Shoehorn Parks
Historic Oakland Cemetery, Atlanta's oldest cemetery and a city park.
It’s increasingly rare to come across new, untouched land for park development in cities. In the May issue of Landscape Architecture, Peter Harnik explains how “squeezing innovative green spaces into crowded cities requires looking for land in unexpected places.” He outlines the potential of a variety of urban spaces to function as parkland: cemeteries, school yards, rooftops, community gardens, reservoir lands, stormwater channels, closed streets and reclaimed parking areas. Parks on former landfills are given brief mention, but for more of Harnik’s thoughts on our niche of the shoehorn movement, check out “From Dumps to Destinations: The Conversion of Landfills to Parks,” which ran in Places in 2006 and specifically discusses Freshkills Park.
(via City Parks Blog)
