TRANSCRIPT
When you see these little patches of green on your map app on your mobile phone, they almost look like an anomaly in the urban landscape.
But University of New South Wales Landscape Architecture and Urban Design lecturer Mike Harris says these tiny inner-city parks actually serve a mighty purpose, both for the local communities and for the environment:
“In lots of urban areas just like this, there isn't actually any formal public space in terms of plazas, squares, parks. There are footpaths, of course, which have played a really important social and commercial role for thousands of years, but there's lots of things that you can't do on a footpath like a playground or a more formal kind of hanging out area. So, that's where these new pocket parks that can be inserted within an existing street, by closing it to cars essentially, provide a new public space offering that just doesn't exist at the current time.”
The City of Sydney says there’s around 400 parks of various sizes, from pocket to parklands, within its urban area.
And with dwellings encroaching more and more on nature, it can sometimes be hard for city residents to find a space where they can relax, have fun or socialise outdoors.
Mike Harris says pocket parks offer a solution.
“Essentially the real value of pocket parks is that because they're small, they can be distributed across an area of the city to give a public space much greater proximity to many more people. So, you know, the activities that they cater for are, in some ways, very simple. But also very important when it comes to what the public domain is there for and that's really socialising.”
In Sydney, there are already a few tiny parks in existence and more are being built.
They’re usually less than a few hundred square metres in size and some can even be as small as 5 metres square. Most have shady trees, benches and plants.
Locals love them.
MAN: "(There’s) Less traffic coming through here, more pedestrian room for people, and especially the elderly, you know that live around here. And, no, it's serene."
WOMAN: "It refreshes your soul, your body, not just for the people, but for the birds and you know other life, wildlife as well."
MAN: "There's a thousand little dogs around the city and (in) the big parks that's where there's a hundred dogs. You come to the little parks, there's only one or two. She's a good dog, but, you know, like dogs will be dogs. And that's about it.”
University of Sydney Urban and Regional Planning researcher Jennifer Kent points out, size isn't so important when it comes to reaping the benefits.
“You don't need a lot of green space to get the benefits of getting out and about in nature and being connected to your community. And sometimes those smaller parks can be very much easier to manage for communities and they can draw people together in a way that is more cohesive than when the parks are bigger.”
Historically, urban planners didn’t factor in space for such smaller parks but with locations for bigger green stretches both rare and costly, cities are now turning more and more to this solution.
However, while pocket parks are important, Jennifer Kent says urban areas still need larger green spaces like traditional parks.
“Our cities are increasingly getting hotter and these larger tracts of green open spaces, are the things that are going to take that heat away from our cities. That can't be done by just pocket parks. The other thing is that people need a variety of recreational opportunities as well. You can't really go for a run in a pocket park without getting very bored and very dizzy. You can't get that sense of time out to perhaps do some yoga or a mindfulness practice in a pocket park. The other thing that larger tracts of open space can offer is a diversity of uses within the space. So, you might have a children's playground next to an adult's gym next to a larger tract of unmanicured space for some wilderness, and so forth. So those bigger parks are still so important but so are the pocket parks. It's all about a balance.”
Mike Harris says most pocket parks are on land that’s unsuitable for development or which is dilapidated but there’s also a new trend which is to actually use a portion of an existing street.
“As well as providing a new small public space, it also has what's called a local area traffic management purpose. So, it stops, you know, traffic coming onto the high street at too many locations. It means that no longer pedestrians would have to cross a road, you know, they get more continuous footpath so it really improves the pedestrian amenity and walkability of the neighbourhood when you can start to divert traffic and turn streets, or areas of streets, into really public space.”
Ultimately, experts agree that having access to a diversity of parks, big or small, contributes greatly to a happy and healthy society.
