Why wasn't NYC's Central Park concept copied by other cities?
Why wasn't NYC's Central Park concept copied by other cities?
I'm talking about a massive park in the absolute heart of the city. Located such that is naturally surrounded by city high rises. *People are giving examples of parks that are way off in the boonies. I'm trying to say located centrally, heart of the city, you know where the high rises are. Yes I understand nyc has more, the point is centrally located.
Copied by younger cities in North Americ. You know, the cities younger than NYC that could have seen the value of setting aside a large area for parkland before it was developed.
It was! San Francisco's Golden Gate Park (4.1 km²) is in fact larger than NYC's Central Park (3.4km²).
"naturally surounded by high rises" nothing natural about that. Its callled urban planning and in this case complete control was given to one guy, the one that made prospect park too, i saw a docu on it. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't but the bearucracy and corruption with funding usually takes its place. A lot of cities simply weren't planned for that, central park is designed pre-automobile. Many new cities are post-auto, so they dont care about walking spaces like they used to, a lot of cities have decided that the public is dangerous and hard to control, they dont want them to gather or loiter in any space and why should they give something for free when a business can profit from their need? NYC came from a place where they the populace was accustomed to dealing with the public in person on a daily basis.
Central Park was once a whole community thriving community. They forced them out (eminent domain) and turned it into the Central Park we know now. Other cities have huge parks and areas, but New York markets their state like no other (maybe California).
naturally surrounded by city high rises.
Something seems odd with the idea that high rises were 'natural' :-)
For me, the "concept" is terribly wrong.
A park itself is fine, but you can't use one park as an excuse for not having other parks, green areas etc. anymore in a big city.
New York has 5 times more people than Munich. But Munich's biggest park is about the same size as New York's Central Park (a little bigger even). And if you count all the green areas, parks etc. in Munich together, they are 6 times larger (counting only the ones that are publicly accessible and listed in wikipedia) than that Central Park.
So, give your New Yorker's 30 central parks and lots of other green spots, and you got a concept.
NYC’s Central Park has 843 acres
Cleveland’s Emerald Necklace has 7 parks with over 1,500 acres. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_Metroparks
And that doesn’t even count a 32,000 acre national park just south of greater Cleveland.
New York is just a more famous large city. Plenty of other cities have vast parks.
because no one values green spaces.
Which is why government typically rubberstamps every developer request to clearcut new forests and turn under new grassland, to build a new poorly built development of McMansions that will probably have to be extensively rebuilt within 5-10 years due to the apalling build quality.
Same reason no one builds affordable homes. Why develop homes for the poors, for 100k, when they can make McMansions on the same land, and sell them for 1mil+ a pop.
If Central Park was proposed today, it would be decried as a waste of valuable property (and probably liberal wokeism)
People are giving examples of parks that are way off in the boonies.
First, things are not so binary that it’s either high rises and boonies.
Second, NYC has a huge central business district. My own city does not have enough high rises to surround a large park. Such a park would destroy most midsize cities, not enhance them.
@someguy3 Portland, Oregon has the largest urban park in the country, Forest Park, but it is forested an not a garden park. Also it is on the edge of the city instead of Central.
Vancouver has Stanley park which is bigger than Central Park, right next to downtown and on the water. (So we have a nice seawall around it you can run/bike along.)
The answer to the question though is these giant parks are incredibly expensive. Think how many billions of dollars in apartmentsyou could replace that park with. I don't think it'd be a good trade but for cities which are chronically strapped for cash, that's a hard bargain.
I think most U.S. cities that were established before cars have large, centrally located urban parks. New Orleans, Boston, San Francisco, Detroit, etc. The cities that don’t are probably ones that grew only after cars were ubiquitous so the park could be wherever.
Like a western city in a mountain valley that had a population boom after cars would probably prefer their main urban park to be on the periphery for hiking trails and access to the mountain. The green-space didn’t have to be on a trolley line near downtown to be accessible.
Jacksonville Florida doesn't have a large central park, but with 86 acres of park per 1000 residents and one of the largest geographical areas of any single city in the US, that's a lot of parks. I suppose I'm trying to say there are other ways a city can embrace park culture without a central park style hub park.
As a New Yorker, let me just assure you that it wasn’t really designed with crosstown traffic in mind. If you’re going from West 69th and say, 10th Ave, to East 69th and 2nd, you’re in for a shitshow no matter what you do. This includes walking (try not to be ran over by an Uber walking through Central Park late at night). Taking the subway(what subway line goes from upper east to upper west?? Hahahah you’re fucked!) Or taking a crosstown bus (Takes almost an hour to go from 10th avenue to 2nd avenue cause you’re gonna have to go all the way up/down to the cross park street).
Multiple smaller parks would probably be much better, or just, y’know, having space for trees outside of the designated tree infrastructure.
I live in Chicago and we do have a big centrally located park, along with other smaller parks scattered around. It's down by the lake, and they keep that big stupid bean there.
Pro tip for tourists, if you absolutely have to go see the bean don't touch it; everybody touches the damn thing and you will get sick. Go look at the Picasso instead. It's on all of the tourist attraction maps and way more interesting than a big shiny bean.
Baltimore, Maryland has a gigantic green space (second biggest woodland park in the United States according to Wikipedia) right in the center of the city called Leakin Park. It's gorgeous during the day time, but unfortunately during the evening most people avoid it because it's become a dumping ground for bodies.
It's become known in the region as one of the most dangerous parks in the United States, which super sucks.
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San Diego has a bigger one. Go check it out.
City Park here in NOLA is 1300 acres (50% larger than Central Park) and was established in 1854, making it three years older as well. Stay losing NYC! 😜
Didn't Los Angeles have central green space (not on the scale of central park in NYC, but large) that was gradually eaten away and paved over with time?
Pittsburgh has three major parks in the city limits - Point State Park downtown, which is a small area that hosts events, Schenley Park which has plenty of hiking, biking, and fishing, and Frick Park which is massive and allows you to get lost in the forest in the middle of the city. It's a great way to get out of crowded areas without traveling.
Some cities did, like Vancouver. But others thought it too expensive to the taxpayers and are now kicking themselves decades later. Or the taxpayers didn't want to support it back then.
Louisville has Cherokee park that was designed by Olmsted, same dude as Central Park.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Law_Olmsted
When I lived there I loved to go dirt trail running in the middle of the city.
Hyde Park in Sydney
The English Garden in Munich comes close: A long park reaching almost into the very center of the city.
Forest Park, St Louis MO
Paris in France has a few parks and gardens. It’s weird to thing that the US invented the concept: https://www.evous.fr/Guide-des-plus-beaux-parcs-et-jardins-de-Paris,1176706.html
Vancouver - Stanley Park (downtown), Queen Elizabeth Park (geographic center), Central Park (Metrotown)... The lack of parks in US cities is a matter of poor planning.
@someguy3 Portland, Oregon has the largest urban park in the country, Forest Park, but it is forested an not a garden park. Also it is on the edge of the city instead of Central.
Toronto - High Park and Downsview Park, depending how central you're looking for. Both massive and in busy parts of the city.
Jesus I had no idea
Of the top of my head (because I lived there) - Berlin has Tiergarten and London has Hyde Park. The latter is so so in size but the former is quite large.
Thinking further, I remembered that Paris has the Champ de Mars (surrounding the Eiffel Tower), which is about Hyde Park size.
Also plenty of cities have large forested areas that merge with the city proper and are not too far from the center, such as for example Grouse Mountain on the north side of Vancouver and Monsanto on the west side of Lisbon.
Notice how even the cities in Europe were space has been at a premium for a lot longer than in the Americas do at times have a big centrally located park.
We have lots of large parks in my city. Not central park sized, but we are not an NYC sized city. It's basically a small city incorporated into the forest. Sometimes they try to capitalize some of it, but the voters reliably shut them down, we love our green spaces.
Possible answers include: Because this concept is not suitable for every city. Because there are other ways to introduce greenery into the city center, like many bigger or smaller parks.
What about cities that dont have a lot of high rises?
Park Slonski - Silesian Park in Upper Silesia in South Poland is much better than Central Park in NY. You should see it if you come to Poland.