By Maggie Tennant
Access to nature is very important for our physical and mental health. Being connected to nature has been linked to lower rates of depression and anxiety, and green spaces provide safe locations to engage in stress-relieving physical activity (Nobles, 2023). However, with more and more people moving to urban centers, the density of cities and lack of nature in urban development is preventing people from having access to natural areas and green spaces. In 2022, over half of the world’s population–55%– were living in urban centers, and this number is projected to rise to 70% by 2050 (“sdg indicators” 2024). How can spatial planners ensure access to green space for a growing urban population? This is where the urban park comes in. There are many well known, planned parks, such as Amstelpark in Amsterdam, Central Park in New York City, and Champ de Mars in Paris. These parks are well established and embedded in the fabric of their cities. However, in newer urban areas, these types of large planned parks may be deprioritized. To incorporate new parks into urban landscapes, spatial planners may have to come up with more creative solutions, like adaptive reuse of unused urban spaces.
About this blog
This is the 19th blog post of the series of 24 blogs prepared by graduate students and early career professionals who shared their views on the future of heritage and landscape planning.
The writers of these blogposts participated in the Heriland Blended Intensive Programme “Heritage and the Planning of Landscapes” in October 2024 in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Access to nature is very important for our physical and mental health. Being connected to nature has been linked to lower rates of depression and anxiety, and green spaces provide safe locations to engage in stress-relieving physical activity (Nobles, 2023). However, with more and more people moving to urban centers, the density of cities and lack of nature in urban development is preventing people from having access to natural areas and green spaces. In 2022, over half of the world’s population–55%– were living in urban centers, and this number is projected to rise to 70% by 2050 (“sdg indicators” 2024). How can spatial planners ensure access to green space for a growing urban population? This is where the urban park comes in. There are many well known, planned parks, such as Amstelpark in Amsterdam, Central Park in New York City, and Champ de Mars in Paris. These parks are well established and embedded in the fabric of their cities. However, in newer urban areas, these types of large planned parks may be deprioritized. To incorporate new parks into urban landscapes, spatial planners may have to come up with more creative solutions, like adaptive reuse of unused urban spaces.
Let’s look at the New York High Line, a very well-known adaptive reuse project that utilizes an abandoned railway as space for an elevated park.
Post-industrial sites as possible parks?
The High Line utilizes a space that was once used for industrial purposes, and that heritage lives on in its design. The High Line is elevated, creating a sense of refuge for visitors. The landscape architect team James Corner Field Operations and architect group Diller Scofideo & Renfro designed the linear park to smoothly transition between areas of paving that visitors can easily walk on, to areas that are completely planted (Golden, 2016). Parallel planting strips on the line mimic the old rails, while sections of the old rail have also been reconstructed, both of which serve to remind visitors of the original purpose of the space. The design allows for conversation between the natural and more industrial sides of the urban park that unfold as visitors walk along the track, the narrowness of the space almost forcing a confrontation with the natural landscape.
Finding ways to incorporate parks into industrial spaces that have fallen out of use is an excellent way to both incorporate new green spaces into urban design as well as find a new productive use for these abandoned places. However, adaptive reuse of old industrial sites into urban parks is not without its challenges.
The High Line is an incredibly well-funded and maintained project. The Friends of the High Line were highly motivated to conserve the industrial rail line when it was marked for demolition, and they continue to be motivated to maintain the park in its present form, both through physical maintenance but also financially. Other urban parks utilizing industrial space will also need a similar level of support to initiate the project and continue maintaining it well into the future.
Another challenge is ensuring the integrity and safety of the construction of previously industrial sites as they transition to being used as public spaces. The architects involved in the High Line project not only created a beautiful naturescape, they also were tasked with ensuring that the rail line was structurally sound and removing any elements of the rail line that would have been dangerous to include in a public park (Golden, 2016). New urban parks built on previously industrial sites will inevitably face similar issues.
Benefits of ecological restoration and urban parks
Despite the challenges of creating new urban parks, the benefits to nature and the people living in urban spaces are plentiful. Urban parks provide other benefits besides just being a nice place to walk around, they also help to restore native species and natural environments that may have once made a home in the area now developed into a city (Nobles, 2023).
The High Line does this by reintroducing native plant species, especially drought-resistant and low-maintenance plants. These plants also provide habitat for native pollinators like the 400 wild bee species that call New York home (“Sustainable Practices”, 2023). Urban parks can also help mitigate the effects of air pollution, urban heat islands, and storm water run-off (Nobles, 2023).
Philosopher Andrew Light also has claimed that ecological restoration like what is being done in the High Line Park can help to foster a sense of responsibility and encourage stewardship from humans to their natural environment (Kocs, 2015). In this way, urban parks can encourage a mutually beneficial relationship between humans and nature where both communities thrive off interactions with each other.
Ultimately, spatial heritage planners can utilize projects like the High Line that repurpose industrial heritage sites into new urban spaces as ways to build natural heritage layers into the fabric of cities to both honor the industrial past and hold space for natural regeneration and human and ecological coexistence.
Bibliography
Golden, James. “The High Line: More than the Sum of Its Parts.” thinkinGardens, January 21, 2016. https://thinkingardens.co.uk/articles/the-high-line-more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts/.
“History.” The High Line, February 26, 2024. https://www.thehighline.org/history/.
Kingsbury, Noel. “New York’s High Line Garden Is a Masterclass in Urban Regeneration.” House & Garden, February 24, 2022. https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/high-line-urban-garden-new-york.
Kocs, Elizabeth A. “Ecological Restoration in Urban Parks: Achieving Historical Fidelity.” Edra Connections. The Environmental Design Research Association, April 2015. https://energyinitiative.uic.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/233/2019/04/kocs-edraconnections_april2015.pdf.
Nobles, Chandler. “City Planning with Parks in Mind: Open Space.” National Recreation and Park Association, April 11, 2023. https://www.nrpa.org/blog/city-planning-with-parks-in-mind/.
“SDG Indicators.” United Nations, 2024. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2023/goal-11/#:~:text=The%20world’s%20population%20reached%208,exacerbating%20inequalities%20and%20urban%20poverty.
“Sustainable Practices.” The High Line, October 31, 2023. https://www.thehighline.org/sustainable-practices/.
Figure 1: Kingsbury, Noel. “New York’s High Line Garden Is a Masterclass in Urban Regeneration.” House & Garden, February 24, 2022. https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/high-line-urban-garden-new-york.
Figure 2: Kingsbury, Noel. “New York’s High Line Garden Is a Masterclass in Urban Regeneration.” House & Garden, February 24, 2022. https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/high-line-urban-garden-new-york.
Figure 3: N, Alex. “The High Line & New York Urban Gardening.” Learning with Experts, 2024.https://www.learningwithexperts.com/blogs/articles/the-high-line-new-york-urban-gardening#%3CFileEntity:0x0055a3797bce48%3E.
Figure 4: Kingsbury, Noel. “New York’s High Line Garden Is a Masterclass in Urban Regeneration.” House & Garden, February 24, 2022. https://www.houseandgarden.co.uk/gallery/high-line-urban-garden-new-york.
About the author
Maggie Tennant is a master’s student studying Heritage Studies at Vrije University Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Maggie has a background in Global studies, with specialization in sustainability and environmental design. This blog post was inspired by her participation in the Heriland Blended Intensive Program on “Heritage and Landscapes Futures”, in Gothenburg, Sweden, in October 2024.
Maggie can be contacted at m.l.tennant@student.vu.nl.