Transcriber: Yohanna Cordeiro Reviewer: Denise RQ
What one type of urban infrastructure can help improve the environment?
And protect against flooding?
And benefit our mental health?
Also help tell the stories of our history and culture?
And raise property values? And help us feel happier?
It all sounds a bit far-fetched,
perhaps like the promises
of an aspirational beauty pageant contestant:
"I will save the environment!"
But there's a type of urban infrastructure that can do all this and more.
And it's not something cold and hard,
like the pipes and concrete we usually associate with infrastructure.
Instead, it's a type of green infrastructure.
It's our parks.
Today I'd like to share with you three places
where people have reached many of these benefits
by reconsidering where parks can be located,
what roles they can play,
and what they can look like.
I'm passionate about parks and I believe they are vitally important,
but why is it important we reconsider parks at all?
Here are just two reasons:
firstly, more than half of the world's population
now lives in its cities.
It's the first time in human history that this has been the case.
And it's a percentage that's expected to rise.
In cities around the world,
designers, policy makers and communities are grappling
with the often conflicting challenges created by more people,
from different backgrounds, living closer together.
As space in our cities becomes more contested,
the demand for high-quality outdoor places for people increases.
Don't forget: parks are one of the true, democratic spaces in our cities.
Everyone has the right to go to a park.
And as cities continue to grow,
one of the ways we continue to meet this demand
for high-quality outdoor places
is by reconsidering the way we think about parks.
Secondly,
this massive shift towards cities
is often, usually accompanied by other societal changes.
Everyone who moves to a new city, leaves somewhere else behind.
Industries that once fueled economic growth
have become uncompetitive.
As a result to these changes,
many cities are now finding themselves with fewer people,
but more buildings and land than they can now use.
Here too there is a way to address some of these challenges
by reconsidering the way we think about parks.
So how do we think about parks now?
Let's establish a baseline.
I'd like you to close your eyes for a moment,
and while I say just one word, remember what images pop into your mind.
Park.
OK, now open your eyes.
Who imagined something that looks like this?
It's no surprise, and it's common to all of us
who share a Euro-centric cultural heritage.
Our idea of what a park should look like
is derived from very large pleasure gardens
that were built in the 18th century for very rich aristocrats.
The views of pastoral serenity stretched for miles.
The creeks flowed clear and full of fish.
Birds filled the sky.
Anything considered unpleasant was hidden from view.
And it was from this tradition that we inherited this image
of what we think a park should look like.
But what if your views are not of pastoral serenity
but of heavy industry?
What if your creek has received federal designation
as one of the most polluted in the country?
What if only smokestacks and cranes fill your sky?
And what if your unpleasant things just can't be hidden from view?
You might be familiar with this place.
Over 8 million people live in New York
and they all go to the bathroom everyday.
Try hiding that behind a few artfully positioned shrubs.
So what happens next?
Well, a lot of what happens next, happens here.
This is the Newtown Creek, waste water treatment plant.
It's the largest sewage treatment plant in New York City.
The large round structures are called Digester Eggs.
There are eight of them in total, and together they process
around 5.6 million liters of sludge every day.
And this is the park next door, the Newtown Creek Nature Walk.
The design process was lead by an artist,
and the result it's a park that references time's past.
Particular tree species were chosen
for their cultural and historic significance.
The wood of the Kentucky coffee tree, for example,
was used to make boat ribs and its seeds are eaten by many animals.
They were also roasted by the native Americans
and later used as a coffee substitute during the Civil War.
Rubbish bins are in the shape of barrels,
reflecting the cooperages that one flourished in the neighborhood.
The way into and out of the Nature Walk is via this bulging concrete structure,
an artwork called Vessel,
which references the former boat-building industries.
The view in one direction is towards the Empire State Building,
but there are also holes cut in the wall,
so you can see the treatment plant in behind.
Newtown Creek Nature Walk is a long way
from our earlier ideal image of what we think a park should look like,
and yet, people visit Newtown Creek Nature Walk.
They stroll there, they eat their lunch there.
They aren't offended by being next door to a sewage treatment plant,
by being right up against something we normally try very hard to keep hidden.
Why? Why not?
Remember earlier I asked
what one piece of urban infrastructure could help make us feel happier?
One way parks help us feel happier
is by providing us, the city dwellers, with a connection to nature.
We crave these connections and are hardwired that way.
If nature is there to be found, we will seek it out.
However you define nature,
the fact remains that we respond positively to living on organic things:
plants, animals, stone, water.
I love Newtown Creek Nature Walk, it's so small.
Barely the distance of the walk from here at the theater
up to Alice Street and back again,
and yet it matters.
It matters to the people who live and work nearby,
and now have a way to experience nature in the midst of all this industry.
To reflect on what that nature was like in the past,
and then to give serious consideration
to what form it will take in the future of their city.
Newtown Creek Nature Walk also provides habitat.
And it tells some of the stories
of the history and culture of this part of the city.
Visitors, residents, and workers, all benefit in multiple ways
because people were prepared to reconsider
where a park should be located and what it should look like.
What if we could take that a step further
and also consider what a park's role could be?
And then what if we could reconsider that role in a way
that benefits not just a tiny stretch of waterfront, but an entire city?
This is exactly what happened in Medellin,
where parks were reconsidered as agents of social change.
Medellin, in central Columbia, has a population of about 2 million people,
roughly the same as Brisbane,
however, that city occupies a space 15 times smaller than ours
and 40% of its residents live in informal settlements.
This little girl is in a place called Moravia,
a very poor, informal suburb that grew up on the city's rubbish dump.
She's playing on the bamboo poles
that are used to mark the locations of homes in Moravia
that have been demolished as its residents are gradually rehoused away from the dump.
Medellin was also once the capital of the global cocaine industry.
During that time, in the 70s and 80s, it was claimed to have
one of the highest, per capita, murder rates in the world.
Over 500 police officers were killed.
People didn't go outside their homes unless they absolutely had to.
This continued until 1993,
when cartel boss, Pablo Escobar, was himself shot and killed.
How does a city recover from this sort of trauma?
Amongst other things,
the local administration commenced a long-term program of social urbanism.
It started a city-wide approach to planning, transport, education and more.
Many new parks and plazas were built.
They were all open, well-designed, high-quality, close to public transport
and integrated with other public facilities
such as schools, libraries, and museums.
This is one of the new parks and plazas.
It's outside the new cultural center in Moravia.
This one is at the Planetarium.
It's between a major new metro station and the State University.
These kids are at the Botanic Gardens.
It's received a new entry and this amazing new roof structure
that shades the central gathering area.
This downtown plaza is outside a huge new library.
And this is Barefoot Park.
The name is said to have originated on the first day
the kids went to play in their new park.
They knew instantly what to do
and spontaneously kicked-off their shoes and ran to play.
These places all provide a connection to nature,
as we saw in Newtown Creek Nature Walk.
Like that park, they also tell
some of the stories of the local history and culture.
Bamboo mightn't seem like a very Colombian plant species,
but it was used to make the windbreaks that protected coffee plantations.
This step-foot bath at Barefoot Park,
is a direct descendant of ancient Colombian building structures.
But these parks are also doing much more.
These are parks being used as agents of social change
- not to solve all the problems, no one thing could do that -
but these are parks created to help re-engage
the residents of Medellin with their city.
Parks to help them reclaim their city.
But what if the challenges to be addressed were bigger even than a city?
What if there is a way
that we could reconsider where parks are located,
what roles they can play, and what they can look like,
in ways they could benefit an entire region?
At the same time that Medellin was suffering under the cocaine cartels,
communities in the rural regions of Western Germany were also struggling.
Flanking the Emscher River,
this region was the heartland of German industrialization.
It was critical to wartime armament production,
and then to the so-called 'economic miracle' of the 1950s and 60s.
During the 70s, Germany started to become less competitive in the global coal market
and by the late 1980s it was all over.
Mines, refineries, coking plants, smelters, and blast furnaces
across the region were closed.
The unemployment rates skyrocketed,
and nearly a century of heavy and extractive industries
had left the landscape forever altered.
What was next for the region?
The state government commenced a long-term 10 year program
to achieve economic, ecological, and urban revitalization.
The strategy focused on a creation of a Landschaftspark,
a regional landscape park,
centered on a rehabilitated Emscher River.
Everything from the industrial era was deemed worthy of preserving.
Things like this blast furnace
which is now at the center, at the heart of Landschaftspark Duisburg-Nord,
a vast 200-hectare site.
Further down the road, to the east, is Zollverein, in the city of Essen.
It was once known as the most beautiful colliery in the world;
a title, one suspects, is unlikely to be bestowed upon
too many of our coal mines any time soon.
Zollverein is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site,
and the cultural and artistic centerpiece of the region.
Over 100 projects like this have been created throughout.
In 2010, the rural region was the European capital of culture,
welcoming 10½ million visitors to 5, 500 events,
many of them in the landmarks and landscapes
of the Emscher Landschaftspark.
This is park-making on a spectacular scale.
And this is park-making with enormous benefits.
And these are benefits that have only been able to be realized
because people were prepared to reconsider what a park could be.
The results don't need to be anywhere near this big,
but we can all benefit from reconsidering parks.
Reconsidering where parks can be located
means we can bring moments of delight and nature
to the most unlikely corners of our cities,
benefiting of physical and mental well-being.
Reconsidering what roles parks can play
offers us another way to help us get along better,
both with each other, and the rest of the environment.
And reconsidering what parks can look like, gives us a great way
to continue to tell some of the stories of our history and culture.
Reconsidering parks can create new futures.
So reconsider, and get out there and enjoy the benefits.
Thank you.