Regional planning

Regional Planning Panel Session: Frederick Law Olmsted Jr - Nature, People and Places

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• published: 11 Nov 2013
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Moderated by Dr. Catherine Ross, professor of city and regional planning and director, Center for Quality Growth and Regional Development, Georgia Institute of Technology This session draws on Olmsted's continuing contribution to the building of park systems. Desiring not to separate the park from activities of the city or place, Olmsted designed landscapes to be assimilated into the built environment. His commitment to integrating and conserving the naturally occurring features of a place undergirds many of today's plans focusing on the design of the whole from the city to the region. The New York Regional Plan: Robert Yaro, president, Regional Plan Association In 1929, the Regional Plan Association (RPA) published the world's first metropolitan strategic plan to accommodate a doubling of the New York Region's population by 1965, while preserving its natural resources and improving quality of life. It hired Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. to plan an ambitious network of regional and state parks, and prepare zoning bylaws to protect the suburbs' farm and forest land. By 1941, the New York Region developed the nation's largest network of state and regional parks around RPA's plan and Olmsted's vision, creating precedents for conservation strategies in metropolitan areas across postwar America. Comparing Park Systems in Louisville and Birmingham: As Built, and As Envisioned Dan Jones, PhD, chairman and CEO, 21st Century Parks Philip Morris, Honorary ASLA, former executive editor of Southern Living Magazine Eric Tamulonis, ASLA, LEED AP, principal, Wallace Roberts & Todd LLC Olmsted helped systematize municipal park and recreation planning. Building on his father's 1893 system plan for Louisville, he provided a finer grain of public amenity through community parks and recreation grounds. Using a comprehensive, statistically-based approach, he created a system plan for Birmingham, addressing long-term regional growth and recreation needs. Both cities recently expanded ambitiously upon their Olmsted systems in ways that reinforce the legacy and provide lessons for other communities. This project has been funded in part by the National Trust for Historic Preservation through the Henry A. Jordan, M.D. Preservation Fund and Dorothea DeSchweinitz Fund for the District of Columbia.