Urban Parks
Want to Prevent Crime? Apply Women and Children
Peter Vaernet, aka the "Mad Viking", transformed a pocket park known for drugs and violence into a safe, active place by bringing lots of women and children into the park.
Parks are "Volatile Places"
Peter Harnik of the Trust for Public Land spoke recently about the challenges facing urban parks, and how they can be catalysts for revitalization and change when done correctly.
Putting the Park in Parking Lots
Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute proposes renovating city parking lots into actual parks would go a long way to improving the air quality of cities.
Quality Public Space vs. Lack of Funds
The group that maintains Philadelphia's famed Rittenhouse Square has put a lot of maintenance work into making it a lovely space, but is faced with mounting expenses and needs new ways to pay for them.
Turning Freeways Into Parkways
Across the country, grey-to-green transformations are in the works, capping freeways to reconnect neighborhoods with urban parks.
Parks Are Sprawl-Preventers
Kathryn Gustafson of the firm Gustafson Guthrie Nichol says that urban parks are an antidote to sprawl because they give city dwellers the room to breathe that often drives them to the suburbs.
Rose Kennedy Greenway is a "Placeless Desert"
Boston's Rose Kennedy Greenway is an urban park built over the "Big Dig" highway tunnel, and as Robert Campbell of the Boston Globe puts it, "a design disaster."
America's Best New Urban Parks
The Infrastructurist lists the top new urban parks that have been built in the U.S. in recent years.
Parks on Top of L.A. Freeways
Los Angeles is crazy for "cap parks": basically, putting roofs over sections of freeway and building a park on top. The added benefit? Reconnecting neighborhoods riven asunder by the freeway in the first place.
Good Parks Make Good Cities
That's Lynden Miller's motto, an artist and garden designer with a new book, Parks, Plants, and People: Beautifying the Urban Landscape. The Wall St. Journal has a profile.
Kaid Benfield's Favorite Park
Kaid Benfield, who came in at #42 in our Top 100 Urban Thinkers poll recently, talks about what makes the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris his favorite in the world.
Going After Graffiti
The city of San Marcos, Texas, near Austin, plans harsher measures to crack down on graffiti, including holding a minor's parents responsible and banning certain graffiti-making tools.
Could Downtown L.A. Transform From Parking Lot to Park?
A handful of EDAW interns have created an ambitious plan for a new park to connect L.A.'s disconnected downtown with lush greenery.
Plans for High Line 'Banal', Says NY Times
Plans were recently revealed for the much-ballyhooed High Line Park in New York, converting an abandoned elevated railway into a recreation area. But the NY Times says, 'I’d been hoping for a utopia. Instead, I got sumac.'
Report Estimates Economic Value of Philadelphia's Park System
A report announced by Mayor Michael Nutter estimates that Philadelphia's park system has a combined economic value of $1.9 billion in services, income and taxes to the city.
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
Caltrans
Smith Gee Studio
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
Salt Lake City
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
