May 8th, 2006
Greening our cities
By Matthew Blackett // 1 Comment
Fred Kent, director of Project for Public Spaces out of New York, has a great column on how Placemaking can reinvigorate the environmental movement.
The environmental movement has raised its voice loudest in defense of rainforests, wetlands, and old-growth wilderness, sending a subtle message that the places most of us care about strongly--our neighborhoods, our hometowns--aren't really as important. But suppose for a minute that we enlarged the usual definition of the environment to include the places that people inhabit--where we live and work and play. Many people would then be willing to stand up as part of the environmental movement.
read the full column here.
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I have read the article, and I do believe that public spaces shape us, and we shape public spaces. In all rights, there are tons of public spaces that are under used, and many developers believe that if there is too many public spaces not enough people will come to them.
As for us looking in the city instead of always looking to the rainforests, forests, and other places to save places that is wrong to say all environments look outside the cities. There are tons of environments like myself who look into the city to save the city first, but if we save the forests in the outer parts of the city to save the city.
We need to just build the areas that are empty around the city into better things, like parks, or public squares. If we look at Dundas Square, and how amazing that is right now, you can turn any place into a square of new volume traffic. My biggest problem is building condos or townhouses or more residential, everywhere possible.
This article really looks at the positive sides of the environment in the city of New York, that can be used anywhere. I agree we need more bikes, and less cars, but we need to make it harder for people to travel downtown in their cars, and very easy with transit and bikes.
Comment by Shawn
May 8, 2006 | 5:41 pm