mygreenspaces-blog

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Lexington, KY Resources

Ready to see some green?

Local organizations that understand your area can often offer more comprehensive information about your potential involvement than many large NGOs. 

If you in Kentucky, especially the Lexington region, check out Bluegrass  GreenSource! They offer education, business, and community outreach programs. 

https://bggreensource.org/

http://fayettealliance.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Public-Greenspace.pdf

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The regeneration projects of the past decade are more about planters and cappuccinos than access to free drinking water, public toilets, cheap groceries and a post office. They appear to solve only the first-world problems of the monocultural illuminati who created them.

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Growing White

“My area went from being pretty balanced to predominantly white just like the rest of suburb.”

Despite remaining consistently middle class, Cameron’s neighborhood change a lot when he was growing up. His home in Kansas City also resided in “one of the best” school districts in the state which was a big pull factor for the area.

After a neighbor built a small park behind their home, the cost of living gradually began to rise. “So, when people were moving out and selling, it more white people moving in than anything else,” describes Cameron. “My area went from being pretty balanced to predominantly white just like the rest of suburb.” While Cameron didn’t feel any major difference in his personal experience, the new park did create his “first realization” at how his area lacked diversity.

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Staying Safe

“You can play without getting hit by cars was definitely a change in how I thought about myself … you can relax a lot more.”

These words come from Kayla: a queer woman of color from Louisville, KY. Kayla lived in the “ somewhat [im]poverished area” with “police like there almost every day.” But by the time she was in high school, she moved to Highview, a middle-class suburb.

An obstacle of green spaces – in the areas they are most needed – is the crime. “A lot of the parks we have are usually taken over with gang activity like or such,” explains Kayla. So, even though she moved from one comparatively green area to another, she was only able to enjoy it in her second home. “ You can play without getting hit by cars [in Highview] was definitely a change in how I thought about myself … you can relax a lot more.” Kayla noted how the higher-income and more white neighborhood not only had green spaces, but it had safe green spaces.

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Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit

Edward Abbey, American author

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you: parks

me, an intellectual: urban green spaces

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Hidden Brain

Our Better Nature: How The Great Outdoors Can Improve Your Life

NPR podcast host, Shankar Vedantam, talks with the reluctant advocate for urban green spaces: psychologist Ming Kuo. 

https://www.npr.org/2018/09/10/646413667/our-better-nature-how-the-great-outdoors-can-improve-your-life

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Organisms, when housed in unfit habitats, undergo social, psychological, and physical breakdown.

E.O. Wilson, an American biologist, naturalist, theorist and author

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TIL over 62% of the U.S. population lives in cities, yet minority and lower-income residents don’t have the same access to clean air in those cities

Sources: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-33.html

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169204614000310

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By far the greatest and most admirable form of wisdom is that needed to plan and beautify cities and human communities.

Socrates

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SN: a great infill project in the heart of the rust belt, Cleveland, OH, transforming decaying and underused parking lots into a landmark park along the Erie Canal. The park will also incorporate historical reproductions of key features of the Ohio & Erie Canal circa the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The Cleveland City Planning Commission approves early plan for Canal Basin

CLEVELAND, Ohio’s Planning Commission on Friday enthusiastically approved an early “framework” plan for the proposed Canal Basin Park, a 20-acre public space that would celebrate the Ohio & Erie Canal and how it helped shape the city.

“It’s truly extraordinary,” said Tim Tramble, a member of the Planning Commission. “I think it’s going to be a great contributor to the consistent in-migration to our city.”

The plan describes how an area twice the size of Public Square would be transformed from crumbling parking lots and weed-choked remnants of the canal to one of the city’s most important parks.

The park will ultimately serve as the northern gateway to the Towpath Trail, which when finished will connect the city to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park and other points to the south.

“I believe it will be a national model for how to recover an urban space that’s been damaged and abused,” said Craig Kenkel, superintendent of the Cuyahoga Valley National Park.

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Central Park - Manhattan

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Urban green space, such as parks, forests, green roofs, streams, and community gardens, provides critical ecosystem services. Green space also promotes physical activity, psychological well-being, and the general public health of urban residents.

Wolch, Byrne and Newell  ‘Urban green space, public health, and environmental justice: The challenge of making cities ‘just green enough’’ (2014)