Parks & Quality of Living: It’s The Nature of Our Needs
Every great community takes tremendous pride in its parks, woods, lakes and fields. They provide refuge, where we go for relaxation, recreation and exercise, and we shouldn’t have to go very far from home to enjoy them. That’s why it’s imperative to balance the demand for homes and businesses with the need to protect and preserve our natural environment.
The Livable Communities Coalition embraces community design with a strong commitment to:
- Natural resource conservation that is achieved by integrating open space with development and by rehabilitating, restoring, and preserving the natural beauty of the land.
- Encouraging energy-efficient design, water conservation, and storm water management.
- Build with pervious materials, which allow for natural groundwater recharge, filtration of pollutants, and reduced erosion and flooding
- The planting of shade trees to reduce ground temperatures in the summer.
Our quality of life is better when we have clean air to breathe and water to drink and when we can experience the outdoors within our community parks, greenbelts, and natural places. Through planned and designed integrated methods adaptive for each community’s needs, we can achieve these goals.
Open spaces accessible to communities for everyone to enjoy include:
- Innovative parks offering broad fun outdoor activities and recreation
- Trails around woody or expansive lawns - ideal for joggers, cyclist and walkers
- Lawns for Frisbee throwing, touch football, exercise and picnics
- Pet friendly areas for our “best friends”
- Courtyard gardens with fountains, planters and benches for the enjoyment of a quiet setting
- Outdoor art fairs
- Outdoor farmer’s markets
- Urban gardening clubs
- Outdoor amphitheaters for concerts and movies in the park
- Preservation of natural places such as wetlands and green belts will allow for bird watching and protect the natural environment for the native flora and animal life
Community design ensures walkable mixed-use communities with their own parks, stores and business. The walkable mixed-use communities are based around a central park setting, similar to a traditional town square, with smaller green public spaces inviting outdoor activities and recreation.
Housing Parks Water Density Debate
