Keeping it green

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.