parks

Why a Footbridge In London Is Inspiring So Much Outrage

It doesn’t take much to make some cities angry. But in London, a special kind of rage is flowing over a project that seems pretty unobjectionable: A footbridge over the River Thames. Why? The Garden Bridge is pitched as an “enchanted space,” a “beautifully engineered copper-nickel structure” that’s home to a 1,200-foot-long garden spearheaded by…

Watch James Cameron Walk Through His Real Life Avatar Theme Park

Here’s a sneak peak of Avatar Land! At some point Disney will add Avatar Land to their Animal Kingdom in Orlando Florida but for now watch the film’s director James Cameron walk through the fluorescent, light up forest. The concept art that starts off the videos appear to be the floating rocks from the movie,…

Some Billionaires Want To Give NYC a $170 Million Park In the Hudson

Last month, Mayor De Blasio announced a push to fund green spaces in New York’s poor neighborhoods. This probably isn’t exactly what he meant: Very wealthy power couple Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg have announced plans to fund a giant park in the Hudson River. Pier 55, as the proposed park is called, would…

The 5 Coolest New Parks and Public Spaces In the U.S.

Urban Land Institute has announced its Open Space Awards, celebrating five exceptional new parks and public spaces across the U.S. But what’s even more exciting is what these green spaces replaced: A freeway, a mall, a truck-loading facility, a rail yard, and a cemetery. The criteria for ULI’s Open Space Awards are not just aesthetic…

Washington DC’s Very Own High Line Will Clean Its Dirty River Water

The Anacostia River that runs through Washington DC has historically been known as, well, not the cleanest river in the country. A new elevated park straddling the river plans to filter the dirty water with a waterfall feature (apparently projected with Frederick Douglass’s face). It’s the winning design announced today for the city’s upcoming elevated…

4 Futuristic Designs for DC’s Very Own High Line

Not to be outdone by New York City’s beloved High Line (the final, most unwieldy phase of which opens this fall), Washington DC is planning its own elevated park, which will sail over the Anacostia River on a former freeway bridge. Four visions for the park have been released as part of a competition. And…

A Plan To Turn Your Local Parking Garage Into Your Local Playground

Parking garages may be a necessity for any dense urban center, but that doesn’t mean they have to be a necessary eyesore. And if Danish firm JAJA Architects has its way, they could even be serving a dual-purpose soon—by doubling as our leafy, local playgrounds. In preparation for the 100,000 new residents it’s expecting by…

L.A.’s 1930s Extension of Wilshire Blvd. Left Urban Scars

The message was clear: Los Angeles was not afraid to reshape its urban form to accommodate the automobile. Over the course of a few months in 1931, workers cleared a wide swath through three dense downtown blocks, demolishing buildings, tearing up foundations, and filling in basements—all to extend an automobile thoroughfare, Wilshire Boulevard, from Figueroa…

The Eerie Abandoned Railway That Could Become Philly’s Next Park

When the Reading Viaduct opened in 1893, Philadelphia was a booming industrial city; the elevated railway quickly became an essential artery in the beating heart of manufacturing on the East Coast. Now, advocates want to turn it into a park that will wind its way through the city. But as a short documentary from PBS…

Why a Raleigh neighborhood wants to tear down a modern house. How a suburb in Cleveland eradicated the school bus. Where Millennials are moving (hint: wherever the transit is). Plus Los Angeles’s Instagramming mayor and Vegas’s quest to legalize weed, all in this week’s Urban Reads. Neighborhood politics at their worst: A halfway constructed home…

L.A.’s Oldest Parks Began as Swamps and Other “Worthless” Lands

Park-poor Los Angeles: perhaps it’s no surprise that many of the city’s earliest parks were born of refuse lands. Flush with public land inherited from California’s land grant days, Los Angeles was practically giving away real estate in the latter half of the nineteenth century, donating lots to private individuals or auctioning off tracts to…

Why Southwest Airlines Is Building Parks in Each of Its 90 Cities

Over the last 47 years, Southwest Airlines has built a vibrant—if a little goofy—airborne community. Now some of that culture is fueling urban improvements on the ground. Southwest’s new initiative called the Heart of the Community is working to build public spaces in all of the 90 cities the airline serves. “Southwest has always been…

Los Angeles To Launch Nation’s Largest Interactive Urban Trail Network

Los Angeles is a big place—over 400 square miles. Even though it’s home to the country’s largest urban park, many of its residents don’t have easy access to public green space—or they might not know where the nearest one is. A new “interactive interpretive” urban trail system hopes to close that distance, while connecting Angelenos…

D.C.’s Planning Its Own High Line On a Freeway Bridge

The runway success of the High Line has sparked trendy rail-to-trail conversions across the country. Now D.C. is offering its own twist: A park on a span of decommissioned freeway that crosses the Anacostia River. Maybe they’ll call it the “Highway Line.” The 11th Street Bridge was built after World War II and became part…

5 Urban Fountains Where Swimming Is Encouraged

Instead of dreading the thought of sloshing through eight feet of frozen sludge on your way home tonight, let’s think ahead to summer, when we’ll actually want to feel ice cold water against our faces—in some of our cities’ best fountains. The idea of the swimmable urban fountain used to be the exclusive realm of…

Vancouver Moves Closer to Officially Naming a “Dude Chilling Park”

Guelph Park in East Vancouver was just like any other under-appreciated park in a city near you: grassy but forgettable. Until a fake sign was erected in one corner by a local artist, christening it with a new name: “Dude Chilling Park.” Suddenly, Guelph/Dude Chilling Park became a global sensation. The sign is by local…

An emerging maker culture building Cincinnati, a “Green Line” making a Mexican city healthier, and a car-free festival changing L.A.—all that, plus preserving post offices in an age of email and three plans to save San Francisco from a housing crisis, in this week’s Urban Reads. “In America, nearly every city and town has, or…

The World’s Wackiest Monuments, Chosen By You

When we asked you last week to send us the weirdest monuments in your neighborhood, you not only delivered, you quite frankly freaked us out. How do you people sleep at night knowing that a giant turtle-humping statue is just down the street? https://gizmodo.com/whats-the-coolest-weirdest-or-most-overlooked-monumen-1500500337 Thanks to your hard work, here are just a few of…

Being on a Smartphone Makes You More Likely to Use Public Spaces—Kinda

In the 1960s, a sociologist named William H. Whyte revealed something interesting about the behavior of people in parks and plazas across the U.S.: people liked being with people. But has that changed now that everyone carries a tiny computer in their hands? According to a new study: no. Throughout the 60s and 70s, Whyte’s…

Tour the Hidden Art Gallery on the High Line’s Last Unfinished Stretch

It’s easy to forget that beyond the tourist- and greenery-covered High Line, there are still 300 yards of old, rusting train track. This last patch of decaying NYC railway will soon be turned into the final stretch of the super-successful park—but for now, they’re home to a little-known outdoor gallery. Right now, the trail is…