Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
As nice as that would be, it really, really doesn't.
Fairmount Park needs a lot of work for it to live up to its potential.
The Wissahickon is great (though not well-used, which granted is a part of it's charm) but it's on the outskirts of the city. The Parks system overall is grossly underfunded, undermaintained, and has accessibility issues. This is something that I really wish Philly would step up to the plate on.
Not accessible? Every neighborhood in Philadelphia is in walking distance to a park within the Fairmount Park system. I doubt any city can say the same. It's the largest landscaped urban park in the world. This post alone makes me think Fairmount Park is severely underrated.
Last edited by JMT; 06-03-2011 at 12:49 PM..
Reason: Please see the forum sticky for rules about posting pics.
Not accessible? Every neighborhood in Philadelphia is in walking distance to a park within the Fairmount Park system. I doubt any city can say the same. It's the largest landscaped urban park in the world. This post alone makes me think Fairmount Park is severely underrated.
Where else are there covered bridges within a major city?
I'm reluctant to get into a detailed response to this, because I don't want to get into a "bashing" type argument, when I am a huge supporter of Fairmount Park.
But I generally think that Philadelphia needs to address the very real issues of neglect with Fairmount Park before trying to boast about it in any national or global context. There are great areas of the park, but many parts of it are an embarassment.
The whole "largest landscaped park" claim is a stretch (not even talking about the lack of maintenance), as the acreage number used for that claim includes East & West Fairmount Park, which are divided by a river and a major highway, and the Wissahickon which, while sort-of adjacent, is not truly contiguous. Neither of those three parts are especially large by themselves. And I also would point out that the Wissahickon is not landscaped at all (which is it's beauty), plus they include the Zoo in the area for West Park. If you use the same methodology, then just the Bronx alone has a bigger park than Fairmount Park.
And the overall Fairmount parks system (9200acres) is nowhere near the largest(another common claim). Nearby NYC's is more than 3 times larger and much better maintained.
And having small neighborhood parks that people can walk to is nothing unusual.
Like I said, I'm really not trying to bash, but I think Philly needs to stop leaning on shaky superlatives & repeating all these questionable feel-good truisms and instead make some active strides into making Fairmount Park into the world class park it should be. And then brag.
As much as Philly likes to pride itself on having a large municipal park system, the truth is that much of it is terribly inaccessible, ignored, and doesn't benefit the city nearly as much as it should.
For example, there's a large unused reservoir in Fairmount park (because the city used to have a much larger population, and once needed it) that could easily be landscaped and made into an urban lake, like the Prospect Park lake in Brooklyn, or the Central Park reservoir (just off the top of my head). It could be a great place to run, bike, fish, and be a home for wildlife. And it would have incredible views. With all that park space, Philly should have a lake. It could be a truly great urban space. Something that Philly desperately needs in the middle of the city, which would really activate the park and make it an asset to people who lived near it. Instead, that whole section is fenced off with barbed wire, you basically need to drive down a limited access road to get there, the adjacent neighborhood is not any more desirable of a place to live, and the city at large is seeing minimal benefit from it, if any.
I know the given reason for the barbed wire is "protecting the water supply", but I don't buy it. There's a better way to use that space. Other cities do it. And that part of the reservoir system is not in use anyway.
And another thing: until recently, most of the work done to "improve" the upper Schuylkill was to widen Kelly drive just to make it easier to drive past the park (when there's already West River Drive and the Schuylkill expressway that go to basically the same places), and harder for pedestrians to cross. Since that area behind the Art museum is so nice, couldn't it have been better to narrow that roadway, make it one way, or even just close Kelly Drive to auto traffic? Make it less of a bike/jogging path squeezed between the river and a busy dangerous road, and more of a recreational promenade and gateway to Fairmount Park, better connecting Fairmount Park to it's riverbank, instead of just further cutting it off, which is the problem now. Sure, it's a nice jogging path now - but it could and should be so much more.
...
It's not all bad - the Wissahickon is of course beautiful, and parts of Fairmount park are very scenic. But I think that Philly really needs to try to better capitalize on what should be one of it's greatest assets in that large amount of green space.
Cal Anderson Park in Seattle, a small but very active park in the Heart of the Capitol Hill neighborhood. Baseball, basketball, tennis, soccer, dodgeball, bicyclists, people lounging - all happening day and night at this park. And it's surrounded by tons of bars, restaurants, and other great urban amenities.
Location: The Greatest city on Earth: City of Atlanta Proper
8,485 posts, read 14,988,805 times
Reputation: 7333
Piedmont Park - Atlanta
All sizes | Piedmont Park, Atlanta | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/52349013@N06/5619980538/sizes/l/in/photostream/ - broken link)
All sizes | Midtown Atlanta skyline with lake from piedmont park | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/60451279@N04/5529567653/sizes/l/in/photostream/ - broken link)
Green Market Piedmont Park Atlanta Georgia 8 | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/taedc/5743664141/ - broken link)
51732624/
Piedmont Park On Saturday | Flickr - Photo Sharing! (http://www.flickr.com/photos/56479611@N06/5403181564/ - broken link)
New York City
San Diego
Houston
New Orleans
Seattle
Greenville, SC
St. Louis
Philadelphia
Boston
Atlanta
Washington D.C.
Denver
San Francisco
Chicago
Phoenix
Philly's got the best urban park system, at the very least the most underrated.
I agree completely.Much better than even NYC.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A few Houston urban parks
