Green Cities

When we're in Fairmount Park, I always think about Chicago and how little green space it seems to have, but after reading section 19, "Cities Gone Wild", I had to reconsider my thinking. Fairmount Park is every where, and hiking through the Wissahickon just seemed so strange. It's interesting to see how much green space is in Philadelphia, even though more is necessary. According to Louv, Chicago is one of the best examples of what the future could hold. Mayor Daley is going back to the old Chicago motto "City in a Garden." He is doing this by creating more green space and also re-creating wildlife habitat, greenways, stream corridors, and other natural land. This would be adding on to the 7300 acres of parkland that already exist. Daley's goal is to make Chicago the greenest city in the nation. One thing that surprised me was that Daley insisted on making the new roof of city hall, which is 30,000 square feet, a green roof. He wants to create a rooftop garden that will absorb the heat in the summer and keep the heat in during the winter. It will also absorb excess storm water, prevent sewer flooding and act as an air purifier. The roof houses over 150 different species of plants and it also has two beehives with 4000 non-aggressive honey bees. Some other accomplishments that I was not aware of is that the city has planted some 300,000 trees since 1989 and it has restored 28 miles of boulevard gardens and the city has turned 21 acres of underused city land into pocket parks and 72 community gardens. All of this information is news to me, and I grew up 45 minutes outside of the city. Some of this things take place on the outskirts of the city, like the Calumet Open Space Reserve, which is on the Southeast Side of the city. This reserve has 4000 acres, which include wetlands, forests, and prairies. Another aspect of the greenness of the city, that I never really thought of are the bike paths that connect neighborhoods, parks and business districts and the mass transit system, which makes owning a car in the city pretty pointless. One can get anywhere by either a bus, subway, or the El. After reading that section, it made me stop and think about Chicago, and try and look at it in a new way, the only parks I ever knew of in the city are Grant Park and Millennium Park, which are both very nice, but they don't have that much land. It's strange to be learning things about Chicago, while in a class about Philadelphia.