Vital Signs

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In Search of the Great Urban Park

Tucson has a unique opportunity with planning underway for the Civic and Cultural Plazas

by D.A. Barber

s Rio Nuevo strives to develop Downtown’s “sense of place,” more and more projects are including development of major new open green spaces and “pocket parks.”

In the current design phase of many of these projects, downtown planners have a great opportunity to ensure that the planned plazas, parks, greenways and gardens – ranging from Tucson Origins Heritage Park and the adjacent Mercado Project, to the Civic Plaza, Cultural Plaza and 2.25-mile El Paso and Southwestern Greenway – all utilize the latest urban park design and provide linkage between these projects that make them function as one.

So why do some parks succeed as graceful public spaces while others fail as simply dead space?

Studies show that urban parks do best when they forge an identity and image, and when they are sustained by diverse funding sources. Done right, urban parks stimulate the economy with concerts, festivals and other events to promote tourism and spending on restaurants and hotels.

This “New Urbanism” renaissance in urban parks is partly demographic. People are moving back into the cities and those people want space. In Vancouver, British Columbia, a conscious civic effort to attract over 40,000 new residents in the last fifteen years to the downtown peninsula has been accompanied by a commitment to livability that has resulted in 65 acres of new parklands, even as residential densities have soared.

A recent Texas State University survey, “Buying New Urbanism,” found that “pocket parks”- small parks clustered around dense housing – played a key role in homebuyers embracing high density urban housing.

The result is increased property values, generating more property taxes because many people are willing to pay more for houses near parks to improve the quality of their urban life.

“Of course, there’s no magic formula that yields a perfect park every time. But the true standouts, the parks that define the identities of their cities, tend to share certain elements that together explain a great deal of their success,” states Kathy Madden, Vice President of the Project for Public Spaces in New York, on the group’s website. “With the importance of parks growing in the public consciousness, now is the right time to revisit the question of what distinguishes great parks from all the rest.”

Building Partnerships

The heyday of urban parks was in the 1920s and 1930s, when nearly every city had at least one standout park. After World War II, there was a much greater interest in the suburbs. From the 1940s through the 1990s, urban parks went relentlessly downhill due to cities’ financial troubles. In many cities around the country, park up-keep and event programming does not rely exclusively on city funding. Instead, partnerships between non-profits and others are the rule.

In some cases park neighbors have formed partnerships with the city and outside non-profit groups to manage or activate parks. In Philadelphia, the Horticulture Society’s “Philadelphia Green” parks revitalization project tackled 50 city parks that fell into disrepair during budget cuts in the 1980s. Residents picked up trash in the park. Senior citizens formed a garden club. The activists brought summer concerts to the park. They landed more than $500,000 in grants from foundations, the city and the state.

In San Francisco, a rundown 1-acre park, which hadn’t been upgraded since 1961, inspired a small group to raise more than $90,000 in private contributions and more than $3 million in state and city grants.

Five American Parks To Learn From

Project for Public Spaces, Inc. has outlined six parks that set great examples of high-functioning, well-used public parks. Of these, five are in the United States, and we’ve profiled each briefly below. Each example highlights particular strategies for achieving greatness and illustrates how these different strategies interact and enhance each other, including public/private partnerships.

Pioneer Courthouse Square (Portland, Oregon)

Pioneer Courthouse Square was planned concurrently and seamlessly integrated with the Metropolitan Area Express (MAX) light rail system, and its role as transit hub makes it the nerve center of Downtown Portland. Pioneer is a square-block hardscape park with an amphitheater that hosts formal and informal programming almost daily. The Square hosts 300 separate events each year, which are put on by the nonprofit Pioneer Courthouse Square, Inc. (PCS), which manages not only events but maintenance, security, and promotion of the park. Keys to Pioneer Square’s success include its location on busy Broadway, public transportation access, active management, and daily programming.

The City of Portland covers the cost of security and landscape maintenance. In-park tenants such as Powell’s Travel Bookstore, Starbucks Coffee, and food and flower carts pay rent to PCS. Income is also generated from sponsorships and special events. This steady and diverse revenue stream supports a staff of six.

Central Park, Manhattan and Prospect Park, Brooklyn

While Tucson won’t be going quite this large, the two parks go hand-in-hand as examples of both the public/private management model thanks to the Central Park Conservancy and the Prospect Park Alliance. The organizations now coordinate the efforts of thousands of donors and volunteers, enabling the implementation of complex restoration projects, capital improvements, maintenance programs, and event schedules. Central Park is known worldwide for its diversity of uses and activities, and for the world-class institutions that lie adjacent.

Jackson Square, New Orleans

Jackson Square is the centerpiece of New Orleans’ French Quarter. Bordered on one side by the main street of the Vieux Carre historic district and on the opposite by the Mississippi Riverfront, Jackson Square is surrounded by a mix of uses--including restaurants, retail, offices, residences, and a church. In fact, the park’s periphery, or “outer park,” is what successfully integrates the inner park into the city fabric.

The musical and artistic attractions available on these adjacent streets are what draw people to the area, giving the park a steady flow of users. Somewhat like Rio Nuevo’s planned and connected Civic Plaza and Cultural Plaza, three of Jackson Square’s four bordering streets receive little or no vehicle traffic, and the park’s multiple entrances allow people to come in from all sides. In contrast with the paved surfaces of Portland’s Pioneer Square, Jackson Square is a lush garden, with an equestrian statue of General Andrew Jackson as the centerpiece.

Boston Public Garden

Like the proposed Tucson Origins Heritage Park, the signature attractions of the Boston Public Garden create an identity that is not only associated with the park but with Boston itself. Located in the heart of the city, each path in the Public Garden appears to lead to the central lake, where people of all ages climb into the famed Swan Boats for a ride.

These attractions draw people like a magnet, a key to the overall success of the Garden as a public space.

Of course water always attracts people, and since the major elements of Rio Nuevo skirt both sides of the Santa Cruz River, the successful restoration of the immediate river area will add to the area’s pocket parks – even if no water exists.

“That’s a project of the Army Corps. of Engineers and Pima County, it’s not a City project,” says Randy Emerson, director of development for Rio Nuevo. “But we’re hoping that the river will be developed as a linear park.”

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Strategies for Achieving Great Parks

Through nearly 30 years of observation and analysis, Project for Public Spaces, Inc. (PPS) has identified “nine strategies that help parks achieve their full potential as active public spaces that enhance neighborhoods and catalyze economic development.”

• Use transit as a catalyst for attracting visitors
• Make management of the park a central concern
• Develop strategies to attract people during different seasons
• Acquire diverse funding sources
• Design the park layout for flexibility
• Consider both the "inner park" and "outer park"
• Provide amenities for the different groups of people using the park
• Create attractions and destinations throughout the park
• Create an identity and image for the park

Source: Project for Public Spaces, Inc.

The Trust for Public Land, which has helped more than 190 cities complete over 420 park projects, states: “An estimated 80 percent of Americans live, work, and play in urban areas.” This is how TPL feels well-maintained parks help cities and neighborhoods:

• Encourage people to walk and exercise.
• Increase property values, generating more property taxes. Many people are willing to pay more for houses near parks.
• Attract and retain residents and businesses.
• Stimulate the economy. Concerts, festivals and other events held in parks promote tourism and spending on restaurants and hotels.
• Absorb heat and heavy rains, reducing runoff into sewers.
• Remove ozone and other pollution from the air because trees act as natural filters.
• Promote stable neighborhoods and community pride.

Source: The Trust for Public Land

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