time passes the green spaces created years ago will begin to age. It is important toreplenish the older greenery with newer, better plantings. As trees in our natural parks age and die, newer trees must be planted to maintain the greenery. Cultivar trees are beneficial to use in todays environment. Cultivar trees are known to be resistant to disease and contaminents that effect older species of trees. Pocket parks are ways to install stronger species of trees within gray networks to create microclimates and city-wide cooling. (figure 1,2, and 3).

With pocket parks and green networks becoming more well known, society is takingsteps in the right direction towards a cleaner environment. With new standards,lower emmitions, and ever growing city green spaces, it may not beto late to save the planet.

Copyright © 2006 Home Service Publications, Inc.Copyright 2008, AFrugalGardener.Com

©2009-2010 ~Storm-Blue

Blake, Alison. (1998). Urban parks: Pocket parks. http://depts.washington.edu/open2100/pdf/2_OpenSpa ceTypes/Open_Space_Types/pocket_parks.pdf

Chodikoff, Ian. (2006). Orphaned spaces: A recent initiative to kick start the revitalization of several of Toronto’s neighborhoods. Canadian Architect. v. 51. p 45-48.

Nordh, H. (2009). Components of Small Urban Parks that predict the possibility for full restoration. Urban forestry and Urban Greening. v. 8. issue 4. p 225-235.

Pocket parks and green space: Get involved. http://www.kibi.org/pockte_parks_get_involved

Miracle place miracle. http://www.kibi.org/miracle_place_success_story

Images:Ron Collins. 2007.

City of Bartlesville, OK

San Miguel Ranch

© 2010 Project for Public Spaces, Inc.

(Photo by Tricia Travis)

©2009-2010 ~Storm-Blue

Copyright 2008, AFrugalGardener.Com

Copyright © 2006 Home Service Publications, Inc.

Copyright © 2006 Kikuchi & Associates. All rights reserved.

© 2010 Project for Public Spaces, Inc.

© 2010 Project for Public Spaces, Inc.