200th anniversary of the birth of Frederick Law Olmstead, a premier figure in the US parks movement

Frederick Law Olmstead was born in 1822.  In April, the New York Times ran a special photographic section.

-- "In Photos: A walk through Frederick Law Olmsted's Enduring Gift"

Central Park was created before the first National Park, and it was used as an example.  While the idea for a "central park" was not Olmstead's, the way he and Calvert Vaux executed it, and their subsequent work in other communities across the country shaped the way parks have been developed in the US ever since.

I have a couple books from the library that I need to finish:

-- The Power of Scenery: Frederick Law Olmsted and the Origin of National Parks ("How did our national parks come to be? A new book explores their rocky start," Washington Post).

-- Architects of an American Landscape: Henry Hobson Richardson, Frederick Law Olmsted, and the Reimagining of America’s Public and Private Spaces (book review, Wall Street Journal).

Plus, one I'd consider related but not about Olmstead at all, Learning from Bryant Park, which is excellent and very practical.

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Separately, the great urban design writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Inga Saffron, criticizes ("By turning Fairmount Water Works into a party space, Philly exemplifies the worst of park privatization") the stealth privatization of parks in Philadelphia, where an underfunded system has allowed the development of a private event space to obscure some of the original water works at Fairmount Park, which is one of the first examples of integrating park functions into the development of water supplies and reservoirs.

She mentions a great documentary by PBS affiliated WTTW of Chicago, "Ten Parks that Changed America." (Plus there is the Ken Burns PBS documentary series on the National Parks.)

 I do understand the tension in parks funding between cities and counties that are constantly reducing budgets, while often adding parks further increasing financial demands, and generating revenue to support them. 

When you don't have a master plan, and frequently review it, it makes it hard for park leaders and especially elected officials, to balance the competing demands of funding, access, and public versus private space.  Even when you do have a master plan, it's not like elected officials read it.

(Salt Lake City has just updated its parks master plan, and there are some particularly good elements, although I think it could have gone farther.)

(Separately, as comments on various Salt Lake County planning processes, I've just written a paper on creating a recreational transit district for serving the County's recreational assets, particularly in the canyons on the Wasatch Front, but also for the whole county and the Oquirrh Mountains on the west side, although there is comparatively limited access to potential recreational assets in the Oquirrhs.)

Ironically I was at a conference a number of years ago, where Philadelphia parks officials were adamant about running their own parks, not devolving them to separate nonprofits.  According to Saffron, that's changed.  From the article:

What’s going on at the Water Works represents the most extreme example of the Faustian bargain Philadelphia made two decades ago when it began actively privatizing its public spaces. Because the city was unable — or, more accurately, unwilling — to fund its parks properly, it began outsourcing choice locations to non-profit operators. It’s the reason that Dilworth Park, Franklin Square and parts of Cobbs Creek all have private managers today. Those operators are expected to maintain the grounds and provide public amenities. But since managing a park is expensive, they were given a carte-blanche to close their parks for money-making events.

The problem with this model, as I’ve written in the past, is that the closures occur far too often, and the public has too little say in the decision-making. But I’ll grant the private manager at Dilworth and Franklin Square this much: They’ve used the revenue from all those fundraisers to transform previously unloved parks into great spaces that all Philadelphians can enjoy.

2.  The Inquirer also ran a story on the City Parks Alliance meeting in the city ("Philly parks draw visitors from 6 countries during international conference").  I'm going to have to look into getting "my" Sugar House Park to join CPA--I joined the board in April.

 

3.  And WHYY, the Philadelphia PBS affiliate, has a story on a parks planning effort there, "Philly officials want you to reimagine the Ben Franklin Parkway." 

-- Reimagining the Benjamin Franklin Parkway

It'll be one planning effort I intend to reference as part of the development of a new master plan for Sugar House Park.

4.  Finally, a number of months ago, the Philadelphia Inquirer had a great article on "green bonds" as an element of the funding for the rehabilitation of Longwood Gardens ("Longwood Gardens’ $250 million renovation taps increasingly popular ‘green’ bonds").