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Title: Inside City Parks by Peter Harnik ISBN: 0-87420-832-7 Publisher: Urban Land Institute Pub. Date: 01 October, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $42.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (1 review)

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Summary: "Inside City Parks" An Invaluable Contribution
Comment: Peter Harnik had his own reasons having to do with population densities for determining which 25 cities to choose for description in his book. Many theoretical books about landscape architecture or public recreation discuss city parks in a summary manner, as, for example, "The Politics of Park Design," by Galen Crantz, but they do not focus on individual parks nor draw their conclusions from close observations. Harnik chose landscape architect Joe Brown, EDAW, Inc., to write the introduction. This was not a wise choice for though Brown is complimentary, he is anxious to justify his own work which he describes as belonging to a "smart park" concept, which to him means the opposite of what Frederick Law Olmsted and his associates were doing in creating "pastoral" parks. It may be inevitable for landscape architects to believe that anybody but themselves is out of touch with the times, but such is not Harnik's view. He claims that administrators and politicians have made mistakes when they failed to heed the advice of the pioneer planners of this country's most famous city parks. Tellingly, it is the 19th century parks designed by Olmsted and followers, such as Central Park (New York), Prospect Park (Brooklyn), Franklin Park (Boston), Jackson Park (Chicago), Forest Park (St. Louis) and Golden Gate Park (San Francisco) that today evoke the most praise from park enthusiasts.

"Inside City Parks" is an invaluable resource for anybody interested in contemporary parks. It highlights common problems, such as underfunding, crime, vandalism, dogs, mountain bicycles, cars, parking lots, crosspark expressways, buildings and the sometimes willful, sometimes unconscious destruction wrought by the homeless which, in city after city, have become nuisances to a number of park visitors.

Harnik tries to maintain a neutral stance in his survey of cities. He does not question the practices of park departments though he is critical of politicians, such as Mayor Rudolph Guiliani (New York City) and Mayor Wille Brown (San Francisco). Conversely, Mayor Ray Flynn (Boston) and Richard Daley (Chicago) get high marks for their support of old and new park activities. Harnik gives the blemish to Chicago's famous Lake Shore Parks by the unsightly McCormick Place Exposition Center passing mention, claiming the creation of 16 acres of new park land will mitigate the Center's massive expansion. He concentrates on what park departments are doing. Since what they are doing is anticipating the future, it is not clear what will happen next. Will the city parks get their appropriations, hire the right managers, appease conflicting park users, generate support? Will the Hudson River Park, the Bronx Greenway, a Harbor Islands Park and Greenway over Boston's now building underground highway, the conversion of Meigs Field Airport into Chicago's Northerly Island Park, or San Francisco's 1,480-acre Presidio Park --- a national park and thus not part of Harnik's study (though hard to ignore) --- become assets promoting recreation and business?

While not suggesting that anyone solution is applicable to all park systems, Harnik favors exploiting all avenues for park support . . . grants, bond issues, taxes, donations, fees for services, private and commercial sponsorship. He describes how the Urban Land Institute, the Trust for Public Land, park conservancies, business improvement districts and similar organizations have stepped in to acquire park land or to protect lands which are in danger of slipping away. The influence of Jane Jacobs, one of the three people to whom Harnik dedicated his book and the author of "The Death and Life of Great American Cities," may be detected in Harnik's comments favoring multiple use parks, such as a contemplated 123-acre park on the site of a former USX South Works Steel Mill in Chicago or the 1.7-acre Post Office Square Park in Boston that replaced a run-down garage with automobile parking and a park with outdoor cafe, fountains, sculptures, movable chairs and landscaping on top.

Since it does not conform with the Bureau of Census 1998 population estimates, Harnik's choice of cities may show his partiality for some cities. His ordering of parks within the three density classifications --- high, medium and low --- may indicate a personal bias rather than a formal rating system: New York City, first in the high, Detroit first in the medium, and San Diego first in the low. If the book is the start of a continuing study, perhaps Harnik will cover missing cities later.

It may be that some of Harnik's statistics are suspect. There is an abundance of them from lists of cities profiting from developer impact fees, to tables showing total parks and open spaces by acres in cities, to the number of public swimming pools per 100,000 city residents. Park Departments may exaggerate their figures to show that they are best in one way or another. To say that a city has so many acres of park land may not be true. Is it "dedicated" park land that cannot be taken away except by vote of the people? Is it "open space" that can be seen but not visited? Is it a view point, a play field, a school lot, a community center, or an abandoned lot that is used temporarily for gardens or play courts? Is it, in the case of Houston, a 10,534-acre flood-control facility leased by Houston from the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers and equipped with sports fields, trails, restrooms and picnic tables that is periodically inundated by 10,000 acres of water? This is not to say that Harnik's figures are not important as indications of how a city is developing or how it compares with others. It is, however, a caution that statistical information can change over time or when different methods of evaluation are employed.

Despite these cavils, park lovers in the cities covered, including Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Detroit, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Seattle, Cincinnati, Portland, Oregon, Denver, Phoenix, Tampa and Kansas City, and in those no less important cities that are not, including San Antonio, San Jose, Jacksonville, Columbus, El Paso, Memphis, Milwaukee, Austin, Washington, Nashville and Charlotte, should read "Inside City Parks" because it shows the weaknesses and strengths of today's park systems and indicates means to make them better.

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Title: Urban Parks and Open Space by Alexander Garvin, Gayle Berens, Christopher B. Leinberger, Martin J. Rosen, Steven Fader, Peter Harnik, Terry Jill Lassar, David Mulvihill, Urban Land Institute, Trust for Public Land ISBN: 0874208092 Publisher: Urban Land Institute Pub. Date: 01 December, 1997 List Price(USD): $42.95