RE: Can parks revive decaying U.S. cities?
I live in Cleveland. Cleveland is currently condemning and demolishing vacant houses and putting them into a Land Bank; the resulting non-buildable-sized lots are available to adjacent neighbors for a nominal sum for yard expansion, etc. to improve their cramped properties. Sounds good but Cleveland is NOT releasing them, instead burying them in a bureaucratic fog. There they sit, getting mowed a couple or three times per year, while the applicants for them wait...and wait...and wait. The applications are "lost," or are "awaiting approval" and then once again "lost" or simply flat-out made to disappear. After several years of excuses, the Land Bank's responses stand revealed as simple lies. If Cleveland can't even properly and appropriately dispose of small vacant lots, what gives you the idea that they can or will cooperate with disposing of larger, potentially commercially valuable properties? What are they waiting for? Appropriate bribes? Actually, I suspect they're waiting for some entrepreneurs to appear with plans and money so our fine elected officials can attach themselves to the projects, insert their proboscii and drain money, publicity, influence and power. Vacant and underused properties are a public official's version of investments. If he or she can sell someone on the idea of commercially redeveloping a property, said official will make wealthy and influential friends. Passing it on to a park will make a few people feel warm and fuzzy for a few weeks, after which it will be nearly politically impossible to take back the land for commercial development and political capital. Furthermore, the new parkland will require eternally ongoing maintenance, for which there is no politically advantageous source of funding, local or otherwise. Don't look to the County either. Our fine County officials have been under FBI investigation for several years and a number of them have been indicted for corruption. The rest are forted up. State of Ohio? Ohio detests public spending, and always has. You'll find no joy there. In short, ain't nothin' gonna happen until major money moves in and accepts a parasite load of public officials.
The current situation does have its upside. These vacant and abandoned properties are great places for walking dogs, and, as they become overgrown, become mini wild-nature sanctuaries full of birds, insects, bushes, grasses, trees, deer, owls, crows and hawks, raccoon, opossums, groundhogs and skunks. Best of all, they are unregulated - go anytime, and take your camera and your dog. No officious ranger will ticket you. Their very wildness repels most city types, so you'll probably not have to deal with crowds. On a purely personal basis, the development of these abandoned tracts as parkland would be a natural disaster. My suggestion: let the tracts revert to wildland and let the public officials suck air while they search for another body to parasitize. Don't ask them to colonize something cool and green - they want blood, warm blood.
