Like people, beautiful parks come in all shapes and sizes. Here are five urban parks that enhance their surroundings by sprouting up where you’d least expect them.

Cities are constantly changing. Businesses open and close. New buildings constructed while old ones are torn down. While exciting, this dynamic often leaves ugly gaps and holes. Vacant lots. Empty storefronts. Abandoned train tracks.

For many, these less-than-beautiful cityscapes are just the price of progress. For others, they represent unique opportunities to reintroduce the healing power of nature into the otherwise gray reality of city life. Now, more than ever, designers and architects are working to reclaim these abandoned areas, infusing them with life, both literally and figuratively.

If you’ve ever thought that moving to the big city meant giving up access to real grass, flowers, and fruit trees, here are five stunning urban parks that prove you can have both.

1. The High Line – NYC

Cities don’t have a lot of extra space, so creating a new park often means getting creative. The High Line is a public park built on a historic freight rail line elevated above the streets on Manhattan’s West Side. It is owned by the City of New York, and maintained and operated by dedicated citizens and donors. A stroll through the park allows visitors to enjoy many species of perennials, grasses, shrubs and trees. Many of the self-seeded species that originally grew on the High Line’s abandoned rail bed were incorporated into the park that their presence inspired.

2. Lost River Park – Seoul

It seems crazy, but city planners in Seoul, South Korea, once opted to bury a pristine river under a highway rather than find a different way around. For 30 years, the Cheonggyecheon Stream lay forgotten under a multi-lane freeway. Then, in 2003, officials decided to tear down the highway and restore the stream to its rightful place in the sun. In what has become Seoul’s “Lost River Park” visitors can now enjoy the more than twenty beautiful bridges that cross the stream. And according to Inhabitat, “over 75% of the material torn down from the old highway was reused to construct the urban park and rehabilitate the stream.”

3. Paddington Reservoir Gardens – Sydney

Australia is mostly desert, so water was very important to early settlers. A reservoir built on Sydney’s east side was a vital source of water for the rapidly growing city during the 19th century. It stopped supplying water in 1899, and went through a bit of an identity crisis–including stints as a gas station and a garage. In 2009, it reopened as the Paddington Reservoir Gardens, a unique urban park that some have called “a blend of the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome and the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.” Original brick, timber and iron fixtures were included in the upcycled design. Visitors can also check out a sunken garden on the roof, and vibrant graffiti art in the eastern chamber.

4. Eco-Park – Governor’s Island

Once a defunct military base, Governor’s Island is in the process of an eco-friendly transformation. An investment of more than $250 million from the Bloomberg Administration will turn this previously ignored island into an urban explorer’s paradise. New features will include Liggett Terrace: a sunny, six acre plaza that features moveable seating, public art, water features and seasonal plantings; Hammock Grove: 10 acres with 1,500 new trees and hammocks (sounds ama-zing); and complimentary wooden bicycles with which visitors can cruise the winding paths of the park. And that’s only a fraction of the new amenities.

5. Rail Overpass Public Garden & Orchard – Edmonton

It doesn’t look like much in the image above, but that dirty little overpass is about to become one of the city’s newest urban parks. Left over from a time when Edmonton was one of the busiest rail hubs in Canada, the “old overpass connecting 97th Street to Edmonton’s downtown rail yards has morphed into a poorly finished, unattractive concrete pedestrian walkway and bicycle path” reports ArchPaper.com. Now, three local female artists, with the help of a volunteer crew, will upgrade the bridge into an open public garden complete with edible crops from which visitors can actually pick fruit.

Images: HighLine.org, Iwan Baan, Inhabitat, newtown_grafitti, Governor’s Island Park, Google Maps

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7 ways to be planet and body friendly while in London for the Olympics.

London is this summer’s hottest destination – maybe not for the heat, but indeed for the buzz! Whether you’re heading to the UK for Olympic festivities or are passing through any time of the year, it’ll do your body and social consciousness a favor to get going with the following seven suggestions.

Run Like a Royal

What’s free and a fantastic way to stay in shape? Outdoor jogging. MapMyRun.com is the ultimate resource for not only getting in a good workout but also seeing a city from a completely different perspective. The site provides you with visual tracks that other runners have trod before. You can also create your own route, tailoring it according to your distance and terrain requirements. Check out the nearly 9,000 routes already mapped out in London.

Hydrate Organically

Need a morning fix that will keep your energy levels high for the rest of the day? Sip on a refreshing and hydrating organic vegetable and fruit juice from Planet Organic. The market has a juice and smoothie bar with plenty of vegan, vegetarian and organic options to satisfy a breakfast, lunch or dinner appetite. There are locations in Devonshire Square, Muswell Hill, Islington, Torrington Place, and Westbourne Grove, so there is always one at a reasonable distance. Each location offers food, natural beauty, and health and well-being products.

Eat Kindly

London is emerging as an epicenter to the raw and vegan food movement in Europe, but before these venues were established, hailing strong were the numerous farmers markets spread throughout the city. Berwick Street Market is one of the city’s oldest. It has been running in Soho since as far back as 1778. It is open Monday-Saturday, 9am-6pm. Marylebone Farmers Market is also a fantastic market that has a something for everyone. Going beyond produce and general goods, the market has stalls offering prepared food from a variety of cuisines. Both the Berwick and Marylebone markets have organic options. Find a full directory of markets in London, check out official London Farmers Market page.

If sit-down dining is more your style, support local restaurants with your patronage and enjoy the city’s take on food fit for a health nut. Some of the standouts include:

• Saf (63 Kensington High St, London W8 5SE)
• VitaOrganic (74 Wardour Street  London, Greater London W1F 0TE)
• InSpiral Lounge (Camden High Street, London NW1 8QS)
• Bonnington Café (11 Vauxhall Grove, London Borough of Lambeth, London SW8 1TD)
• 42Raw (6 Burlington Gardens, City of Westminster, London W1S)
• Wild Food Café (1st floor  14 Neil’s Yard, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9DP)
• Vx (73 Caledonian Road, London N1 9BT)
• Green Note (106 Parkway, London, NW1 7AN)
• Ms. Cupcake (408 Coldharbour Lane, Brixton, London SW9 8LF)
• Greenz (5 Station Rise, Tulse Hill, London SE27 9BW)

While the Olympics may be enough of a party, if you are looking to entertain or partake in a clean-eating cleanse while traveling, contact Raw Fairies, a no-cook food delivery service whose menu can be tailored to your needs. Meals include juices, salads, entrees and desserts! Rainforest Creations, too, is a healthy catering alternative that offers modern cuisine with an organic flair.

Strike a Pose

Find your inner Zen in the chaos of London and head to one of the most comprehensive studios in the city – Tri Yoga – for a £20, 2-week access to all of its yoga and pilates classes. Operating since 2000, the studio currently offers a list of bodywork therapies, including massage, acupuncture, reiki, reflexology, and psychotherapy. Find Tri Yoga in Primrose Hill, Chelsea Soho, and Covent Garden.

With locations in Notting Hill since 1993 and Islington since 2001, The Life Centre is a fixture in London’s yoga scene and draws a loyal clientele. It also cuts visitors a break, offering unlimited yoga at an introductory price of £20 for 20 consecutive days.

If you have special needs or are traveling with children, check out the Special Yoga Centre. The studio supports children and those with physical limitations, gladly offering 20% concessions to those who qualify as well as community payment classes.

Park Yourself

Grab a blanket, a friend, and a few sandwiches and spend the day looking up at the sky rather than at a blur of traffic. London is full of green space and spending an afternoon at the park is a cheap and fuss-free way to escape the city without ever leaving it. With so many parks to choose from, Time Out London has jumped the gun and organized a directory. Check out the list of parks here, which are categorized under “local parks,” “public gardens,or “hidden oases of green,” and never bore of nature. Challenge accepted.

Reduce Your Footprint

Ditch the taxi, car, bus, metro, or any engine-run mode of transportation and opt for a cleaner way to explore the city. The London Bicycle Tour Company provides daily Central London and West End bike tours, each for £18.95. Flat Tire Bike Tours is also a popular service that offers Royal London and River Thames bike and walking tours. Get a workout and an education all at once!

Shop Friendly

Do London in style, eco-friendly style that is. The city boasts a selection of boutiques and shops with fair-trade, conscious clothing and accessories.

Equa is a small Islington boutique that sells organic, fair-trade clothing from approximately 20 different designers. For children and infants, Green Baby houses organic and fairly-trade baby and mother goods, from clothing to beauty to nursery items. The Family Tree sells lamps, shades, hooks, tables, and jewelry, all of which are made ethically and locally. The store also carries People Tree, a fair-trade clothing store in operation since 2001.

Looking for the perfect shoes to go with that fair-trade blouse? Terra Plana is a shoe company that uses recyclable products. It compensates for its CO2 emissions through donations and uses vegetable leather, leather without chromium, and its self-created “E-Leather,” which is a mix of leather and textile fibers. Terra Plana has a store in Covent Garden, Brushfield Street and Westfield.

For more brands with an eco-friendly backstory, check out the annual Eco Design Fair’s directory of designers. Each listed designer incorporates the following elements in its creations: recycled/recyclable, organically grown, fair-traded, non-toxic, low energy-consuming in production/use, and cruelty-free.

Web portals dedicated to bringing eco-friendly products to the UK are My Eco Store and Ethical Superstore. Both are stocked with just about any household appliance and clothing item. Browse through their inventories and enjoy the vast selection.

Image: Australia Photos, Abigail Sylvester, nakedsky

The post 7 Ways to Love the Planet and Yourself While In London appeared first on EcoSalon.

Carrying the torch for green.

In a London Olympics 2012 poster titled “being greener”, the London Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games vows to keep this year’s Games eco-friendly.

London’s Olympic Park will be one of the biggest city parks newly constructed in Europe for more than 150 years. The Games will host 26 Olympic events, 20 Paralympic events, 14,700 athletes, 21,000 media, and 10.8 million ticket holders. While it will inevitably boost the city’s economy, the strain on resources is unavoidable. The Organizing Committee is working hard to maintain a high level of sustainability despite all that needs to be constructed, and the the “being greener” poster is a representation of London’s conscious efforts to make its Olympics the greenest of them all.

The Park will be equipped with some of the most cutting-edge technology to curtail the Games’ greenhouse gas emissions, preserve the natural habitat surrounding the area, as well as to recycle, reuse and reduce all waste. In a pamphlet distributed by the Organizing Committee, the extent of London’s green efforts are detailed.

• 20% of the energy used on the Olympic Park will come from renewable sources
• 4,000 newts and hundreds of toads have been removed from the Park to be protected
• 90% of the materials from the demolition of building in the Olympic Park have been recovered so they can be reused or recycled.
• 50% of materials that are being used to construct the Park will be transported by water or rail, saving thousands of trips on local roads.
• A 120-meter wind turbine in the Park will produce enough electricity for 1,000 homes
• 80 lampposts, 2 tons of red bricks, and 76 tons of paving stones will be saved for reuse on the Park.
• A 3-kilometer footpath and cycle-way will be improved for the local population as well as wildlife.
• Rubbish was removed from 8.35 kilometers of waterways running through the Olympic Park
• 45 hectares of wildlife habitats will be left on and around the Park after the games

Aylin Erman currently resides in Istanbul and is creator of plant-based recipe website GlowKitchen.

The post How London is Keeping the 2012 Olympics Sustainable appeared first on EcoSalon.

Soot, screeching sirens and forbidding skyscrapers; is this your definition of the big city? Think again. The urban landscape might seem like the epicenter of everything that’s wrong with the world, but in fact cities are where some of the most interesting components of the green movement are currently taking place.

With everything from urban farms and electric cars, large cities are surprisingly livable, and now there’s another trend on the rise: urban hiking. Living the city life has long been equated with staying indoors and neglecting to feed our human need for spending time in nature, but the onslaught of urban hiking tours is showing us that it is in fact possible to get outside, be active and explore new places in the process.

What is Urban Hiking?

Forget the days of mindlessly jumping in a taxi to go from point A to point B. Urban hiking is all about planning, executing and enjoying the journey, another great example of slow travel. According to the Urban Dictionary, urban hiking is “the exploration of diverse urban environments on foot.” Conservation and travel groups alike promote urban hiking, as it not only gets people outdoors and active, but also allows them to explore the ins and outs of urban landscapes.

Choose a Theme

The key to a great urban hike is planning. Pick a theme to your hike so you can choose specific points of interest to visit. This allows you to explore a certain aspect of the city you’re in and makes it easier to plan an itinerary. Here are some possible themes to consider:

1. Local food – Find three restaurants or cafes that all focus on serving local food and plan for an appetizer at each.
2. Markets – Markets abound in big cities – Paris and San Francisco in particular come to mind – and offer everything from local foods to crafts. Pick out a few you want to explore and track your route.
3. Parks – For a more natural experience, explore the green spaces that your urban environment has to offer. Choose a few within a walkable distance and pack a picnic item for each.
4. Architecture – Explore the designs and spaces that make the city that you’re in unique. Cities like Los Angeles have already started offering architecture-inspired guided urban hikes.
5. Art galleries – If you want a chicer urban hike, give it an art theme. Many cities offer an Art Walk on a certain night of the month. This is a great chance to plan a quick and easy urban hike itinerary. Plot out some of your favorite galleries that you want to check out and end the evening with a glass of wine at a local bistro.

Planning your route

Easy tools like Google’s pedometer will help you track how far you will be walking. Plan realistically; if you’re going with a group of friends, you’ll go at a slower pace than you expect. Assume you’ll cover about one or two miles per hour. A great day trip could be 5 or 6 miles with several stopping points incorporated, keeping you active but also ensuring that the day is enjoyable.

Be sure to bring

Just because you’re in the city doesn’t mean you can throw traditional hiking rules of thumb out the window. Carry a bottle of water and some healthy organic nuts or dried fruit to snack on.

If you’re planning on making stop off at a cafe, bring your reusable thermos or mug. And just in case you come across a to-die-for item in an unknown corner boutique, make sure you’ve got a reusable bag on hand.

Resources

If you’re looking for urban hiking suggestions, tourism websites are a great place to start, and many have suggested routes if you don’t want to plan your own. Guidebooks that have walking tour routes are also a great resource.

But remember, the best part about urban hikes are that you can tailor them to explore all the things that you’re interested in, so don’t be afraid to break out of the box!

Do you have a favorite urban hike? Tell us about it!

Image: brartist

The post The City Girl’s Guide to Urban Hiking appeared first on EcoSalon.

The grass is always browner when officials have Los Angeles homeowners turning off their sprinklers during the sizzling days of summer.

Starting June 1, the L.A. Dept. of Water and Power imposed mandatory restrictions aimed at reducing the city’s water use by 15%. Residents were ordered to use their sprinklers only on Mondays and Thursdays or be slapped with higher utility bills.

Nearly two months later, it’s clear that suburban lawns are dying of thirst in the San Fernando Valley where folks are complying as temperatures climb past 100 degrees in July and August.

“If you look around, everyone’s lawns are drying up and dying and it looks terrible,” complains Cherie Sanders, a resident of an upscale gated community in Calabasas. “It’s not fair that we have to shut off the sprinklers when golf courses and parks are using so much water and don’t have to comply.”

Flooded with complaints by ratepayers who have yet to convert to drought-resistant succulents and wild grasses, the city is loosening the law. Parks, cemeteries, colleges, school districts, athletic fields and at least five golf courses have been given the green light to irrigate the grounds on any day of the week until the law can be rewritten.

Jon Kirk Mukri, general manager of the Dept. of Recreation and Parks, told the L.A. Times parks deserve special consideration because they serve entire communities. Apparently, parks were also showing signs of distress from the restrictions.

“I couldn’t just come up with a picnic basket and jump on your front lawn,” he said, adding his own North Hollywood lawn has turned brown. “As people’s lawns die, they’re going to need a refuge and we can provide that.”

The DWP’s Board of Commissioners is considering a proposal to alter its watering law for larger property owners (three acres or more to landscape) to hydrate more frequently, as long as they reduce their water use by 20%.

Mukri told the Times his agency has made strides in cutting consumption by 40% over the last two years and will continue installing drought-friendly irrigation systems. He notes that the parks being given a break, such as popular Griffith Park and five city golf courses, already use recycled water and are therefore allowed to water on a daily basis.

Other officials have said that if the greens die on the golf courses the replacement could be very costly.

But what the pretty lawns of the average homeowner?

“I think the city needs to follow its own rules,” said David Coffin, a member of the Westchester-Playa del Rey Neighborhood Council.

Coffin, who is also a candidate for state Assembly, said the city would take its conservation policies more seriously if it experienced their effects firsthand.

“As much as I hate to say it, the only way to force them to address the overall water situation is to let those things turn brown,” he said.

Last year, the DWP banned watering between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. and prohibited restaurants from serving water unless a customer requested a glass.

A council vote is not expected for a few weeks.

Image: paulhami

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