r/urbandesign • u/Medical-Pipe2550 • 17d ago
Question Parks saved our cities—but are we screwing it up again?
Yo, ever wonder why cities aren’t just endless concrete and traffic jams? The answer: parks. Yep, those big patches of green you jog through or chill in on a nice day? They literally saved cities from becoming miserable, overcrowded, and disease-ridden.
Back in the 1800s, cities were a hot mess—factories pumping out smoke, garbage piling up, and people crammed together with zero fresh air. It was so bad that diseases spread like crazy (think cholera outbreaks and gross living conditions). Then, some smart folks realized, “Hey, maybe we should put some trees and grass in here before we all suffocate.” Enter the park movement.
Frederick Law Olmsted—the guy behind Central Park in NYC—pushed for big public parks, not just to look pretty, but to actually make cities livable. And guess what? It worked. Parks cooled down urban areas, made the air cleaner, and gave people a place to actually breathe. Studies show that green spaces lower city temps by up to 5°F, cut air pollution, and even make neighborhoods worth more money (good luck affording an apartment near a park now).
But here’s the thing—are cities still prioritizing parks, or are we messing it all up again? 🤔 With urban sprawl, crazy rents, and cities packing in more buildings, are we forgetting why we needed parks in the first place?
I've made some historical illustrations in the below video, including the Central Park and green spaces in Copenhagen (https://youtu.be/kaP8zh_-sw0). It would also be good if you drop some thoughts below. Should cities be forced to build more parks? Are new urban parks actually useful, or just decoration? Could adding more green space fix problems like housing or traffic?
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u/McGonagall_stones 17d ago
Properly placed parks with appropriate surrounding zoning can increase property values. Yes, I think we’re failing at making most parks effective at what they’re designed to do on the human scale. More importantly we’re failing at utilizing parks to their full potential because too often the purse strings are viewed as being a separate entity with a separate budget from other departments within the city. If a properly designed park can increase pedestrian traffic while reducing the burden on infrastructure, streets/engineering rarely if ever contribute a portion of their budget. If a park is also used for a phase of wastewater catchment/treatment, water/utilities rarely if ever contribute. Parks are pushed to the periphery of the city instead of being integrated into the fabric of the city. Also… Central Park would NEVER be built today because of the value of buildings that could be placed on the site, and if you argued about “intrinsic value” you’d be laughed out of the room. Even though we now know that it is synonymous with the identity of NYC.
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u/cyprinidont 16d ago
Yes the parks near me largely just collect litter
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u/McGonagall_stones 16d ago edited 16d ago
If the streets around a park are only designed for cars, then it’s only the local (non car owning) population that will use them. If there are no businesses attracting pedestrian traffic, as in the case in suburbs, then only youth, the impoverished, the homeless, and those without the legal right to drive will use the space. If there aren’t any eyes on the park, the park becomes an eyesore and a hotbed for illicit intentions and the youth of the surrounding suburbs are no longer encouraged to use the space. The park’s reputation worsens and the property values go down if crime and litter are prevalent.
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u/Urban_Designer 17d ago
By me, transportation bureaus (where "streets/engineering" live) are woefully underfunded. If anything we want to do the reverse, and share resources with Parks to shut down streets for more parks/rec activites like pedestrian plazas in the ROW. It's definitely not a money saving tool though to create the pedestrian spaces, plaza costs would likely even out in the long term with saved costs on road maintenance
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u/McGonagall_stones 16d ago
I feel as though this goes into the design. Roads and sidewalks are expensive because they’re often built by the private sector (in the US) and offloaded onto the public sector. And being creatures easily bored by details, we fail to budget appropriately for entropy that seems decades away. We also use incredibly high input choices (like lawn and ornamentals, concrete and other pavements in infrastructure) in our design of public spaces. The trick then, is to layer and overlap functions within green spaces, and to choose design and infrastructure elements that are more expensive up front with greater durability in the long run. If a sidewalk is water permeable, it’s much more expensive. But it also weathers erosion better by its nature of allowing the weathering elements through it. I’ll add as a caveat that any design elements should be as bio-regionally appropriate as the types of crops we grow.
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u/curiosity8472 17d ago
In my city we have ugly golf courses in desirable areas. I support ripping them up and rêplacing with midrise housing widely spaced buildings with park in between
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u/Sloppyjoemess 16d ago
We have an Olmsted style park in our town, that residents are allowed to drive-through.
It’s a really substantial park, with a big lake, recreational fields, a lot of green space, an Arboretum, dog park, etc. and miles of trails
The added bonus, is that it sits in a part of town that is pretty accessible to thousands of people, and the bus routes that go through it, make it very accessible to 100,000 more people !!
I know I’ll get a lot of hate for mentioning it here, but it works really well in our dense urban neighborhood, and offers available parking at night for residents.
Don’t think of this response as car-brained. But do look at it as a good example of how to tie modes together to please everybody.
North Hudson County Park - NJ
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u/captain-gingerman 16d ago
I live in Buffalo and run through these Olmsted parks every day. I’m so glad that he was allowed to design the entire city around the parks because it vastly improves my quality of life.
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u/RichAdagio6551 16d ago
Parks are awesome, but mostly if they help structure a neighbourhood. Think of commons near town squares, squares (ex. London, Montreal), or the Olmstedian parks / parkways. They become a destination, can be the heart of a community! There's a million good examples out there, but I feel like some new subdivisions don't take parks into account, or civic spaces at all. New developments have to cede a % of land to the city for parks usually, but it often ends up being a sliver of undesirable land where a cheep playground is installed, often of the fringes of a developement, not at the heart of it.
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u/Dazzling-Climate-318 15d ago
Our local city leads the area and to a certain extent the country in impact fees. When developers come in from out of state they sometimes even sue the city, and inevitably lose as state law allows it and it’s very popular locally. Thus every development includes green space. Sometimes it is parkland, sometimes it is forest preserve. I live across the street from one such forest preserve, which is actually owned and maintained by our Home Owners Association. There is a paved multi use path which runs through the center of it which connects to a path which goes through adjacent neighborhoods and connects to the city wide multi use/ bicycle path system which connects the different parts of the city together. Our city is small, but green. It is possible to walk from almost any part of it to any other and the parts that aren’t connected are being gradually connected. We have a small river which runs through our city which is also bordered by parkland and bicycle paths. When our daughter was young she could and did walk to school, walk to the Public Library, walk to Church, walk to the Public Pool and walk to the Public Park. She did this with a parent, a friend and when older by herself.
Parks have not negatively affected our small city.
However, it has perhaps contributed to our daughter’s valuing nature. Where she lives now she actively seeks it out and regularly goes to an arboretum she likes as well as a conservatory on a park and the local parks in her community. She also does not like NYC. She reports she finds the tall densely packed buildings and the lack of green spaces stifling. Previous to an extended visit and living in her father in laws apartment there she actually considered relocating to it. No longer.
So my thought is given the global population is stabilizing we can afford Parks and can enjoy them, irrespective of the costs. After all if we are only thinking of profit and not the quality of life, why bother living at all.
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u/PristineCan3697 16d ago
Interesting I hadn’t thought of parks as an innovation. Now that I think about it, the big European city parks started as private spaces for aristocrats. Same with Tokyo. They reflect the idealism of post-industrial revolution town planning which could easily be lost in the pursuit of private profit.
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u/bigmikey69er 16d ago
How did they “save” them???
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u/Medical-Pipe2550 16d ago
„Saving“ them is of course a bit of exaggeration, but the green spaces and parks can cool the temperatures of urban areas and have social impact.
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u/oceanfr0g 16d ago
Should cities be forced to build more parks?
No. Coercion never results in lasting change.
Are new urban parks actually useful, or just decoration?
As you stated, parks serve many purposes. Some are habitat for small organisms, some are places for grad students to play ultimate frisbee. It varies, and your question is not well worded.
Could adding more green space fix problems like housing or traffic?
Are you writing a report or are you 5 or something? "Housing" and "traffic" are macro issues, playing out on 50-100 year timelines. Read "The Power Broker" for more information on residual and emergent elements of urban "renewal". Parks are not a silver bullet that fix housing issues (how the hell could they?) and in the age of the automobile there is no panacea for traffic. Public T helps but it needs to service the entire city/commuter suburbs and be safe and clean.
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u/silent_h 17d ago
There are lots of "green spaces" in North American cities that are not necessarily parks per se (not designed, landscaped, designated, zoned), but residents or NIMBYs will call them "parks," or "green spaces," or "natural areas" to argue against developing them for housing (or other uses).