Bad Benches (and Other Park Problems)
If you want to improve the parks and other public spaces in your town—and do so competently—then check out our newest Academy course about urban design.
This week on the Strong Towns podcast, Chuck Marohn makes a confession about something he did that he now regrets...and you might be surprised at how much of it revolves around poor placement of park benches in his town of Brainerd, Minnesota.
Of course, that's not all this episode deals with. What Chuck's beef with his local park's benches really boils down to is the systematic devaluation of public space, by people who have both good intentions and not a clue what they're doing. Their misguided attempts to enhance the park has actually made it a worse place to be. By extension, its ability to generate wealth and provide a beautiful public area for the neighborhood has been impaired.
How can you deal with similar issues in your own place? Maybe not with the exact approach that Chuck took (again, there are some regrets expressed in this episode), but there's still a lot we can learn from Brainerd's example. And if you really want to learn the ropes of urban design, then you need to enroll in our newest Academy course, Urban Design Principles for a Strong Town. It was designed specifically to teach non-professionals easy steps they can take right now to start improving their city or town.
Additional Show Notes
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Cover image via Unsplash.
Parks and recreation departments handle a lot more programs and face a lot more challenges than many people may realize. So, here are a few things that newly elected officials should know about this department as they step into their role.