An emphasis on planning spaces and surrounding communities through eco-design, materials and alternative methods to promote a healthy, sustainable and diverse urban ecosystem as seen in the projects mentioned.

The modern city is not only pavement and concrete. Parks, gardens, trees, and other plants are an integral part of the urban environment. Often the focal points of social movements and political interests, green spaces represent far more than simply an effort to balance the man-made with the natural. A city’s history with—and approach to—its parks and gardens reveals much about its workings and the forces acting upon it. Our green spaces offer a unique and valuable window on the history of city life. The essays in Greening the City span over a century of urban history, moving from fin-de-siècle Sofia to green efforts in urban Seattle. The authors present a wide array of cases that speak to global concerns through the local and specific, with topics that include green-space planning in Barcelona and Mexico City, the distinction between public and private nature in Los Angeles, the ecological diversity of West Berlin, and the historical and cultural significance of hybrid spaces designed for sports. The essays collected here will make us think differently about how we study cities, as well as how we live in them. Contributors: Dorothee Brantz, Technische Universität Berlin * Peter Clark, University of Helsinki * Lawrence Culver, Utah State University * Konstanze Sylva Domhardt, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich * Sonja Dümpelmann, University of Maryland * Zachary J. S. Falck, Independent Scholar* Stefanie Hennecke, Technical University Munich * Sonia Hirt, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University * Salla Jokela, University of Helsinki * Jens Lachmund, Maastricht University * Gary McDonogh, Bryn Mawr College * Jarmo Saarikivi, University of Helsinki * Jeffrey Craig Sanders, Washington State University

The positive effects of urban green spaces are well-known, ranging from the promotion of health, support of biodiversity to climate regulation. However, the practical implementation of urban landscapes is less discussed. How can we make these spaces functional, economically feasible and inclusive, especially as cities become more diverse? The publication explores strategies to reconcile the various demands, such as food production, resilience and nature conservation. Indeed, urban landscapes have to be restorative, ecological and aesthetically pleasing at the same time. This is a particular challenge in high-density cities like Singapore, Seoul or New York where space is a scarce commodity. The continuing growth of the worldwide urban population imbues the topic with a special urgency.

For years American urban parks fell into decay due to disinvestment, but as cities began to rebound—and evidence of the economic, cultural, and health benefits of parks grew— investment in urban parks swelled. The U.S. Conference of Mayors recently cited meeting the growing demand for parks and open space as one of the biggest challenges for urban leaders today. It is now widely agreed that the U.S. needs an ambitious and creative plan to increase urban parklands. Urban Green explores new and innovative ways for “built out” cities to add much-needed parks. Peter Harnik first explores the question of why urban parkland is needed and then looks at ways to determine how much is possible and where park investment should go. When presenting the ideas and examples for parkland, he also recommends political practices that help create parks. The book offers many practical solutions, from reusing the land under defunct factories to sharing schoolyards, from building trails on abandoned tracks to planting community gardens, from decking parks over highways to allowing more activities in cemeteries, from eliminating parking lots to uncovering buried streams, and more. No strategy alone is perfect, and each has its own set of realities. But collectively they suggest a path toward making modern cities more beautiful, more sociable, more fun, more ecologically sound, and more successful.

The growth of cities poses ever-increasing challenges for the natural environment on which they impact and depend, not only within their boundaries but also in surrounding peri-urban areas. Landscape ecology – the study of interactions across space and time between the structure and function of physical, biological and cultural components of landscapes – has a pivotal role to play in identifying sustainable solutions. This book brings together examples of research at the cutting edge of urban landscape ecology across multiple contexts that investigate the state, maintenance and restoration of healthy and functional natural environments across urban and peri-urban landscapes. An explicit focus is on urban landscapes in contrast to other books which have considered urban ecosystems and ecology without specific focus on spatial connections. It integrates research and perspectives from across academia, public and private practitioners of urban conservation, planning and design. It provides a much needed summary of current thinking on how urban landscapes can provide the foundation of sustained economic growth, prospering communities and personal well-being.

In early twentieth-century America, affluent city-dwellers made a habit of venturing out of doors and vacationing in resorts and national parks. Yet the rich and the privileged were not the only ones who sought respite in nature. In this pathbreaking book, historian Colin Fisher demonstrates that working-class white immigrants and African Americans in rapidly industrializing Chicago also fled the urban environment during their scarce leisure time. If they had the means, they traveled to wilderness parks just past the city limits as well as to rural resorts in Wisconsin and Michigan. But lacking time and money, they most often sought out nature within the city itself--at urban parks and commercial groves, along the Lake Michigan shore, even in vacant lots. Chicagoans enjoyed a variety of outdoor recreational activities in these green spaces, and they used them to forge ethnic and working-class community. While narrating a crucial era in the history of Chicago's urban development, Fisher makes important interventions in debates about working-class leisure, the history of urban parks, environmental justice, the African American experience, immigration history, and the cultural history of nature.

This book aims to understand how the wellbeing benefits of urban green space (UGS) are analysed and valued and why they are interpreted and translated into action or inaction, into ‘success’ and/or ‘failure’. The provision, care and use of natural landscapes in urban settings (e.g. parks, woodland, nature reserves, riverbanks) are under-researched in academia and under-resourced in practice. Our growing knowledge of the benefits of natural urban spaces for wellbeing contrasts with asset management approaches in practice that view public green spaces as liabilities. Why is there a mismatch between what we know about urban green space and what we do in practice? What makes some UGS more ‘successful’ than others? And who decides on this measure of ‘success’ and how is this constituted? This book sets out to answer these and related questions by exploring a range of approaches to designing, planning and managing different natural landscapes in urban settings.