Here is a place to live.

The best urban greenspaces in North America...

The greenspace in each of these urban areas is directly important to the lifestyles of its citizens, of course.

But those greenspaces are a positive good for even that citizen who....
.... never walks, runs, or bikes the trails,
.... never picnics under those trees,
.... never lifts binoculars to locate an avian Pavarotti in the branches,
.... never captures the dappled, golden, sunset reflections of trees and deer in the pond,



.... never kneels in the leaf litter to slip a diamond onto an adored finger,

.... never swings a running toddler up from the grass onto his shoulders,
.... never points out a black-eyed Susan, beaver, darter, snapping turtle, or great blue heron to the wide eyes of a ten-year-old.

Those greenspaces call out to tourists, shoppers, jobseekers, business-builders --- each no less lover, parent, child, hobbyist, cyclist, runner, bird-watcher, photographer ---  "Come! Here is a place to live."

And the cold hard impersonal cash of those folk will greatly exceed whatever temporary (and often largely transferred) gains for a local economy that might come from another strip mall.