Keeping it green

[missdiane]

spikesgirl58 brought up a good point on my previous post about turning old malls into living areas. There are places in cities where it's an all-in-one deal of living space, work space, shopping space where people don't need to leave and she's concerned about folks not getting outside. Fair point. Very fair.

However, there are solutions which cities are getting behind. It's called Urban Forestry. I know well about it because our folks do research on it and even have an entire curriculum about it. (Personal note...hm...looks like I need to poke Jason and his crew about getting the research stuff up on that site. tsk tsk!)

The experience that I've had - aside from good ol' Central Park in NYC is I've visited the High Line there too where they've taken an old railway line on the West Side of Manhattan and turned it into a rambling park. It is SUPER cool to be able to go from all the hustle and bustle down at street level and go up and walk along all the greenspace. More big cities are "going green" and finally getting around to recognizing the importance of having gardens, flowers, trees and just even grass for people to enjoy. I hear about kids that grew up in the city that have never been able to lie in grass. Even in places like Detroit, it's happening. 

Here's hoping that the trend keeps going. Literally a "grassroots" movement at its finest.

Comments

[anisiriusmagus]

Sounds a great idea! I'm all for more green spaces. Our ham-fisted new govt has just appointed someone as helpful as Trump as Environment secretary. I hope the whole thing collapses. Looking after the environment is bigger than all of us or any single political party.

[missdiane]

Thankfully most of these enterprises are from the ground up - local initiatives, corporations seeing that putting greenspace nearby actually attracts people (who knew, right? Um...everyone lol). If we waited for DC to do any of it, the entire nation would be a concrete jungle

[veganhothead.livejournal.com]

Very cool and exciting. If I were just starting out that program at Rutgers would be something I'd be very interested in.

[missdiane.livejournal.com]

You'd also like Jason Grabosky. He's a goof.

You mean you wouldn't participate in Larry Katz research about goat sexual cues? The drawing of the goat peeing on itself is fabulous. It got approved same day! LOL

Right now I have to try to read one of those projects we have that seems like it's in Greek because it's so complicated.

[veganhothead.livejournal.com]

Well, seeing as I don't have a goat or a pee fetish...

[threecee.livejournal.com]

A trend in "senior communities" seems to be to have most of the amenities that neighborhoods once had: grocery, hairdresser, barber shop, drug store, café or ice cream shop, sometimes a small bar, all right on the accessible, nicely landscaped grounds. (A friend moving to a retirement home prompted some online searching.)

I believe that there is also a drive to create "walkable neighborhoods" in cities that have small basic needs businesses mixed with different types of housing and green areas. I haven't seen much information about those.