Urban Parks: Strengthening the City, Saving the Countryside
Speech by Peter Harnik, The Trust for Public Land
New Jersey Land Conservation Rally, Newark, N.J.
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Good afternoon, fellow tree huggers!
I am very happy to be here with all of you at this rally for parks, open space
and conservation. Thank you, Laura Szwak and Michelle Byers, for inviting me.
And a special hi to Allison Mitchell and Wilma Frey who worked with me way
back in the 1990s at the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. And my many other New
Jersey friends.
But I must say I’ve also got a bit of trepidation. The last time I was asked to
speak at a Land Trust Rally – to give a workshop on the topic of Urban Parks –
only 6 people showed up. Admittedly, that was about 15 years ago, when cities
were pretty far from the thoughts of most land trust leaders, but still…. When
Laura called to invite me, I said to be on the safe side, let’s schedule it for
lunchtime. So thank you all for showing up for my talk!
I’m also very happy to be back here in Newark. I don’t mean passing
through Newark on the way to that other N-place, I mean being in Newark.
I love Newark’s old architecture. I’m not sure if it’s consciously been
preserved, or just hasn’t been torn down, but it is so special, compared to the K
Street look of much of Washington.
I love Newark’s history and its impact on America. Do you know that if you
type into Wikipedia, "Notable People from Newark, New Jersey,” you get a list
more than 100 names long – including Philip Roth, Allen Ginsberg, Jason
1
Alexander, Ice-T, Jerry Lewis, Ed Koch, Keisha Knight, Whitney Houston,
Shaquille O’Neal and Governor Chris Christie?
I love the Ironbound neighborhood, its restaurants and street life.
I love WBGO Radio. I’m even a member. (And keep in mind, every time
someone tries to diss New Jersey by saying the state doesn’t even have its own TV
station, you say, yes, but for jazz in New York City, everyone has to tune in to
Newark radio!)
I love Branch Brook Park and Weequahic Park and Military Park, partly for
what they are, and partly for what I can picture them one day becoming. And Jesse
Allen Park and Mildred Helms Park and the Passaic River waterfront, all
wonderful efforts that have been assisted by my organization.
I love the cathedral – the Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart. A few years
ago my wife and I took a vacation in Europe, which involved changing planes in
Newark. Thanks to the airline, we missed the connecting flight. I won’t mention
the airline’s name, but it starts with a “C” and it’s now out of business. Anyway,
they gave us a toothbrush and we had to spend 24 hours in Newark. It turned out to
be a wonderful day. We went to the great Newark Museum, walked through
Branch Brook Park and then discovered the cathedral. My wife took some photos.
When we got back from Europe, we stuck the Newark cathedral pictures into the
slide show. People were pretty certain it was Chartres or maybe Amiens. That was
a lot of fun.
When I told my friends that I was speaking today in Newark, they said,
“Newark?” or “Bummer!” I said, “Little do you know.” Remember how people
used to say that about Brooklyn? “Brooklyn?” Now they say – “Brooklyn! I love
Brooklyn!”
Newark – the next Brooklyn. You heard it here.
2
OK, let me dig into the first issue on my mind, the relationship between city
parks and land trusts. From a bird’s eye view, there is a great similarity. This is
tremendously important and reinforcing. We’re all working side by side to protect
nature, trees and natural places. We’re part of something really big. So why did
only 6 people came to my old workshop – and also, conversely, why were there no
sessions about land trusts at the City Parks Conference in New York last summer?
That, I think, relates to issues of land ownership and management. And even of
underlying motivation.
The land trust movement is a do-it-yourself movement: There is a beautiful
property. It’s threatened. It’s off the beaten track. It’s not too well known. The
local political jurisdiction has no resources. If it did have resources, it would
probably do the wrong thing. The neighbors have money and/or connections. The
neighbors are visionary, tremendously competent and self-reliant. They are
wonderful people. Sometimes they call The Trust for Public Land. Either way, they
buy the land and make it available to the public – a very specialized portion of the
public. Basically, people who are extremely quiet and slow-moving and don’t
litter. The neighbors don’t do anything to the property that would make it the least
bit attractive to 14-year-old boys or to 20-year-old mountain bikers. It’s a fantastic
model, and across the county there are 1,700 land trusts that own more than 2
million acres of land. Our host here today, the New Jersey Conservation
Foundation, has saved more than 120,000 acres all by itself, which is fantastic.
These are do-it-yourselfers.
The city parks movement is a do-it-together movement: There is a run-down
property. It’s a former railyard. It’s surrounded by marginal housing, abandoned
warehouses and a polluted river. Everyone knows about it but no one has any hope.
The city has no money. The neighbors have no money. The neighbors are
3
visionary, tremendously competent and wonderful people. They demonstrate, hold
rallies, talk to the press and the foundations, make demands on politicians.
Sometimes they call the Trust for Public Land. The government finds money and
buys the land. It gets cleaned up, packed with fun things to do, and is overrun by
14-year-old boys -- and girls -- and their families -- with ballgames -- and
barbeques – and music – and festivals. It’s a fantastic model, and across the
country, in the 100 biggest cities (which include Newark and Jersey City), there are
about 20,000 city parks covering about 1.5 million acres of land.
On the superficial level we’re all working on parks. But parks are a lot more
diverse than most people think. Hiding within the word “park” are manicured
lawns, dense forests, wetlands, sports complexes, flower gardens, community
gardens, playgrounds, greenways with and without bike trails, brick plazas, open
playing fields, dog runs, beaches, natural water bodies, man-made water bodies
and much more. You’ll notice that Gertrude Stein did not put down her rose and
say “A park is a park is a park.” Nor did Ronald Reagan walk out of his redwood
grove and say, “You’ve seen one park, you’ve seen them all.”
Then there’s also the word “city,” which masks the many different ways that
Americans live on the land. From crowded, walkable Boston and San Francisco to
sparse, non-walkable Albuquerque and Tucson, to formerly crowded but now
much roomer Cleveland and Detroit, population density affects everything, from
transportation to retail to education to health to politics. It certainly affects the way
people use parks.
When cities are young, small, and expanding, parks are added on the leading
edge of the growth margin. They consist of natural lands—farms, forests,
woodlands, wetlands, deserts, and other relatively undeveloped properties that are
donated or purchased for park use. Often the trees and other plant materials can be
4
retained, and little or no demolition is required. Sometimes, no construction is
required, either. The process is known as conservation.
In older cities that are “all built out” there is nothing natural to conserve—
nothing nature-based, that is, besides the existing parks. New parks there must be
created through development rather than conservation. A derelict parking lot that
might make a great new park wouldn’t be conserved—doing that would merely
retain a derelict parking lot. It would be torn up, regraded, planted, and fitted out
with a playground or a sports field or a fountain or whatever the community wants.
The goal in built-out cities is to use creativity and perseverance to find space
to do something different with -- recognizing that good parks add more total value
than they cost. This means either finding something affordable and buying it,
acquiring vacated parcels from other government agencies, sharing land with other
users, providing rules that encourage developers to donate certain lands for parks,
using previously unused surfaces, or making better use of existing parkland. All of
these approaches are discussed in the book that I wrote, Urban Green: Innovative
Parks for Resurgent Cities.
Should the land trust movement and the city parks movement unite? Is there
such a thing as an urban land trust? This is a complex question. First of all,
nomenclature. There are a couple of places, like the Los Angeles Neighborhood
Land Trust, that bill themselves as land trusts but are really more like park friends
or advocacy groups. And there are a couple of real land trusts that own community
gardens, but let me get back to them in a moment.
First I want to start with a bit of psychology. Most land trust people are
devoted conservationists. I won’t say they’re uncomfortable with people, but they
really love getting away to nature. Most city park people are people-people. I
won’t say they’re uncomfortable with deep, dark woods, but they’re happy when
5
people are around. I happen to be able to see the world through both these sets of
eyes. I grew up in Manhattan, loving it, but I also spent many great times in the
Adirondacks and the White Mountains. (And let me turn that around, too: I’ve had
some moments of real fear, both in the city and in the wilderness.)
I’ll tell you a story. About 10 years ago I was walking in Central Park.
(Central Park, by the way, is at the border of New York City and the Adirondacks;
literally – that’s how Frederick Law Olmsted designed it.) I came over a rise, and I
heard a boombox playing some kind of repetitive music with a heavy bass line. It
wasn’t really my kind of music. If I had dialed it up on the radio, I would have kept
on dialing. If I had heard it in a pristine forest I would have been appalled. But
there it was, so I went over to investigate. What a sight! About 30 extraordinarily
multi-racial people, dressed in indescribably wild clothes, with feathers and
sequins and lots of bare, tatooed skin, were dancing to the music. On roller skates.
It was a bit scary, it was very fabulous. It was the best moment on that whole trip
to New York. I’ll probably remember it for my whole life. But whether it is
something that’s appealing to an “urban land trust manager” is an open question.
Next, liability. Parks are potentially dangerous places, and they get more
potentially dangerous if they have playgrounds, ballfields, spraygrounds, athletic
centers, zip lines and swimming pools – and if they have more users. Even if land
trust leaders didn’t already prefer low-impact nature, most of them would have to
restrict their palette anyway so as to afford their insurance and their minimal
staffing levels. To put it simply, the average city park is too expensive to be
operated by the average land trust.
The one exception – and it’s relatively minor – relates to community
gardens. A few land trusts have come into existence in order to own gardens in
Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Gardens are a lot easier than multi-purpose
6
parks, if you think back to what I said about quiet, slow-moving people who don’t
litter or ride mountain bikes. But, frankly, even some garden land trusts are
struggling under the burdens of providing water, paying taxes, fending off vandals,
mending fences, and all the other challenges of running a park in a city.
So, urban land trusts are not multiplying. But urban parks, despite the
economy, the tea party, and political gridlock, are -- and I thought I’d bring you
up-to-date on what’s happening. After all, the more desirable our cities become,
the easier it will be to save our countryside from sprawl.
Environmentalists don’t often hear good news, but I’ve got to say that many
cities today are in a Golden Age of Parks. In 2004 Chicago garnered massive
headlines for Millennium Park. A few years later the spotlight shifted to New
York’s High Line, the sensational elevated rail-trail through the Meatpacking
District. (Even though it cost $140 million, the High Line has unlocked more than
$2 billion in surrounding real estate value.) In 2012, not to be left behind, Los
Angeles undertook an emergency $12-million fundraising effort to save the famous
Hollywood sign from being engulfed by sprawling McMansions. The property was
added to Griffith Park.
Even smaller cities have been making their marks. A private foundation in
St. Louis constructed CityGarden which has pumped new life into downtown.
Pittsburgh revamped Point State Park at the spot where the Ohio River begins.
Atlanta used the 1996 Olympic Games to clear out a collection of old warehouses
and create spectacular Centennial Olympic Park, which then served as a seed for
more than $3 billion worth of redevelopment downtown, including the relocation
of the Coca-Cola headquarters and the construction of a new aquarium. Boston tore
down an old parking garage, put the parking underground and put lovely Post
Office Square Park on top. It then tore down the old Fitzgerald Expressway, put it
7
underground and covered it with the Rose Kennedy Greenway. Wouldn’t it be
great if we could do that with Interstate 280 and undo the damage to Branch Brook
Park? Or get Route 22 out of Weequahic Park?
Well, let’s talk about Newark. Newark has a total of 846 acres of parkland –
most operated by the Essex County and about 10 percent run by the city
Department of Neighborhood and Recreational Services. That’s only 3.1 acres per
1000 residents. Measured another way, only 5.5 percent of the city’s area is
devoted to parks. That’s low, but the city has gained 43 acres in the 10 years that
we’ve been measuring, so that’s good progress under Mayor Booker. Playgrounds
in parks are also scarce, with the majority of them having been constructed for the
city by the Trust for Public Land. (In fact, on a percentage basis, TPL probably
plays a bigger role with parks in Newark than in any other city where we operate.)
And it’s having an impact: total city and county spending on parks was about $31
million in 2010, about $113 per resident – which is a pretty impressive number,
since the U.S. average was $82.
In fact, good things are happening and investments are being made.
* Mayor Booker's GreenSpaces Program has redeveloped 17 parks and
playgrounds since he took office 6 years ago, including Nat Turner Park, the
largest City-owned park, which opened in July 2009.
* Essex County continues to show leadership, opening Essex County
Riverfront Park in June, 2012. Now, TPL and the City of Newark are in
construction on an adjacent 7 acre parcel connecting Riverfront Park with
Riverbank Park, the historic facility originally designed by the Olmsted firm back
in 1913. When this opens this summer it will make for a connected 30 acres of
green space along the Passaic River in the Ironbound. The County continues to
improve Branch Brook Park, with more cherry trees (you have even more than we
8
do in Washington), to a new urban farm greenhouse, and a recently announced
fitness trail (funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) to be built
this year.
* Jesse Allen Park, in the Central Ward, is two-thirds through a
redevelopment, and listen to what it will have when finished: tennis courts, a
skateboard park, volleyball courts, basketball courts, a playground, a waterplay
area, a Fitness Zone, a football/soccer field and two baseball fields. (I know some
of you land trusters are thinking that you’re glad you don’t live next door, but this
is exactly what the community asked for.)
* Military Park (which by our records is the 4th oldest park in America – did
you know that?) is about ready to undergo a refurbishment that will see new
landscaping and facilities under a new management arrangement, the Military Park
Partnership (modeled on the structure of Bryant Park in New York City).
* And there is a growing movement of Newark community parks advocacy
groups -- not only venerable Branch Brook Park Alliance, Weequahic Park
Association, Greater Newark Conservancy and SPARK at Riverbank Park, but also
newer organizations such as the Friends of Jesse Allen Park, Friends of Nat Turner
Park and Washington Park Commons.
*
People often come up to me and say, “Which comes first, the healthy city or
the healthy park system?” You need good parks to attract middle-class people to a
city, but you need the tax revenue from middle-class folks to rebuild and maintain
attractive, safe parks. It’s like the chicken and the egg. But it doesn’t have to be
9
that way. It can be more like pumping a swing. Remember going to the
playground and pumping a swing? On paper, pumping is an impossibility – it
seems like a violation of a law of physics, like pulling yourself up by your
bootstraps. Yet we all know it can be done. Pumping a swing from a standstill is
difficult and awkward. At the beginning the progress is almost imperceptible. But
in a short time you can be barreling along at astonishing speed and height. And
this is why the Trust for Public Land is so committed to building playgrounds, so
we can all practice our pumping!
I want to thank you again for inviting me. New Jersey is the most densely
populated state in the U.S., so it is proper and not surprising that you all would be
surfacing some of the toughest new questions about urban parks, urban and nonurban land trusts, and everything in between. Jane Jacobs wrote that it is cities and
other crowded places that always confront new problems first and have to come up
with solutions first, whether it’s for drinking water, garbage, transportation or, in
our case, parks. Let’s honor Jane and keep up this exploration.
10