Also this issue:

Lucky 13
Developer Tony Goldman has spurred new growth in a long-blighted neighborhood.
-Patrick M. Starr

December 12-18, 2002

cityspace

No-Can-Do Atty-Tood

by Daniel Brook

What to do about Philadelphia’s beleaguered park system was the topic of conversation when Peter Harnik, director of the Green Cities Program of the D.C.-based Trust for Public Land, spoke at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society on Dec. 6. Harnik urged the Fairmount Park Commission to develop a comprehensive plan for its parks (the last one was issued in 1983) and to think big. Instead of the “hunkering down” mentality that has dominated urban parks departments through decades of tight budgets, Harnik suggested embarking on major new initiatives, like Pittsburgh’s recently built park at the confluence of its three rivers downtown.

But Harnik was not convinced that Philadelphia was on board. He claimed that despite Philadelphia's new urban energy, the city's parks still suffered from a lack of vision, a lack of leadership and a lack of a clear plan for improvement. The only bright spot, Harnik said, was that the city has finally acknowledged that it has a problem.

Harnik said that citizens who care about parks have to make the case to government officials that healthy parks build prosperous cities (Harnik calls this "landscape economics"). For example, building New York's Central Park was the most expensive public works project of its day, but it soon paid for itself in increased property taxes from land bordering the park. By emphasizing the bottom line effects of healthy parks, Harnik said, even the most oblivious politicians can be won over.

Philip Goldsmith, the acting director of the Fairmount Park Commission, was in attendance and didn't take Harnik's criticisms lying down. After Harnik's talk, Goldsmith let the audience know that the commission was embarking on a new master plan next week. To the intimation by Harnik and some members of the audience that Mayor Street isn't as concerned about the city's parks as his predecessors, Goldsmith replied that park funding has been the same during the past four mayoral administrations.

Later he pooh-poohed the idea that Philadelphia's enormous Fairmount Park could ever sparkle like New York's Central Park. "That's like comparing Walnut Street to Fifth Avenue," Goldsmith said.

Ahh, that can-do Philadelphia spirit.