CHENNAI: The State government’s proposal to set up a 118-acre urban park in the erstwhile Madras Race Course in Guindy is praiseworthy. Every major city in the developed world has a large urban park, sometimes more than one. New York City’s iconic Central Park, established in 1858, is 843 acres in area but it is only the sixth largest park of that city! The large urban parks in the capital cities of Europe were former Royal hunting grounds that were thrown open to the public.
London’s Hyde Park (350 acres) opened to the public in 1637, Berlin’s Tiergarten (520 acres) in 1742, and Madrid’s El Retiro Park (350 acres) in 1868. All the major cities in the developed world also have a good network of small neighbourhood parks. According to the USA’s ParkScore Index, 100% of the residents of Boston and San Francisco, and 99% of the residents of Washington DC, New York City and Seattle live within 10-minute walk of a neighbourhood park.
Some global cities like Singapore are striving to create an immersive experience of nature so that wherever one looks, one can find abundant greenery. This new vision is reflected in Singapore changing its moniker from ‘Garden City’ to ‘City in a Garden’. Unfortunately, Indian cities, barring a few, have given very low priority to public green spaces in general and to large urban parks in particular.
In Chennai Corporation, there are only 3 horticulturists to 350 engineers which is a good indicator of the relative importance of gre.
