Research shows that homes near a park have an 8% to 20% higher valuation than other properties

Want to know the impact on home values after carving out some green space in an area, adding park benches and perhaps a playground with grass and shrubbery?

It's major.

Anyone interested in parks or real estate would be smart to pay attention to these statistics.

Because here's the big benefit of this research. If you need to get approval for new parkland or to upgrade a park, be sure to show these statistics to homeowners in the area. And be sure to get them to turn out at city budget meetings to support expenditures for more parks.

Several studies have found that

The new Salesforce Transit Center in San Francisco features a 5-acre rooftop park, an example of the innovative way cities are now creating green spaces. (Photo by Fullmetal2887

When a city builds a giant structure, a new bus terminal for example, why not put some grass, park benches and shrubbery on the roof and create a park too?

That's exactly what the City of San Francisco did recently when they opened their new Salesforce Transit Center and added a huge rooftop park.

The innovative 5-acre park is already creating a buzz not just around town, but around the nation as well.

The Salesforce Transit Center is a monstrous structure, almost the length of five football fields, that people are now calling th

Speaking as a builder, if you start something, you must have a vision of the thing which arises from your instinct about preserving and enhancing what is there - Christopher Alexander To be a carpenter or a builder or a home inspector, you have to have that kind of visual brain where you can sort of imagine something taken apart - Nick Petrie Look at kids playing with blocks. I think it's in everyone's DNA to want to be a builder - Dan Phillips You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality - Walt Disney Good buildings come from good people, and all problems are solved by good design. - Stephen Gardiner Either a building is part of a place or it

 

One county decided to let its citizens decide on the choice of park benches for a redevelopment project downtown

Park benches are available in a huge variety of styles, materials, and coatings and for some people that could cause a dilemma.

That's why government planners in Montgomery County, MD, agreed to let local citizens choose the type of park benches and trash receptacles they prefer for their downtown redevelopment project.

Clever right?

There are so

How parks receive the IDA's Dark-Sky Certification

Most people don't realize that when they look up into the sky at night, they only see part of the picture.

What picture? The Universe.

As civilization has advanced, so has our tendency to attempt to light up every corner of the world.

There are a number of reasons why this is important.

However, there is one very negative side effect - light pollution.

When most people peer up into the night sky, they are not able to view the true sky as earlier inhabitants of the planet were able to do.

If you can find a place far away from the light, the view of a dark sky is spectacular.

You not only see prominent planets and stars in the foreground, you soon realize there is a mosaic of a gazillion points of light behind them that make up our incredible and infinite universe.

The stars and the expanse never ends.

Constellations pop out everywhere.

The big shocker