In her novel, the Death and Life of Great American Cities, author Jane Jacobs discusses the unique factors that help to "make or break" a park. Through her own research about and observations of several community parks, Jacobs was able to generalize several components that add to or detract from the success of a park, including a diverse mixture of users and uses. By combining her analysis with well known parks, Jacobs was able to provide her reader with a clear mental image and concrete examples of park successes and failures. On my tour of Millennium Park with Tim Gilfoyle, a wonderful park historian and author, I was able to compare and contrast the park to Jacobs predicted success indicators.
One of the first stipulations for a successful park Jane Jacobs offers her readers is a variety of users. In her opening pages, Jacobs describes a successful parks daily "ballet of users." She observes some early bird joggers, commuters heading to work, errand goers, mothers and their children, tourists, lunching employees, arts patrons, people watchers, school children, couples and elderly persons, all enjoying the parks rich resources. She further explains how a park is more likely to be successful with a diverse plethora of users because it allows varying schedules to utilize the park, thus using the park to its full extent. Millennium Park fits this description magnificently. It is extremely accessible from all areas and the street views seem to draw in passersby. In addition, the separate "themed" park areas help direct and dilute traffic throughout the park. After my tour, I could imagine where each group that Jacobs described could find a comforting home in the park. The joggers on the well kept walking paths and bridges, the commuters and errand goers cutting through the park on their way, the mothers and small children at the family tent, the tourists at Cloud Gate, dinners at the Park Grill, arts patrons enjoying the sculptures, people watchers on the benches, school children splashing in the water feature, couples at a concert, and elderly persons in the Gardens. I can easily visualize each of these respective groups using their allotted spaces in harmony amongst one another. By combining her reading with my tour, I can understand how this vast user profile helps feed to the success of the park.
The other dominating factor Jacobs stresses in her novel about successful park design is a wide range of uses for the diverse set of users. Additionally, in her novel Jacobs discusses certain demand goods, such as swimming and concert halls, which when placed correctly are almost guaranteed hits for a park. This is a category in which Millennium park does not fall short; each miniature section of the park offers visitors a different park amenity, including several demand goods. The first potion of the park Chase Promenade creates the parks thoroughfare and helps control the "ebb and flow" of the park. Found under this promenade, the Boeing gallery is lined with rotating public art exhibitions, drawing both tourists and locals into the park. On the far right of the park, is the Crown Fountain, a unique squirting water irresistible to both children and some adults. This fountain serves as the parks watering hole, drawing all different races together and ignoring typical racial "boundaries." To its left is the Park Grill Restaurant and McCormick Tribune Plaza and Rink. This multipurpose space helps lure crowds year round and satisfy another visitor desire. Both of these, along with the water feature, are demand goods in the park. Another demand feature found in the park is the Jay Pitzker Pavilion which brings thousands of people into the park during its amazing summer concert series. Above the plaza is the Cloud Gate Sculpture which has become Chicago's iconic Eiffel Tower and draws visitors from all over the world. The Lurie Gardens introduces yet another type of user into the garden and allows an escape from the bustle of the other park areas. It is this wide variety of uses that help attract the extreme variance of users and contributes to the parks success.
Side note: It was interesting to see McDonald's cycle center, a temporary home for bikers commuting to work to store their bikes and shower off, located in Millennium Park. I am glad to see that Chicago is committed to going green and hopefully will continue to be so in the coming years.
Thus, it is most likely this strong combination of users and uses that served as the foundation for Millennium Parks positive reputation. Jane Jacobs summarizes her case of the successful park factors extremely well when she says, " The [successful park] thus possesses and intricate sequence of uses and users." Today was a very enlightening look at Millennium Park and I look forward to learning about Chicago's Food Desert tomorrow!
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