City Parks: A Concrete Placebo Penrose Hallowell

Have you ever been to a major city? One with many massive skyscrapers that channel the

wind and many roads and sidewalks that cover the earth with a layer of asphalt or concrete. At its

essence, a city is an entirely new ecosystem on planet Earth created by humans. Within the

towering skyscrapers and miles of concrete humans have chosen to create oases of nature within

the seemingly unnatural walls of major cities. These oases are designed to imitate a natural

setting filled with trees, grass, flowers, and sometimes smaller animals that one would find in

nature. In reality, city parks are not a good reproduction of what really occurs in nature. Does the

symmetry of the threes in the allée please you? Does the perfectly circular duck pond make you

calm? Do the perfectly spaced flowers make you feel happy? Well while all of these may be true,

all of them are in fact part of a large false representation of what nature is like. Nature has

biodiversity and a randomness that we are unable to create. In reality, all of these things are

covering up the truth that all things in the city are artificial.

As more and more major cities emerge across the globe and existing cities magnify, the

need for open and seemingly natural spaces within these concrete juggles is important in the

layout of a city. The urban heat island effect is a phenomenon that is tied to cities. The urban

heat island effect is the widespread heat that is emitted by the concrete, asphalt, and buildings.

The heat comes from absorbed sunlight in these dark surfaces. In the past, landscape architects

like Fredrik Law Olmsted designed city parks with the intent to break up the stale air between

buildings and as a destination for people that wanted to breathe a bit of seemingly fresh air while

surrounded by plants and formations associated with natural environments. As stated previously,

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city parks are anything but natural. Because of their lack of biodiversity created by fake nature,

they do not reduce the effects of the city to the best of their ability. In the following I will uproot

the truth of city parks and how unnatural and inefficient they truly are.

A main attraction in city parks are the flowers. While exact numbers are not available for

the amount of money spent on flowers every year for city parks across the globe, there is a large

range since some cities have climates that are too harsh for the flowers that they plant. Many

parks must re-plant flowers and seed or lay down new grass every spring because of the weight

of the snow on top of the plants. For many, this may seem like a small price to pay for the

pleasure they gain by seeing beauty in the warmer months. In fact, the caring of non-native

species counters the feeling being in nature. Nature does not pick and choose the most pleasing

flora and fauna from across the globe. In order to care for these foreign organism, city parks

must supply these organisms with the demanded nourishment.

A common practice in many gardens, parks, and in agriculture is fertilization. Large

conglomerate corporations that primarily produce chemicals supply city parks with nitrogen

fertilizers. It is hard for nitrogen fertilizer in a city park to contaminate water due to obstructions

underground. I will address this topic later. However, this does not exempt the fact that the plants

in a city park are unable to sustain themselves because of their artificial placement. It is stated by

the EPA that contamination can be caused by many other sources that originate from city

structures.

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Though the surface of a city park may appear to consist of natural things, this is not the

case for what lies beneath. The layout of what lies beneath cities is a mystery to most. Much of

what occurs above street level actually depends on what is underground. Cable lines, sewer

systems, train tunnels, and parking garages are widespread underneath the streets. For city parks,

this means that there are many underground structures that are beneath the trees and grass. In the

case of the Boston Public Garden, there is actually a large parking garage beneath the park.

Although it allows people to park nearby popular locations, in building this structure, much of

dirt and natural phenomenon in the area were heavily disturbed. Sarah Luria, an associate

professor of English at Holy Cross provides pictures of the garage being built from 1959 to 1964.

It is structures like this that prevent natural occurrences from happening.

Though it is unknown what the volume of groundwater that moved through Manhattan

island was, based on its geological features and computer-generated imagery of what the island

would have looked like before development, in can be inferred that there was nutrient and

groundwater movement beneath the island. With the basements of buildings, parking garages,

sewer systems, train tunnels, and miles of pipeline, it is much harder for grounder water to move

not just under the streets, but also under larger open spaces like Central Park. In natural spaces,

there are lower areas that collect groundwater and nutrients. One benefit this provides is the

availability of freshwater to animals. This is not the case in Central Park and many other city

parks where there are only artificial bodies of water. These do not serve the same purpose as

natural bodies of water. Instead, many of them are lined with stones or materials that prevent

water from entering and exiting the pond through the ground. Because of this lack of filtration,

the artificial bodies of water collect human trash, animal waste, and are plentiful of

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microorganisms. It is no wonder that fish populations in these artificial bodies of water need to

be regularly restocked. To fight of any disease that may bloom or flourish in the artificial waters,

cities will treat the bodies of water with chemicals to kill off any harmful life in extreme cases.

There is no data showing the effect of these treatments on effecting that lives in and around the

bodies of water after these treatments. All in all, while artificial bodies of water may seem

appealing to many, in reality, they do not help a city park stay healthy and able to appeal to

humans and reduce the urban heat island effect.

An obvious sign of a healthy environment is biodiversity. Biodiversity refers to the

variation of organisms that coexist within an ecosystem. Known for its extremely high

biodiversity, the Amazon rainforest of South America, is the result of approximately fifty-five

million years of biological evolution and development. The Amazon rainforest is almost polar

opposite to cities and city parks. In city parks, like the flowers referred to previously, almost all

of the plant life is artificially chosen. Most city parks will have an open area that has a single

type of grass. Most city parks also have trees planted in orientations that would not occur in a

natural setting. But is planting trees in rows really imitating a natural ecosystem, or is it creating

a new kind of city park ecosystem.

While it is unreasonable to ask for city parks to be off limits for any amount of time that

would promote biodiversity, it is reasonable to ask that areas predicted to be in cities after urban

expansion be put into conservation in order to retain their natural state. This would be a great

way to create the most naturally biodiverse city parks for the future.

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Looking beyond the trees, it is even harder to study how the fauna is affected by city

parks. There have been some writing depicting how the animals interact with the terraformed

landscapes of city parks, but significant data is not yet available. It is no surprise that animals hat

once lived in areas not inhabited by people have to adapt to urban life. The BBC released Planet

Earth II which had an episode in it called Cities. This episode provides viewers with examples of

animals that have had to adapt to cities. These animals range from hyenas interacting with people

to newborn sea turtles being attracted to city lights instead of the moonlight. These animals come

from the outside and have changed to take advantage of cities. But what about the animals in the

city parks? They have had a hard time surviving.

From the rodents on the ground, the fish in the pond, and to the birds in the trees, all

animals in a city park struggle to survive more than their relative in the countryside. Whether it is

the regular trek across the busy intersection to the dumpster down the alley or the chance of

chocking on a piece of trash, it is amazing that the animals of city parks survive long enough to

reproduce. While animals don’t play as much a pivotal role in city parks as their relative in the

countryside do to their environments, this does not mean that they are insignificant. They help

retain the health of the ecosystem despite the odds against them.

It is important to recognize each and every organism in an ecosystem. Starting on a

smaller scale, worms paly a pivotal role in an ecosystem. These subterranean organisms aerate

the soil by moving through it and replenish nutrients through waste and their dead bodies

decomposing. Because of the underground structures, without worms, one of the many things

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that would happen is that the dirt in a city park would become dry and become dusty. It is not

just worms that help keep a city park as healthy as possible.

Though they may be introduced to the man-made pods, fish, amphibians, and other water

dwelling organisms play an integral part in the city park ecosystem. All of these organisms help

to control mosquitos, blackflies, and insects in general. These pests that are widely known to be

annoying to humans and many of them lay eggs on still water. For an insect that lays its eggs on

water, a city park pond is the ideal place to settle down. No tide, no waves, and not naturally able

to provide resources for predators. Fortunately for us, fish and water living organisms take care

of the pests by acting on their natural instinct. This may be the one and only fully natural cycle in

a city park. Insect lays egg, fish eats insect, egg, or both, insect lays more eggs… There is one

other fully natural occurrence that could happen in city parks if it were not for human

interference.

As stated in the beginning of this writing, flowers are an important part of city parks. For

all flowers, it is important to reproduce. In many cases, flowers need a pollinating insect to

transfer their pollen to another flowering plant. It is not uncommon for this to occur in the wild

since bees use flowers to collect pollen for honey. Bees do just this in city parks, except in many

cases, bees will return to their hive location to find no hive. As a person that is slightly allergic to

bees. I respect their important role in nature as the caretakers of almost all flowering plants.

Since flowering plants dominate the plant kingdom, bees are an important organism in this

world. It does not take much patience or effort to avoid and not anger a bee. In many city parks,

it is not uncommon for a bee’s nest to be taken down because of its unsafe location. If the hive is

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directly over the swing set, then maybe it should be relocated in order to not put children in to

shock from hundreds of bee sings, but if the hive is off to the distance from a playground, it

should be left alone. It is in the city park official’s best interest to keep as many bee hives in

good health because without bees, there are no flowers. Hopefully, in the future, as more

research is done to prove the importance of pollinating insects in an ecosystem, city parks will

stop removing hives. Only then will pollinators be able to do their best job at keeping the city

park healthy.

While it may be easy for someone to become caught up in daily life, it is important to

take a step back and look at the real effects that our actions on the world. For the cities of today,

they are centers of life in many different forms that range from people working in skyscrapers to

the rats rummaging in dumpsters. All of these lives affect the planet which is currently warming

because of us. The urban heat island effect is just one of many things that heats our planet. In

order for us to be able to enjoy nature and stay on our planet, we must do the best possible job

that we can to take care of it. Though changing our city parks may only do a little to combat

climate change, it is just one example of how we can change for the better of our future

generations.

Fortunately for the future generations, there is hope of reducing the urban heat island

effect. Some ideas include greenspaces, planting rooftop gardens, tying areas trees and grass

together throughout the city, and possibly even covering entire skyscrapers with plants. Instead

of altering the current city parks, these ideas would spread them into the hearts of cities. In ideal

situations, these would drastically reduce the urban heat island effect since the increase in plant

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life within the city would absorb much of the heat and gasses produced in the city. While the

future for city parks may not be so bright, the push for integrating plants into the city is already

increasing in popularity and may be the cure for the current dilemma.

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New York City: Taken by Pen Hallowell

National Geographic Society. “Manhattan Before Development.” National Geographic Society, 19 Sept. 2012,

www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/island-oldny-990-60961/. 

National Geographic’s rendition of Manhattan Island before development

Sarah Luria, college.holycross.edu/faculty/sluria/underworld_garage.html.

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The building of the garage under the Boston Public Garden

Works Cited

Adler, M., & Winn, M. (2008, July 07). What Wildlife Lurks In Central Park By Night? Retrieved May 15, 2018, from https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=92286063

Gunton, Mike, Tom Hugh-Jones, Justin Anderson, Ed Charles, Fredi Devas, Chadden P. Hunter, Emma Napper, Elizabeth White, David Attenborough, and Hans Zimmer. Planet Earth Ii. , 2017.

Lepczyk, Christopher A., et al. “Biodiversity in the City: Fundamental Questions for Understanding the Ecology of Urban Green Spaces for Biodiversity Conservation | BioScience | Oxford Academic.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 9 Aug. 2017, academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/9/799/4056044.

New York City Water Bodies. CEQR Technical Manual, Mar. 2014, www.nyc.gov/html/oec/downloads/pdf/2014_ceqr_tm/2014_ceqr_tm_ch11_natural_resources_NYC_water_bodies.pdf.Holt, S. (2017, November 16). What Happens to Urban Animals When Their Habitats Vanish? Retrieved May 15, 2018, from https://www.citylab.com/environment/2017/11/where-do-urban-animals-go-when-their-habitats-disappear/546002/

Sarah Luria. Holy Cross, college.holycross.edu/faculty/sluria/underworld_garage.html.

“Sources and Solutions.” EPA, Environmental Protection Agency, 10 Mar. 2017, www.epa.gov/nutrientpollution/sources-and-solutions.

LDN_gov. “Parks and Green Spaces.” London City Hall, 20 Mar. 2018, www.london.gov.uk/what-we-do/environment/parks-green-spaces-and-biodiversity/parks-and-green-spaces.