City parks and community-shared green spaces are a critical part of the infrastructure of a city. City-park land is renowned as a public and urban recreational land use with potential benefits to the local ecological system, stormwater management, and overall human well-being. Increasingly, these places have been acknowledged by cities as urban development assets within the evolution of public spaces in downtowns, providing positive economic, environmental, and community-driven impacts.
Challenges in creating sustainable, resilient, and inclusive development in the downtowns of cities of all sizes are being framed within the future of city parks and greenspaces. Targeted concerns include underutilized and vacant land in the downtown; historic, sacred, and culturally meaningful land and buildings, which require care and thoughtful update through preservation and expanded engagement; barriers to remediation from previous industrial land use to increased residential, recreational, and commercial uses; land uses within downtowns that require a large number of off-street parking spaces but are only used part of the time, like places of worship and assembly halls, and zoning that allows for parking minimums at the expense of increasing density and public space. Through the development and redevelopment of shared greenspaces as an answer to these common challenges, cities edge closer to encompassing zero carbon, equitable, healthy, and resilient systems.
The AIA Framework for Design Excellence describes the stages of the project design and development design process. Planning in the early stages of a project, such as pre-design, schematic design, and design development to early stage and conceptual assessment allow practitioners to utilize a strategic approach in maximizing the benefits of city parks and green spaces as multi-purposed public spaces within the geography of a downtown - where land is limited and disproportionately valuable.
The benefits of features of green infrastructure within public parks and green spaces are well established. Green infrastructure tools include rain gardens, bioswales, permeable pavement, tree canopies, constructed wetlands and ponds, green roofs, rain barrels, planter boxes, infiltration basins, and use of selected plants and soils that divert or assist in the evapotranspiration of stormwater. Benefits of these tools include site runoff absorption, increased greenspace and shade, supported natural habitat and biodiversity, mitigation of urban heat island, increased tree canopy, and opportunities for community outreach and education. Policy and civic leaders, architects, designers, planners, developers and the public alike have advocated the use of green infrastructure in downtowns, especially in connection with planned and existing city parks and community-shared green spaces. Often projects are supported by consultants hired for greenspace and waterway preservation.
Additionally, city parks offer places of play and recreation. Benefits to the downtown include programmed entertainment and community space, support of active lifestyles, increased foot traffic in the surrounding area, prioritized pedestrian access and potential traffic calming, and presence of sacred and historic spaces, and other culturally significant places. Data, designs, and intended impacts are often strategically connected to policy tools and partnerships for linking land use to opportunities in human-centered development. Methods include complete streets, safe routes to schools, green streets, and circulation plans. Opting for sustainable, multifunctional materials and surfaces in places intended to be shared, like third spaces and playgrounds, offers flexibility and creativity in day-to-day use of the city park or greenspace.
Lastly, cities have witnessed and adapted to utilizing city parks and green spaces as assets in downtown areas for public health crises, as recently documented during and after the COVID epidemic. These places provide affordable and sometimes equitable access, allow for safe distancing, facilitate community space and place for connection, and remain places of local investment and job creation. In the early project development phase of the public space, sharing information and developing a plan with clients about cultivating local construction partners for bid on park development projects from existing workforce development organizations produces an embedded, positive project impact within the city and downtown communities.