Quote:
Originally Posted by borkborkbork
Good urban space enhances the use of parks. That sometimes means that more green space is a liability, not a benefit.
Consider the Alexander Docks. If that space got filled with cafes, a market, etc., it would enhance the park space that surrounds it. The park would be better used, more lively, and more interesting.
If you converted the docks simply into an extension of the park, I would imagine it would do very little to enhance the area, keep people from fleeing to the burbs, feel like an important amenity, etc.
Quantity of parks is, to me, a secondary issue to the *quality* of parks, and how those parks interact with the urban spaces that surround them.
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A few thoughts.
First off, you're absolutely right that quality of a park is just as important as their quantity. That includes their distribution and their location within the surrounding urban fabric. This is why I'm putting great emphasis on locating them on the riverbank, where their impact will be greatest. I've kinda grown out of randomly assigning surface lots downtown to be reserved for either a park or new development. There's a word I learned a while ago that everyone in charge of Winnipeg would do good to hear for the first time - It's called "Concinnity" which according to google search means "the skillful and harmonious arrangement or fitting together of the different parts of something." You can't just plop a park down anywhere. It has to fit in and have an appropriate transition between the two environments. Kind of like how it's essential for giant parkade to be squeezed right next to a bunch of restaurant patios on the same street. (a joke)
Secondly, when you're talking an area like the Alexander docks, the biggest issue with turning it into any sort of a naturalized area is the squished nature of it's location, and lack of available room for any worthwhile amount of vegetation to be planted there. This mostly because of how close waterfront drive starts to hug the riverbank at that point. You could still do it, but it would never really reach it's full potential as a natural riparian forest area. But what it can reach it's full as is if it was rather a more heavily landscaped plaza area, pretty much just like the forks market river plaza.
Basically, if there's no way that you could turn a piece of riverbank into a pristine lush natural oasis, then you might as well go the opposite direction and turn it into a buzzling urban plaza, similar to what London and Paris have had their riverbanks turned into. Practically every cubic foot of soil has been paved over with concrete walkways, plazas, and stairways along the Thames & the Seine river (not our seine river you dumass!)
This is more interestingly, what you could do with the mentioned wellington crescent riverbank, but on a much grander scale. The chance for that strip to be turned back into a natural riparian environment has gone away a very long time ago, so why don't we instead turn what is currently it's weakness into it's strength? It'll take a lot of negotiations between the city and all the tower resident associations, but I think it could be conceivable for the podiums of all those towers to be turned into cafes, shops, and patios facing the river. All connected by a large cobble tone river walk further down near the water. It'll give all of those existing concrete foundation structures some actual purpose. Heck, it might even finally give people an
incentive to start trespassing on those tower resident's beautiful parking lots!