URBAN PARKS: Programming Areas and Facilities.

 The Vision of an urban park. 

Urban parks are places of significant size and location that offer respite to city dwellers in the form of natural or artful aesthetic beauty, recreation and education be it cultural, historic or wellness. The Olmstedian idea of urban parks as cultural oases for a person’s renewal from urban pressures is still valid. Urban parks can offer private settings for contemplation or active settings for socializing. The best urban parks have places for all these things. 

Central Park in New York City is the quintessential urban park in a big city, but there are small town equivalents. A town square, a nature park near downtown, an historic site that invites individual and group enjoyment or a public place with a big tree near a stream can play the role of the urban park in a smaller setting. A place that allows and encourages beauty, health, recreation, education and socialization in the urban environment is the prize.