Great City Parks is a celebration of some of the finest achievements of landscape architecture in the public realm. It is a comparative study of thirty significant public parks in major cities across Western Europe and North America. Collectively, they give a clear picture of why parks have been created, how they have been designed, how they are managed, and what plans are being made for them at the beginning of the twenty-first century.

Based on unique research including extensive site visits and interviews with the managing organisations, this book is illustrated throughout with clear plans and photographs- with this new edition featuring full colour throughout. Tate updates his seminal 2001 work with 10 additional parks, including: The High Line in NYC, Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and Westergasfabriek, Amsterdam. All the previous city parks have also been updated and revised to reflect current usage and management.

This book reflects a belief that well planned, well designed and well managed parks and park systems will continue to make major contributions to the quality of life in an increasingly urbanized world.

About the Author
Alan Tate has a degree in Town and Country Planning, an accredited Diploma in Landscape Design from the University of Manchester, and a PhD in Architecture from Edinburgh College of Art. He has over twenty years' professional experience and is a Fellow and Past President of the United Kingdom Landscape Institute. He has been teaching at the University of Manitoba since 1998 where he was promoted to the position of Professor in 2007 and was Head of Department from 2000 to 2005 and from 2011. Marcella Eaton has a Bachelor of Environmental Studies from the University of Manitoba and a PhD in Landscape Architecture from Edinburgh College of Art. She has many years of professional experience, largely in Toronto, and has been teaching at the University of Manitoba since 1998. She has been Associate Dean Academic in the Faculty of Architecture since 2009.

Reviews

"Great City Parks is a 344-page treasure chest for park professionals and aficionados and catnip for city park enthusiasts. It is a book to which one can return repeatedly and which one can treat both as a great reference book and as a primer for how one might think about designing or restoring the next great park." - Adrian Benepe, The Nature of Cities

"Great City Parks [first edition] by Alan Tate, who himself has designed parks from Hong Kong to Disney Paris, is a detailed analysis of twenty parks, their planning, design and the management criteria for their success. The parks chosen are of different size, ages and characteristics. Each was designed for public use, allowed free admission and, to Tate, are significant examples of design. He reviews the sites, the rationale for their choice and the key figures behind their creation and design."- Dr Michael Bounds, Urban Research Centre, University of Western Sydney

Comments/reviews/etc for previous edition:

"If a 'wake up call' were needed, it came with the recent publication of Alan Tate's seminal work, Great City Parks, for which no Edinburgh park was deemed worthy of inclusion." - Edinburgh Public Parks and Gardens Strategy, 2006

"This work offers inspiration to students and will also be of use to practitioners in describing and justifying specific elements and attributes of new parks and public spaces to potential clients, users and funders... This account offers a taste of the great potential, mostly within cities, of what open space can provide, and in doing so reveals the wealth of places still to consider." - RUDInet (Knowledge sharing and networking for professionals & academics in urban development)

"What book are you reading? I'm dipping into Alan Tate's Great City Parks, which is a history of the world's finest. Many were inspired by parks in Britain. As a country we have lost a bit of that vision." - Julia Thrift, maanger of Cabe Space, interviewed in the Guardian

"Tate describes and systematically assesses the qualities of 20 of the world's most highly regarded city parks and identifies management and design criteria for success." - New Zealand Ministry for the Environment, public space design advice

Book Information
ISBN 9780415538053
Author Alan Tate
Format Paperback
Page Count 344
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 640g