Defining the Sustainable Park: A Fifth Model for Urban Parks

Abstract How can parks contribute to the overarching project of helping cities become more ecologically sustainable? The history of urban parks in America reveals more concern with social problems than with ecological sustainability. Four types of city parks have been identified—the Pleasure Ground, the Reform Park, the Recreation Facility, and the Open Space System—and each of them respond to social issues, not ecological ones. Yet today, ecological problems are becoming one of our biggest social concerns, so a new urban park type focused on social solutions to ecological problems would be consistent with this pattern. Using the same social and physical criteria that described the previous four models, Part I describes a fifth model, the Sustainable Park, which began to emerge in the late 1990s. Part II postulates three general attributes of this new kind of park: (1) self-sufficiency in regard to material resources and maintenance, (2) solving larger urban problems outside of park boundaries, and (3) creating new standards for aesthetics and landscape management in parks and other urban landscapes. It also explores policy implications of these attributes regarding park design and management, the practice of landscape architecture, citizen participation, and ecological education.