City Park Urban and Suburban Design – The New Lifestyle Cities – Book Review
Why are so many communities so perfect and have all the recreational facilities around where people live? It makes life more enjoyable, less stressful, and also safer to start a family. People who live in these types of areas are healthier, happier, and get the exercise they need. The quality of life that derives from a correct urban development of this type is almost incalculable from the monetary point of view.
I’d like to introduce you to an expert on the subject, someone who has written an excellent book, one that I think everyone in urban planning and design should read. Also for those people who are building master planned communities that include recreational facilities, parks, etc., you should take a look at this book. The name of the work is;
“Recreational Planning and Design”, by Seymour Gold, 1980
The author Seymour M. Gold has a Ph.D. in residential and urban planning from the University of California, Davis, where he specializes in environmental planning. The book reviews the history of how these types of communities have emerged in the United States. In this book he takes us from 1600 to 1980. Chapters;
- 1600-16 14 The Boston Commons
- 1700 to 1712 Municipal Forest in New Hampshire
- 1800 to 1850 Chicago Park
- Central Park in the 1840s
- Golden Gate Park in 1865
- In the 1880s, these types of communities became common.
The story itself is totally fascinating and interesting, but when put into a modern context, Mr. Gold literally explains how to make the magic happen. He talks about urban planning and population and recreation life cycles and how they peak over a ten year period and how they change when couples reach their 40s.
Explains the need for bike trails, horse play areas, skateboard parks, field sports, tennis, amphitheaters, parks and picnic tables, hiking trails. He talks about private airports, hang gliding, recreational boating, water features, and the problems with mosquitoes. He even brings us up to date with golf communities and how to make them work.
He also talks about the negative aspects when communities are not built correctly; poverty, crime, maintenance costs, pollution, civil disobedience, social class separations, stricter rules, excessive policing, intense taxes and fees. Therefore, this book and research project brings us full circle; past, present and how to best design things for the future and what to avoid.
Anyone with a degree in urban planning should read this book, along with all the young people growing up now using SimCity design techniques to design our future towns, communities, and cities. Please consider all of this.