The Irresistible Appeal of the ‘Post-Industrial Park’

An on-again, off-again romance smolders between nature and the American city. It’s complicated.

The original matchmaker was 19th century landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, whose picturesque green spaces like New York City’s Central Park offered urbanites an idealized experience of nature. During the Great Depression, the Works Progress Administration built smaller neighborhood parks for the industrial working classes (though these, of course, were racially segregated and unequal).

But as urban centers deindustrialized and white residents left for the suburbs, local governments often stopped maintaining parks, surrendering them, along with the industrial infrastructure these green spaces offered a reprieve from, to overgrowth and disrepair.

In recent decades, wealthy white residents have returned, and cities have kindled a new relationship with the natural landscape. Suddenly, rotting bridges and polluted urban wetlands were opportunities, not eyesores. In the years since, cities have raced to grow them into curated green spaces for tourism, art and recreation.