Huge urban parks making comeback

Bigger than Central Park

Steve Hawley, Apr 21, 10.

Recognizing the benefits of greenspace, five communities across the nation are building urban parks significantly larger than New York City’s famous Central Park, according to USA Today. The parks will be located in Atlanta, Birmingham, Memphis, Orange County (CA), and Staten Island, and most are being redeveloped from other older functions.

The article notes:

[Park-building] is spurred by several factors, including mounting environmental concerns, improved property values for park-side real estate, increased demand for green space from health-conscious people moving back to cities and a greater availability of vacant industrial land.

The parks development comes despite troubled public finances in many metro areas because of the housing and credit crunch.

David Goldberg, a spokesman for Smart Growth America, told USA Today, “We grew so rapidly in the ‘80s and ‘90s in the rate we were consuming land, people did become alarmed. This desire for parkland and capitalizing on natural assets is really taking hold.”

The smallest of the parks, Red Mountain in Birmingham, will be 1,100 acres. Central Park, by comparison, is 843 acres. Birmingham bought the site from US Steel for $7 million - less than half the market value - and will build fishing ponds and 18 miles of trails.

Orange County is building a 1,347-acre park on the site of the old El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, and the federal government will preserve an additional 1,000 acres for wildlife and wilderness. Adjacent to the park will be 2,400 acres of residential, commercial, and industrial development.

Atlanta’s 1,400-acre BeltLine will connect most of the city’s neighborhoods with parks, trails, and trolleys, and it expected to bring additional development to the area. The project has faced recent funding problems due to the recession.

Staten Island plans to redevelop the Fresh Kills landfill - where the ruins of the World Trade Center were sent after September 11 - into a 2,200-acre park. The park will include hiking and biking trails, boating areas, fishing spots, art installations, and waterfront restaurants.

And Memphis is finalizing a plan to convert Shelby Farms - an old prison farm - into a 4,500-acre park.

Many of these plans were approved only after a decade of struggles. Other proposed uses for the land included international airports, shopping malls, golf courses, and conference centers. But in the end, parks won out.

“[A]s the population grows, as land values increase, older urban areas and metropolitan areas are good candidates for better land use,” said Larry Agran, an Irvine City Council member who chairs the Orange County Great Park Corporation.

Houston already has two large urban parks within the 610 Loop, but like most large urban parks, they were built almost a century ago. Hermann Park - 445 acres - was first set aside in 1914, and the 1,500-acre Memorial Park was created in 1925.

The George Bush Park east of Katy (formerly Cullen-Barker Park) is one of the largest parks in the country, occupying 7,800 acres. It was built during the 1940s, primarily for flood control.

Hermann Park Conservancy
Memorial Park Conservancy
George Bush Park history