The importance of public spaces
by PeteGolis
I’m a student of what cities are doing to bring new energy to old neighborhoods – which is how I came to walk the length of a unique urban park on Thursday.
Built on what was once an elevated railway, the High Line In New York City now stretches 22 blocks from the West Village to Chelsea. Thirty-feet in the air, locals (and visitors, too) stroll through what were once old and beat-up industrial neighborhoods. Now they’re gentrifying with posh hotels, condominiums and office buildings (including one designed by the architect Frank Gehry). The first phase of the High Line opened in June.
Trees, grasses, places to sit and relax, design elements borrowed from its days as a rail line – all these improvements make the High Line a wonderful way to move from one neighborhood to another, or just to hang out on an afternoon.
Too bad, I thought to myself, this isn’t an idea worth taking home to Sonoma County.
But wait. Some of the county’s best-known walking, running and cycling trails follow the rights-of-way of abandoned rail lines. And plans call for a trail to parallel Sonoma Marin Area Rail Transit, stretching from Cloverdale to Larkspur in Marin County.
Big and small, successful cities are defined by their willingness to pursue innovation in design, especially when it comes to creating welcoming public spaces. It’s true in New York City, and it’s true in places we call home. Think of the square in Healdsburg, or the plaza in Sonoma. Think of efforts in Sebastopol and Windsor to create their own town squares. Think of Santa Rosa’s endless conversation about the re-unification of Old Courthouse Square.
When attractive public spaces bring people together, good things happen.
For photos and other information on the High Line, go to www.thehighline.org.
Pete Golis is a columnist for The Press Democrat and a longtime resident of Sonoma County.
I agree. Nice, useful, and attractive public spaces are important to maintaining a strong, healthy, happy community. They improve citizens’ lives and enjoyment and encourage people to congregate together and reaffirm their status as humans living in a community of other humans, not isolated entities merely driving hither and thither and communicating only through lectronic devices, afraid of contact with different people. Such places promote communal bonds and interaction as well as a sense of pride and connection to the area in which we live. Peope who complain that it is frivolous or a waste to spend money or energy on them don’t understand such places’ important role in human society.
by Wulfstan
No other comments beside mone? Honestly, doesn’t anyone care about having good public spaces? Do they all just want to be tucked up in their cars and dead suburban cul-de-sacs, seeing only through the television or computer and interacting with other humans only by e-mail or cellular phones which they constantly have stuck in their ears? I guess this is true when you have a society of people who only drive every where instead of walking amongst other people and who, when they do go out, are either blabbing on a cellular phone or burying their face in an iphone (or whatever those things are), instead of looking or listening to the surroundings in which they actually find themselves or talking to the people next to them. Why even bother leaving the house?
by Wulfstan
I like public spaces and I-phones. In fact, I occasionally use my I-phone to post a message on my facebook page suggesting to my friends that we meet up in an urban space. Oh, and Golis is dead-on, in regards the Highline, run don’t walk. It is an exquisite space and a perfect example of “less can be more.” Best new part of NYC in a long time.
by Urban Guy
One need look no farther than the already-built bike path and SMART train right-of-way just north of the Central San Rafael exit on 101 to see how deep SMART’s commitment to open space goes. There, the bike path runs directly adjacent to the southbound freeway lanes, with the sound wall on the other side. What you can’t see from the freeway is that beyond the sound wall lies the SMART train right of way – running directly behind homes and through a neighborhood. Check it out if you’re interested. It’s the stupidest “open-space” decision in the Bay Area since San Francisco built the Embarcadero freeway (mercifully now torn down). Tell me WHO made the decision to design the route this way — instead of the other way around, with the bike path and greenway in people’s backyards and the train on the noisy side of the sound wall. Beware Sonoma folks — this kind of decision making is coming your way!
by Klynstra