Esther Short Park - Vancouver, Washington
A New Neighborhood
 

      
 Key to
      the success of the renewed park is a larger plan to wrap a new
      community around the park, fronting it on four sides. New housing
      (above) not only brings residents to the park, but also ground-floor
      retail that ensures a lively, around-the-clock neighborhood life.


      
 New housing
      is connected to the park with broad pedestrian crossings (below)
      marked by speed humps. In this view, the pedestrian crossing
      extends through the adjacent apartment block to the next street,
      further extending pedestrian access to the park and square.

      
 

      
The second phase
      of new housing broke ground in 2002 on the east side of the park
      (below), as pictured through the windows of a third development
      site where an abandoned building will soon make way for a new
      convention center. The City's strategy of locating housing on
      all four sides of the park is the single most important step
      in renewing the park, since it ensures a resident community of
      park stewards who will visit and care for the park as an extension
      of their own homes.

      


      
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 All images
      are ©Tom Kloster, 2002, and may only be used by permission