Monday, March 23, 2009

The History and Culture of City Parks, Urban Greenspaces and Urban Planning: A Workshop

The History and Culture of City Parks, Urban Greenspaces and Urban Planning:
A Workshop


Culminating in a round table discussion of Memphis's Greenspace Heritage and its Future

7 April 2009
4:00-7:30 PM
Ballroom, Bryan Campus Life Center

Contact: Michael Leslie

Tel.: 901 843 3715; leslie@rhodes.edu

The aim of this workshop is to set our contemporary and local debates over green spaces in Memphis and Shelby County in the context of two centuries of debate over environmental protection and urban planning.

Overton Park and the Memphis Parkway system, planned by George Kessler, were designed explicitly with an eye to F.L. Olmsted’s famous New York developments of Central Park and Prospect Park. But the Olmsted parks were not just objects of beauty: Olmsted was passionately convinced that such green spaces contributed both to the social cohesiveness and fairness of a modern urban society and to the health of urban populations.

His ideas for urban parks were formed as a result of his travels in Britain and Europe, in particular by his experience of Birkenhead Park, in Northern England. Designed by the great engineer Joseph Paxton and opened in 1847, Olmsted considered that Birkenhead Park achieved a democratisation of urban experience and produced significant health benefits for one of the 19th century’s great industrial cities.

Paxton was an innovator, but he too inherits a dynamic tradition of urban planning and sanitation reform from the 18th century. Birkenhead Park draws from the new towns of Edinburgh and Bath. The creation and maintenance of green spaces are an urgent concern from the very moment at which rapid urbanisation and industrialisation emerged in the western world.

Speakers

Dr. Rosemary (Roey) Sweet

Professor of Urban History and Director of the Centre for Urban History, University of Leicester

Author of The Writing of Urban Histories in Eighteenth-century England (Oxford Historical Monographs) (1997); The English Town, 1680-1840: Government, Society and Culture (Themes In British Social History) (1999); Women and Urban Life in Eighteenth-century England: On the Town (2003); and Antiquaries: The Discovery of the Past in Eighteenth Century Britain (2004) (among much more)

Dr. Roey Sweet will survey examples of polite spaces in newly-urbanising 18th-century Britain, revealing intellectual underpinnings that range from enthusiasm for Druids through to a recognition of the need for open space and traffic management in the battle against disease, appalling living conditions, and the moral failings of the poor. Dr Sweet will also caution against taking overly seriously many of these assertions of noble motives, pointing out that the creation of open spaces also contributed to the enhancement of property values and the attraction of an elite population.

Dr. Katy Layton Jones

Lecturer, Goldsmiths, University of London, and the University of Leicester

Author of Places of Health and Amusement: Liverpool's Historic Parks and Gardens (Informed Conservation) (2008)

Dr Katy Layton-Jones will carry the story into Britain’s famous 19th-century parks movement. Throughout the late 18th and 19th centuries, the British landscape was transformed by industrialisation, urbanisation and suburbanisation. This physical transformation of space was accompanied by a conceptual one, through which existing notions of public and private, rural and urban, were reappraised and challenged. Central to this process of redefining and reshaping the British landscape, was the ‘creation’ or designation of public green space in the form of walks, cemeteries, and perhaps most importantly, municipal parks. This paper will look at how the process of creating public green space, the designs of influential figures such as Joseph Paxton and Edward Kemp, and representations of the finished landscapes, all contributed to a re-conceptualisation of the British urban realm in the long 19th century.

Dr. Michael Leslie

Rhodes College

'Birkenhead Park, Frederick Law Olmsted, Central Park, and the Design Brief for Overton Park'

Dr. Michael Leslie will briefly document the influence of these 18th and 19th-century urban green space developments on the most important urban landscape designer in American history, Frederick Law Olmsted, the principal designer of both Central Park and Prospect Park in New York and the creator of urban parkway systems. He will point to the continuation of many of the themes identified by Drs. Sweet and Layton-Jones in American urban space creation, not least in the Tennessee example of Memphis’s Parkways and Overton Park, designed by one of Olmsted’s disciples, George Kessler.

Refreshments

Roundtable

Participants expected to include Jimmy Ogle (Citizens to Preserve Overton Park), Lauren Taylor (Hyde Foundation), Diana Threadgill (Mississippi River Corridor - TN), Ritchie Smith and Lissa Thompson (Ritchie Smith and Associates).

Mud Island River Park Input Needed

Do you have ideas for how Mud Island could be better utilized for the public? If so, please attend one of the Public Meetings and give your input!

Public meeting schedule:
Mar. 23 (Mon.) - Mud Island River Park Harbor Landing, 101 Island Dr.
Mar. 24 (Tues.) - Raleigh United Methodist Church, 3295 Powers Rd.
Mar. 31 (Tues.) - Whitehaven Community Center Gym, 4318 Graceland Dr.
Apr. 2 (Thurs.) - Memphis Botanic Garden, 750 Cherry Rd.

All of the meetings are from 5:45 pm to 7:15 pm.

Whether or not you are able to attend the public meetings, please be sure to also fill out the RDC survey for the Land Use Study for Mud Island.

Monday, March 16, 2009

Save the Date - April 25th!

The Mississippi River Corridor - Tennessee is partnering with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Clean Memphis, Sierra Club and Friends for our Riverfront to organize a clean-up of our Mississippi River/Harbor in downtown Memphis on Saturday, April 25, 2009.

We invite you to spend a few hours helping us with this important task on Saturday, April 25, 2009. Please mark your calendars, and stay tuned for additional information.

Thank you!

Monday, March 9, 2009

URBANEXUS Memphis

Another Memphis event to attend after Memphis 101.

Memphis
The Salon: The New Face of Civic Engagement

Thursday, March 19th 2009 6:00pm
Stax Museum of American Soul Music
926 McLemore Avenue, Memphis


Join Next American City for their URBANEXUS salon on the role of civic engagement in moving Memphis forward. Join seven local representatives - Eric Matthews of Launch Memphis, Dr. Charlie Santo of Coalition for Livable Communities, Tim Sampson of Stax Museum, John Weeden of UrbanArt, Cardell Orrin of New Path, Derwin Sisnett of NDCC Power Center and Gwyn Fisher of MPACT Memphis - as each presenter uses 4 slides per minute for 4 minutes to share how their organizations are making creative approaches toward civic engagement. An audience Q&A and reception will immediately follow the presentations.

Admission is free.

Presented by Next American City.

Sponsored by:
Memphis & Shelby County Division of Planning & Development
MPACT Memphis
Sustainable Shelby

In Partnership With:
Urban Land Institute
Coalition for Livable Communities
Community Development Council

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Leadership Academy - Memphis 101

At the MRCT we are always happy to share information about groups and activities which portray our city and region in a positive light, so we wanted to make sure you knew about this event:

MEMPHIS 101
get to really know this town


Mayor AC Wharton, Featured Speaker. Larry Jensen, Special Presentation.

Candid, compelling, enlightening, Memphis 101*, sponsored by First Tennessee Foundation as part of the Celebrate What's Right series, is an interactive crash course in Memphis culture, people and politics. Join The Leadership Academy as we offer a fresh perspective into our city's personality. All are welcome! There is no charge for this event but we do need your RSVP. (Subsequent Memphis 101s will be for a fee unless participating in MemphisConnect.)

March 19th, from 3:00-5:00pm

Second Presbyterian Church
4055 Poplar Avenue, Memphis, TN 38111


RSVP Didi Crandall, at dcrandall@leadershipacademy.org or 901.527.4625, ext. 10.

*Developed and owned by archer>malmo, the largest marketing and communications firm in Tennessee, Memphis 101 is licensed to The Leadership Academy on an exclusive basis.

MemphisConnect. Building a better Memphis. Recruiting and Retaining Talent.