10 Things that Make a Great Green City
Plentiful Parks
Park are the "lungs of the city," architect Frederic Law Olmsted famously said about New York's Central Park. From the 500-year-old Giardino della Guastella in Milan to downtown Houston's new Discovery Green, parks provide both a place for harried city residents to take a deep breath, relax, and connect with nature, and a cooling counter to the heat-island effect created by all that asphalt. (Not to mention a buffer against flooding.) Green space has even been shown to improve urbanites' physical and mental health.
Gülhane Park in Istanbul. Photo by Jennifer Hattam.
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