Turning urban prairies into parkspace/greenspace

[OyCrumbler]

Supposedly there's myriad benefits from having abundant park spaces nearby. There are certainly a lot of parts of some cities, though on a block by block basis, that now are littered with somewhat empty, desolate patches. Would trying to convert these spaces to fairly low-maintenance parklands do much in helping improve these communities? Are there a lot of places that are trying this right now?

[nei]

In Lower Manhattan (specifically Alphabet City) here was an urban prairie, or rather urban rubble:

alphabet.jpg (image)

the blank spot is now "El Jardin del Paradiso"

via nybbler

Where is this view from?