Origins of Fully Funded Public Parks
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Once Again, Why Public Parks? John W. Henneberger Origins of Fully Funded Public Parks t is commonly held that Birkenhead Park on the outskirts of Liverpool, Eng- land, was the first fully funded public park. The Birkenhead Park project began in 1841 as a venture initiated by municipal authorities with partici- pation by private developers, and differed from previous efforts to create Iparks for the English general public. Birkenhead embodied a vision of the future in which a large area of land within a town was to be set aside in perpetuity for the specific purpose of affording an amenity site for leisure and recreational activity for use by all the people of the community. Moreover, the people would tax themselves for that purpose. There had been previous “public” events are held today in any modern parks in all of the cultures of the landscaped urban central park. An ancient and medieval worlds, where ancient Babylonian text (ca. 2000 BCE) parks were part of the ambience and indicates the public nature of such public activity of the city.The concept open spaces. People ate splendid food, of the urban landscaped area emerged drank beverages, rejoiced in the court- some 6,000 years ago in the first cities yards, and thronged for celebration; of Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, monkeys, elephants, water buffalo, China, and a few other parts of the and other exotic animals jostled each world. Landscaped spaces were ini- other in the public squares (Cooper tially located within the inner religious 1983, 50). Cities in this period (4000- and political sanctuaries that were 1000 BCE) were centers for managing reserved for royalty, the priesthood, rural districts, for craft making and and privileged citizenry, though most trading, and for military, administra- had some public aspects. The well- tive, and cultural-ideological activities known “Park in the Center of City” of where religious and political events Mesopotamian Nippur of 1,500 BCE is were important in holding the cohe- a representative example of a religious siveness of society. Such public places landscaped area within the city’s were maintained by a religious and temenos that served as a site for ritual political leadership who ran the affairs (Kramer 1963, 64). It was an irregular- of the city-state. Similar landscaped ly shaped 21-acre area that was most public places existed in ancient Egypt likely connected to nearby temple and China. The great Shang-lin parks complexes, and possibly served as the connected to the ancient Chinese cap- site for the New Year’s Festival, or per- itals provided a garden setting for haps held plants and animals for offer- palace, temple, and tomb, where the ings to the god of the city.Such spaces emperor and nobility undertook hunt- often took on aspects of a public park ing, fasting was performed, and rituals in the lives of the people when used at were held. The “Park as Empire” festival time. Festivals and public played various roles in Chinese life. Volume 19 • Number 2 2002 13 Once Again, Why Public Parks? Many governmental units were located bly in Philadelphia for around the within the park, such as the royal mint, Pennsylvania Statehouse—later Inde- the headquarters of the tax collector, pendence Hall—for proper walks and even a prison (Schafer 1968). The planted with suitable trees for shade.) modern-day National Capital Parks in The use of undesirable plots and rem- Washington, D.C., have many of the nants of city land for parks was to characteristics and uses of the ancient become common practice. At both Chinese Supreme Imperial Parks, in Birkenhead and New York City’s Cen- that they provide landscaped back- tral Park, undesirable, uneconomical drops for important buildings in Unit- lands were converted to parks. ed States governmental operations, In the ancient cities, emperors, vic- including the Capitol, White House, torious generals and the wealthy creat- and Treasury Department, among oth- ed and financed the construction and ers. operation of parks for the public. The Landscaped backdrops were preva- practice of the elite part of society pro- lent in ancient Greek and Roman viding landscaped open spaces for the cities: around the agora, the temples of public continued on through the the gods and goddesses, the monu- medieval period into the European mental public buildings, and the gym- renaissance. Royalty often used their nasiums. Roman imperial rulers pro- private parks for public purposes. In vided green open spaces for public use the sixteenth century, Queen Eliza- between theaters, baths, temples, gov- beth I opened some of her royal parks ernment buildings, and residences. In in London so the public could watch the Augustan era, a major building the military reviews she held there. program for Rome was concentrated Some English royal parks remained around the centers of Campus Mar- private to the monarchs; others tius, the Forum Romanum, and the became ceremonial points for public Palatine. Spaces around these political receptions on important holidays in structures were landscaped and the same way that ancient Greek kings opened to the public (Van Sickle assembled the public at the Acropolis 1948, 397). Augustus used his friend for ritual and celebration (Lasdun Maecenas, an unassuming Etruscan of 1992, 42). By Queen Victoria’s time equestrian rank, to aid in his rebuild- (mid- to late nineteenth century), ing of Rome. Maecenas bought a plot much of the royal park space had been of ground just outside the city walls opened to the public. Hyde Park, for that was an old city dump and pauper instance, was opened to the public by burying ground. Here he laid out a Charles I about 1635. George IV in splendid park for the general public. 1826 acted on a report on the state of In this summery Mediterranean London’s royal parks by issuing region, people were inclined to stroll instructions that “the whole range and such landscaped areas and enjoy each extent of Parks should be thrown open other’s company. (In similar fashion, for the gratification and enjoyment of many centuries later, landscaped areas the Public” (Lasdun 1992, 13). Public were decreed by the Colonial Assem- monies given by Parliament to the 14 The George Wright FORUM Once Again, Why Public Parks? Office of the King’s Works maintained the Regent’s Park project with the such parks. The public usage of a Prince of Wales through the Depart- royal park was at first a rather limited, ment of Woods and Forests. They privileged activity, confined by dictate took a roughly circular-shaped prop- of royalty to a select class of socially erty of about 1,000 acres that had acceptable people who held keys to been a royal forest in medieval times the locked park gates. This privileged and a hunting preserve and Mary-le- use was gradually eased. Many of these bone Park in the Tudor era and devel- parks became full public parks about oped it into a residential park (Saun- the time urban development reach ders 1969). Regent’s Park thus went their boundaries. Most have since through virtually all the stages of Eng- become integral parts of the London lish park development: first a medieval scene. royal forest, then a royal hunting pre- The opening of royal parks for serve, then a private park, and finally a public use was one part of a growing public park open to all. Nash and Rep- idea of the park as public venue as ton combined urban architecture with England moved from monarchial con- country landscape elements by setting trol to a democracy. Walking became a terraces around a park that made up national pastime in the Tudor period. about half the total acreage of the The general public in the cities need- development. They combined the ed areas in which to stroll. Church- orderliness of Georgian London with yards provided opportunities for the openness and wildness of the leisure time in many of the provincial countryside. Nash reversed the visual towns of England. Cemeteries were direction of the palace and manor pleasure grounds for the diversion of park, where residences were sur- gentry. The general public for years rounded by parkland. He framed the had the grounds of commons for out- park with handsome terraces of classic door activity. Gradually, however, the design that housed people who then common was made unavailable to had magnificent views across the park. them under enclosure practices. With Nash and Repton wanted to create an the rapid expansion of English cities in-city relationship with nature similar after the Restoration, there began a to that enjoyed by many people in the movement toward parks as integral English countryside who had a Geor- parts of cities for the public at large. gian mansion set in a park of modest Londoners began to see the delights of proportions. Royalty and the wealthy, placing their residences adjacent to of course, had great countryside the inner-city royal parks: St. James’s palaces and mansions surrounded by Park, Green Park, Hyde Park, and expansive parks. Merely well-to-do Kensington Garden. To have a resi- people sought to follow the essayist, dence overlooking one of these parks poet, and politician Joseph Addison’s became the preferred way to live. advice in The Spectator (Essay no. In the early 1830s, the prominent 414, 1712) to make a neat mansion architect John Nash and the landscape pleasantly situated in a park that architect Humphry Repton worked on would show a “pretty landskip of their Volume 19 • Number 2 2002 15 Once Again, Why Public Parks? possessions.” from those created under royal and Such rural landscape values were private initiative to those that were introduced into the English urban fab- fully publicly funded.