to get twenty-five mayors around the country to sign up for the ten-minute walk commitment, but ended up getting 140 mayors on board, greatly exceeding his team’s expectations. He thinks the program gets mayors’ competitive juices flowing.
Will also gave me case examples of cities embracing Outdoor City practices. He told me about how Los Angeles, California, made a “Green Bond Pledge” in 2018. The pledge is a declared commitment to building sustainable infrastructure, and a long-term investment in it. This type of investment is typically financed by bonds, and scrutinized by investors who check the projects’ sustainability and that they are adaptive and resilient to climate change. He also cheered on Chattanooga, Tennessee, which has reinvented itself through outdoor recreation and trails, and Houston, Texas, where, he says, 40 percent of residents are within a ten-minute walk of parks and the city aims to increase this to 70 percent by 2050. To reach this ambitious goal by 2050, Houston has adopted an innovative public-private partnership called the Bayou Greenway Initiative, which will invest more than $220 million in the creation of a “ribbon of green:” 150 miles of continuous trails connected to three thousand acres of green spaces. It’s intended to be easily accessible to 1.5 million Houstonians.9
The green spaces created and advocated for as a result of the work of TPL and like-minded organizations add to our overall health and quality of life. It’s easy to see that the Bayou Greenway Initiative and others like it will become catalysts to get more people outdoors and to foster mobility, resiliency, and economic development.
Spotlight: Mount Auburn Cemetery
When you think of urban green spaces, parks are most likely at the forefront of your mind. But there are many kinds of urban green spaces, and cemeteries are one of the most underappreciated. Cemeteries are planned and laid out meticulously, with special attention to landscape design. They’re intended to be places of beauty and quiet reflection, but today many also host community events and programming open to the public on the land apart from the graveyard.
One of the nation’s most beautifully landscaped cemeteries is Mount Auburn Cemetery, which lies just outside of Boston. It is 170 acres, lush with a variety of plants, walking paths, fountains, and ponds, and both a National Historic Landmark and an active, contemporary cemetery. Governance of the cemetery is by an internal board of trustees and a community board, the Friends of Mount Auburn. It also has a Council of Visitors comprised of leaders in horticulture, landscape enhancement, historic preservation, and more. They work with the cemetery trustees and Friends of Mount Auburn to plan and host programs, and hold many events each month, bringing visitors for educational sessions, concerts, book club meetings, tours, and more. Bird-watchers, naturalists, and casual visitors are also regular guests. In total, Mount Auburn welcomes more than two hundred thousand people each year.10 It is always open to the public and there are no admission fees.
Mount Auburn Cemetery is an example of an institution and public space that has been holistically developed to incorporate environmentally and human-friendly infrastructure. Craig Halvorson, the landscape architect for the cemetery’s stunning Asa Gray Garden, one of the cemetery’s first open spaces to greet visitors, and for the landscaping surrounding the cemetery’s Bigelow Chapel, founded his architecture firm in 1980 and has also done extensive design work for the AMC. He told me that his goal has always been to infuse life and beauty into dense urban areas. With Mount Auburn, he wanted to create a vibrant public garden and arboretum.
Mount Auburn has balanced its larger goals with small-scale, incremental landscape improvements to enhance its natural systems. In a world where urban design can feel increasingly homogenized, Mount Auburn has developed a unique “spirit of place” while enhancing its greater urban neighborhood. Embracing the Mount Auburn model is a way for cities to increase the offering of their natural spaces, whether cemeteries or other spaces. Adding outdoor infrastructure and community programming, as has been done at Mount Auburn, makes them welcoming spaces that all residents can enjoy.
Affordable Housing
Nowhere is the disparity and inequity of access to green space more evident than in urban housing. Compact cities need safer and more affordable housing units close to city centers, so that their residents have easy access not only to the quality-of-life amenities that enrich urban life, but also to parks offering opportunities for time outside the home and outdoor recreation. Affordable housing also needs to be attractive so residents can connect with their homes and commit to their upkeep.
Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit that works admirably to build affordable housing for low-income families. When I started working for Habitat for Humanity in 1997, folks in the neighborhoods I volunteered in were tired of the unattractive two- and three-family homes that Habitat had been building. The volunteer-driven organization had done its best to secure experienced contractors, plumbers, and electricians, but the team was waning—working with the poor design of these buildings was uninspiring and draining. At the dedication of two new Habitat homes on Quincy Street in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood, Charlotte Golar Richie, then a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, pulled me aside. She said that while the families getting the homes were poor and in desperate need of housing, they deserved better. She said the bar on design needed to be raised, and she was right. There was a host of things Habitat needed to do to make their homes more attractive, and they could make them more environmentally friendly in the process.
When the late Pat Cook took on the role of Habitat’s construction manager, he made huge improvements in the design of the homes and also embraced sustainable resources. Pat was a proud member of Boston’s Dorchester community, and his method of embracing a circular economy and incorporating sustainable elements into home construction was cutting edge. Under Pat’s leadership, we created communities of well-designed, attractive, and eco-friendly homes. Habitat’s Boston branch became one of the first urban Habitat affiliates to incorporate recycled fiberboard for siding; high quality, “R-value,” insulation; passive heating window designs and window orientation; seasonal and drought-resistant planting; lower waste manufacturing through modular and panelized wall units; and high-efficiency water heaters. The new homes were more affordable for families to heat and operate, and we made sure that families knew how to do basic home maintenance and manage a maintenance and repair budget.
In the world of affordable housing, we often talk in terms of what is essential, what is desirable, and what is realistic. High-quality, environmentally friendly home design can meet all these criteria. But there are other valuable things that will improve the lives of the residents of affordable housing and can be done affordably. At the top of this list, and much too often overlooked, is making sure the homes are built in areas where critical amenities—transportation stations, schools, food stores, libraries, and health clinics—are easily accessible, and green spaces are in close proximity.
From courtyards and vegetable gardens to walking and cycling paths, easily accessible outdoor community spaces can go a long way toward helping people with physical limitations and people who need more space for being active. Local outdoor community spaces should be the norm, even for people living in affordable housing. They not only offer healthy sunshine, fresh air, and exercise, but also give people easy access to places outside their homes where they can be away from toxic people or activities that might otherwise be unavoidable.
There’s no doubt that many cities need to reinvent themselves, and that cities with high-quality affordable housing will be better positioned, with a more ecologically and economically sustainable structure in place, to do so—but we need to convince city officials and developers that this is the case. To receive funding, a positive expected return on investment will need to be shown. City officials need to be assured that high-quality affordable housing can be built with eco-friendly construction practices, which will include the use of sustainably harvested materials and energy-efficient utilities; generate a limited amount of waste; lower heating and water usage expenses; support a healthier indoor environment (particularly important for children’s development); and have less carbon emissions
