parks
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Urban carnivores have higher survival rates than their country cousins
I heard this weekend that there’s at least one coyote living permanently in Central Park. Everyone’s heard a story like that recently — bears, coyotes, and other carnivores stalking through city streets and parks, right where we’d least expect them. But according to a new study, certain carnivores — raccoons and coyotes — do better […]
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California’s closed state parks to be overrun by pot growers, people willing to pee in the woods
In just a few months, California will close dozens of state parks. But what does that actually mean? KQED, a rad West Coast public radio station, has a series looking deeper into the issue, and from what we can tell, closing state parks means nature’s on the loose with NO ADULT SUPERVISION. Now, that can […]
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Help build New York’s first underground park
The Low Line, an underground urban paradise on the Lower East Side, is soliciting funds through Kickstarter, which means that you can be part of the development of the city’s first underground community green space/zombie fortress.
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Paris had the High Line before the High Line was cool
Oh, New York. You think that you've got a cool new idea, but always (always!) Europe beats you to it. NYC’s been getting all kinds of excited about its High Line park, an abandoned train platform converted into a wonderland of local plants, awesome places to sit and people-watch, and hibiscus ice pop vendors. But at TreeHugger, Alex Davies points out that NYC is just a couple decades late to the elevated park party. For almost 20 years, Parisians have been enjoying a stroll above city streets on the Viaduc des Arts. And just like the High Line, the elevated platform is a converted rail line.
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Karaoke and the power of ‘bottom-up self-organization’
In the season of budget-busting holiday spectacuthons, some cities are finding more humble ways to liven up parks and public spaces -- and the only fireworks are the ones residents bring with them.
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In Madrid, a highway becomes a park
Smart cities all around the world are getting rid of highways, and in Madrid, not only has the city built a tunnel to drive a urban-fabric-ripping highway underground, it has turned the reclaimed land into a park. In the New York Times, critic Michael Kimmelman tours the park and reports that, while "still a work […]
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Germany is building a park on top of a highway
Germany's A7 Autobahn is like a highway on steroids. The 500-mile, six-lane road runs the length of the country and handles 150,000 bat-out-of-hell drivers a day. That might improve life for traffic fetishists or people who regularly need to get from Denmark to Austria at 100 miles per hour, but people who live alongside the […]
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Turning vacant lots into parks reduces violent crime
A new study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology analyzes a 10-year project in Philadelphia to turn abandoned lots into public parks. As it turns out, the project hasn’t just eliminated eyesores — it’s also reduced crime. Gun-related assaults, vandalism ,and criminal mischief all dropped off significantly in the reclaimed spaces. The researchers theorize […]
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How Coke reversed a bottle ban in the Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is very beautiful, except when it's covered with disposable Dasani bottles left by littering tourists, which is a major problem for the park. So the National Park Service decided to ban disposable bottles. But then a bigwig at Coca Cola, which has donated $13 million to the park service over the years, […]