While Houston does have significant park spaces and trails, the city of no zoning has historically been unable to create enough designated open spaces and the necessary connectivity between them. The key to increasing the open space network lies within the region’s floodplains. Relatively flat terrain, intense rain events, and urbanized watersheds create broad jurisdictional floodplains. With developmental restrictions and regulatory controls, vast land areas are left as unused green space or vacant lands. The Bayou Greenway plan recommends leveraging these underutilized spaces to create trail corridors, new parks, and flood mitigation facilities that will be within 1.5 miles of 6 out of 10 Houstonians. The resulting network will stretch over 300 miles and include 4,000 acres of new land connected to existing neighborhoods, schools, churches, and other community assets. The acquisition areas will allow access where physical or jurisdictional obstacles now occur, increase flood mitigation opportunities, and help reconnect currently fragmented ecologies. Resultant facilities within the greenway corridor will perform as functioning recreation space throughout the year, with just a 1% chance of experiencing a significant flood event during that time. Bayou Greenways addresses numerous health, safety, and welfare issues inherent in the daily lives of citizens in the nation’s fourth largest city. Rated as one of the unhealthiest, park-deficient, most economically divided, ethnically diverse, sprawling, and fastest-growing cities in the country, Houston faces enormous social challenges. Already five times the area of most North American cities, Houston is expected to double in population by the year 2035. The Bayou Greenways are now shaping the development fabric of the city by creating healthy connections that are in close proximity to the outdoor world and between highly diverse populations. As a comparison, Portland represents the next-largest green network in the nation, at half of Bayou Greenways’ distance, with 150 miles of multi-use trails. This is a very popular effort: in 2012, receiving the highest approval of all measures on the city ballot, Houston voters approved $100 million in public funding for the project, with a private match of $105 million.
Wuhan Huafa Capital Park
Wuhan Huafa Capital Development is located in the city’s urban core, amidst the hustle and bustle of busy streets and neighborhoods. The nearly 57,000-square-foot green space, adjacent to the Wuhan Capital Residential Development Sales Center, is envisioned to provide an immersive landscape experience for the sales center’s model housing area during the advert...
Longgang River Blueway System
The Shenzhen Longgang River Blueway System is envisioned to unlock the tremendous land value of this 13-mile-long suburban watershed and galvanize the city’s future growth. SWA’s proposal addresses urbanization issues pertaining to water, the environment, and open space shortage, while also activating industrial and cultural revitalization in the surrounding d...
Irvine Great Park Framework
One of the world’s largest municipal parks, the 1,200-acre Great Park in Irvine, California is now under development under a conceptual framework that encompasses redesign and implementation of near- and longer-term uses, with the intent to “put the park back into the park.” The vast site, which was once the Marine Corps’ El Toro Air Station, was first reimagi...
Alief Park and Neighborhood Center
Located in West Houston, the Alief Neighborhood Center and Park serves one of the city’s most diverse communities. Over 90 languages are spoken in Alief, which is home to first-generation immigrants from across the world and refugees from as far away as Vietnam and close as Louisiana—especially in the wake up Hurricane Katrina, when many families made a ...