Honorable Ambassador From Nature-Land
It’s not easy being a park ranger these days. Park visitation has declined, and those who do visit parks are apt to be less comfortable in nature and possess fewer outdoors skills than visitors of 10...
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John Gwynne: Bronx Zoo Designer, Conservationist
When he was 9, John Gwynne visited the Bronx Zoo, where for the first time he saw a gorilla, in a claustrophobic cage, in the manner of zoos in the 1950s. The mournful-looking creature impressed him;...
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Turning Failed Commercial Properties Into Parks
In the language of urbanism, “greenfields” usually means rural land at the metropolitan edge, where suburbia metastasizes. “Brownfields” are former industrial sites that could be redeveloped once they...
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Street Makeovers Put New Spin on the Block
The recession may have robbed city governments of the wherewithal to enhance public places. But some undaunted architects, planners, and community activists are trying urban design experiments that are...
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Un-Pave Paradise and Put Up a Lot of Parks
In the heat of five o’clock traffic, most of us hate freeways, those angry, crowded entities that were designed in the vain hope we would never feel angry or crowded. However, a growing trend in urban...
View ArticleConsider the Squirrel
About a decade ago I watched a squirrel do something amazing. Tired of these creatures storming my backyard bird feeder, I situated a cylinder of feed far from overhanging tree limbs and atop a...
View ArticleWhy Don’t We Have a National Park to Protect Native Grasslands?
To qualify as a national park, it helps to have natural formations that point toward the heavens. There are, of course, exceptions to this rule—Everglades is a swamp and Cuyahoga Valley a canal. But in...
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Be a Better Person: Take a Walk in the Park
Plenty of research has suggested immersing yourself in nature has significant mental and physical health benefits. But can it also make you a better person? New research from France suggests it just...
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