A major part of a city's responsibilities is to provide parks and recreation spaces. One thing that cities can do is always create more parks by buying small parcels of vacant land and simply building easy care parks. The city also need to examine the idea of using school yards as weekend parks. This would automatically increase the amount of park space in the exact time when more people are using parks. So often there are a limited number of baseball fields in city parks -- and just a block or two away is a school baseball field that sits totally unused. The city could even charge a small fee to use the school yard. And the schools would always be execmpt from anyone suing them for whatever damn reason they think up.
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Easy care parks are those that are designed with native plants that are able to survive by themselves and not have to be constantly maintained. They don't require irrigation. They don't require pest control. They don't require too upkeep. They usually cost no money to procure because there are usually plenty of seedlings around for them to take and use in the new parks. xxx |
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Park departments should work with horticultural societies and other conservation groups in the upkeep of parks. Not only that, the parks and the schools should cooperate. For instance, parks need more plants -- as part of the school curriculum projects students who are interested should be allowed to grow and upkeep and learn about the plants that the city uses in its parks. XXX . |
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Every effort should be made to line every street of every city with easy care trees, native varieties. All the medians of streets should be given over to low growing plants (preserving a line of sight across the road) so that the city could cut its mowing cost. Grass is a useless ecological conceit. More plants and trees along medians and in vacant lots would provide more habitat for birds and bugs and other creatures. It would also serve to lessen the effets of polution. XXX . |
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The care and maintainence of parks should slowly be moved over to endowments rather than current tax revenues. By taking some small amount of current taxes and putting them into separate accounts over the next decade the money will build to the point that the interest alone will cover the operations of the parks. Not only that, but these accounts can be augemented by donations by companies and individuals who have an interest in the parks. It would serve to insulate the parks from the politics of the day. XXX . |
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Virtually every piece of vacant land within a city's borders should be put aside for parks. The reality is that the population will keep increasing. And the current parks will beocome overburdened. Even small parks with a swing set and sandbox will help allieviate the pressure on the larger parks. It would also enable the people in neighborhoods to get to parks quicker and more often. As the population keeps growing if we don't set aside these small pocket parks now they will be impossible to create decades down the road. Every effort should be made to create programs that would make it easier for the owners of these small parcels to donate or sell the land to the cities. XXX |
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