Parks and Recreation System Planning


Book Description

Parks and recreation systems have evolved in remarkable ways over the past two decades. No longer just playgrounds and ballfields, parks and open spaces have become recognized as essential green infrastructure with the potential to contribute to community resiliency and sustainability. To capitalize on this potential, the parks and recreation system planning process must evolve as well. In Parks and Recreation System Planning, David Barth provides a new, step-by-step approach to creating parks systems that generate greater economic, social, and environmental benefits. Barth first advocates that parks and recreation systems should no longer be regarded as isolated facilities, but as elements of an integrated public realm. Each space should be designed to generate multiple community benefits. Next, he presents a new approach for parks and recreation planning that is integrated into community-wide issues. Chapters outline each step—evaluating existing systems, implementing a carefully crafted plan, and more—necessary for creating a successful, adaptable system. Throughout the book, he describes initiatives that are creating more resilient, sustainable, and engaging parks and recreation facilities, drawing from his experience consulting in more than 100 communities across the U.S. Parks and Recreation System Planning meets the critical need to provide an up-to-date, comprehensive approach for planning parks and recreation systems across the country. This is essential reading for every parks and recreation professional, design professional, and public official who wants their community to thrive.




Quality-of-Life Community Indicators for Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management


Book Description

While community quality-of-life indicators are gaining much needed attention in both scholarly work and practice, their application in the areas of parks, recreation and tourism management are not as well known. The applicability of indicator systems for natural resource and natural resource area management within the parks and recreation arena is very high, including urban parks and recreation programs and their influence on quality of life. Tourism is also an area that needs much more work in terms of assessing impacts as well as developing indicators for gauging progress in the long term. All three areas are an integrated discipline and most programs throughout the developed world are housed co-jointly. There are several researchers across the globe who are conducting innovative work in these areas. The editors feel that a volume on the topic will spur additional interests as well as serve to lead the research efforts.




Public Parks


Book Description

Everything that landscape architects, architects, planners, civic officials, and citizen activists need to know about the critical urban role of public parks. Everything that anybody (whether they are citizen activists, or public officials, or professional landscape architects, architects, and planners) needs to know about the critical role public parks play in creating livable communities. Millions of dollars are being spent on restoring parks and creating new ones. Planner Alexander Garvin explains the rationales for their existence, the forms they take, their value, ways to pay for and govern them, and the ingredients that make successful parks, providing the first single definitive source of wisdom about them.




Parks and Recreation and Economics


Book Description

This book provides an in-depth look at the primary foundations of economics explored through the lens of the Pawnee Department of Parks and Recreation. Each episode of the hit television series, Parks and Recreation, includes material to help an eager learner understand the basics of one of the most fascinating fields of study. Whether you’ve wondered how economists determine specialization or why fast-food restaurants continue to pop up around your neighborhood, the same situations have occurred in Pawnee. Each chapter highlights key scenes or major episodes that demonstrate how the characters experience economics in exactly the same way the rest of us do. This text primarily builds on the debates that take place between Leslie, Ron, and their co-workers, while also exploring key questions such as whether governments should try to help people through direct intervention or sell off all the swings to private corporations and let businesses handle day-to-day decisions. Learn how incentives can make Jerry appear to be a more productive employee short-term, but end up causing chaos. Do you wonder what it would be like to live in the early 1800s? Thankfully Leslie has already done that for us. This book is a must-read for anyone looking for a fun way to learn the principles of economics, including as a supplementary text, and for all fans of Parks and Recreation. Take the advice of Tom and Donna and treat yo’ self to this key read.




Strong Towns


Book Description

A new way forward for sustainable quality of life in cities of all sizes Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Build American Prosperity is a book of forward-thinking ideas that breaks with modern wisdom to present a new vision of urban development in the United States. Presenting the foundational ideas of the Strong Towns movement he co-founded, Charles Marohn explains why cities of all sizes continue to struggle to meet their basic needs, and reveals the new paradigm that can solve this longstanding problem. Inside, you’ll learn why inducing growth and development has been the conventional response to urban financial struggles—and why it just doesn’t work. New development and high-risk investing don’t generate enough wealth to support itself, and cities continue to struggle. Read this book to find out how cities large and small can focus on bottom-up investments to minimize risk and maximize their ability to strengthen the community financially and improve citizens’ quality of life. Develop in-depth knowledge of the underlying logic behind the “traditional” search for never-ending urban growth Learn practical solutions for ameliorating financial struggles through low-risk investment and a grassroots focus Gain insights and tools that can stop the vicious cycle of budget shortfalls and unexpected downturns Become a part of the Strong Towns revolution by shifting the focus away from top-down growth toward rebuilding American prosperity Strong Towns acknowledges that there is a problem with the American approach to growth and shows community leaders a new way forward. The Strong Towns response is a revolution in how we assemble the places we live.




We Heart L.A. Parks


Book Description

Public parks are vital resources to all of us as places for exploration, celebration, education, recreation, and activism. We Heart L.A. Parks celebrates these important sites by featuring more than 50 public parks within the city of Los Angeles with original illustrations, personal stories, and fun activities, including two colorful fold-outs: an L.A. parks map and an L.A. Park Adventures board game. It is a coloring and activity book for all ages by contributors of all ages -- elementary-school kids to veteran artists -- who, through their art and words, fill these pages with their deep love for the city of Los Angeles, with all its beauty and complexities, and the public parks and recreation areas we all treasure. From hiking trails and waterfalls, to basketball courts and barbecue pits, to historic architecture and park vendors -- We Heart L.A. Parks highlights the diversity of our city's open spaces and how urban wildlife and humans can share these spaces and flourish. It is a truly unique and artful guide to the city that reminds us how safe and accessible public parks strengthen communities




What Makes a Great City


Book Description

One of Planetizen's Top Planning Books for 2017 - San Francisco Chronicle's 2016 Holiday Books Gift Guide Pick What makes a great city? City planner and architect Alexander Garvin set out to answer this question by observing cities, largely in North America and Europe, with special attention to Paris, London, New York, and Vienna. For Garvin, greatness is about what people who shape cities can do to make a city great. A great city is a dynamic, constantly changing place that residents and their leaders can reshape to satisfy their demands. Most importantly, it is about the interplay between people and public realm, and how they have interacted throughout history to create great cities. What Makes a Great City will help readers understand that any city can be changed for the better and inspire entrepreneurs, public officials, and city residents to do it themselves.




Inside City Parks


Book Description




Introduction to Recreation and Leisure, 3E


Book Description

Introduction to Recreation and Leisure, Third Edition, presents perspectives from 52 leading experts from around the world. It delves into foundational concepts, delivery systems, and programming services; offers an array of ancillaries; and helps students make informed career choices.




Stories of Our Longmont Parks


Book Description

Stories of Our Longmont Parks is a pictorial history of parks built in Longmont, Colorado from 1871 to 2020. The book includes all neighborhood and community parks built during this 150 year period. The chronology of their development is arranged into three eras with context given to the influences of each period. Historical and recent photographs are included as well as information on who or what the park is named for and stories of their development. Stories told by those who helped in the park's development are included. As of 2020, the City of Longmont has developed thirty-one Community and Neighborhood Parks. The original five parks were envisioned by the Chicago-Colorado Colony, who founded Longmont in 1871. Included in this early era are two other parks built before the 1930s. A lull in development occurred between the 1930s and the 1960s when the Baby Boom helped spur the next era of development. This period lasted until the 1990s. The last era describes work done in the past thirty years. Taken from historical archives and personal stories, this book creates an important record and understanding of the public parks within the community.This collection of stories provides a glimpse into Longmont's park history and the people who were part of their creation.