General introduction - disclaimer: I am involved with an independent run for the municipal elections in Athens, due next November. The group I support is called "Orange" and is led by Mr. Tasos Avrantinis, a very dear and able friend. Jane Jacobs' seminal book "The Death and Life of Great American Cities", published as far back as 1961, contains observations which would be relevant even in today's Athens, since many of the problems facing the American cities of that period have causes and explanations common to most large metropolitan areas. Although Jacobs was not an architect or a city planner by trade (she was a journalist and actively opposed many of "master planner" Robert Moses' plans in New York City), her observations are very astute and her arguments are very convincing. I am beginning a series of posts, in which I intend to write down the basic points of her book's chapters, as I am reading them.
Neighborhood parks - introduction: Although the first specialized chapters in the book deal with the functions of sidewalks, my first post will be on the chapter addressing neighborhood parks. There is a very specific reason for this: a whole airport in Hellenicon, to the South of Athens, has closed. Its whole area (belonging to the Greek government) is double to that of Central Park in New York City. There are many voices calling for the establishment, in this area, of the largest municipal park in Europe. This concept reeks megalomania, of course, and is in no way sustainable (all the more so, given Greece's precarious current financial situation).
Jacobs spends a very large part of her book contradicting the accepted wisdom of most city planners on many issues, the role of neighborhood parks among them. She uses a lot of empirical evidence to back her claims (much of which we can relate to with our own experiences half a century later), which are also supported by compelling arguments of reason. Her central thesis is that parks do not operate independently of their surroundings and do not add value to them by themselves. In fact, it is rather the other way round. And a prominent observation she makes is that with parks, most of the time, it's either very good or very bad, no middle ground. Parks can either be an extension of the neighborhood, in which case the flourish, or they can be cut off from it, in which case they become decrepit.
She gives many examples of parks which are filled with people all the time and contrasts them to many dilapidated parks, including many which had been planned and were expected to bring great value to their neighborhood. On general, it seems that parks, which are situated next to mixed-usage areas fare much better than parks situated in exclusively residential areas; parks situated near business areas fare even worse. The main reason for this is that, in mixed-usage areas, there are people at all times of day walk or wonder on the park. People going to work, people coming to work, mothers and children in the morning, mothers and children in the afternoon, people taking a lunch break from work, etc.
Another very important aspect of parks, often overlooked in Greece (where we go to great pains to show how much green and trees we can plant in as little space as possible) is that the inside of the parks should be visible from the surrounding streets. That way there will be no dark parts, with the informal supervision afforded by the passers-by and the neighbors (which is the focus of one of the chapters on the role of sidewalks) available at all times. That is one of the reasons that most successful parks are rather small ones. Moreover, Jacobs proposes that general-themed parks should have variety in their settings and a center, which would be the area carrying the most activity in the parks. Their relationship to the sun is also important: the sun must, ideally, not be cut off from the park by very tall surrounding buildings.
Experience has proved that parks, which are not suitable for general, everyday use, can function as specialized parks with very good effect (swimming pools and skating rinks were hits in New York City, theaters and concert venues also). Jacobs also mentions parks, whose only function is to provide a visual relief for passers-by. Her examples are taken from the very small parks in San Francisco which have been set on corners created by the convergence of the streets.
I must also not fail to mention that Jacobs dispels the myth, that parks reduce pollution. She notes that it takes almost a small park to offset the carbon-dioxide emissions of four persons. If parks are designed to be too big, resulting in the metropolitan area widening up and the use of the automobile being required (as is the situation in Los Angeles), the effect on the environment is rather adverse.
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