This year, Urban Landprofiled each finalist for the 2020 ULI Urban Open Space Award. The winners have been announced and Domino Park is one of the two winners.

This summer, Urban Land is profiling online and in print each finalist for 2020’s ULI Urban Open Space Award. The winner(s) will be announced in the fall. Learn more about award-winning and innovative open-space projects as part of the 2020 ULI Virtual Fall Meeting.

ULI MEMBER–ONLY CONTENT: How is the recreational development industry navigating the COVID-19 pandemic and other sea changes of contemporary times?

This summer, Urban Landwill be profiling online and in print each finalist for 2020’s ULI Urban Open Space Award. The winner(s) will be announced in the fall.

ULI will announce the winner(s) by October, and the jury will allocate a prize purse of $10,000 to one or more winning project teams.

The 125-year-old parks system in Kansas City, Missouri, is a source of much civic pride. But the system also played a role in creating divisions in the community. A century later, these effects still reverberate in the parks system as development trends, zoning policies, and financial challenges have perpetuated inequity, according to panelists speaking at a ULI Advisory Services presentation in Kansas City, Missouri.

Changsha is a bustling city of 7 million people in China’s central Hunan province. The Baxi River meanders through the city, carrying water flows that have created 15 scattered islands near the city. Seasonal flooding, rapid water flow, and constructed monocultures have caused escalating erosion, destabilization, and loss of habitat along the banks. Past approaches to managing the river have favored the creation of hard edges to protect land and property. With the two-mile-long (3.2 km), 156-acre (63 ha) Baxi River Forest Island, the local government tried a new approach. It embraced the river ecosystem, creating a new park that is helping both nature and people thrive.

ULI has joined with 127 U.S. mayors, along with the Trust for Public Land and the National Recreation and Park Association in launching a historic “10-minute walk” parks advocacy campaign, establishing the ambitious goal that all Americans should live within a 10-minute walk (or half-mile) of a high-quality park or green space. This bipartisan group includes mayors from all across the country and represents cities large and small, including America’s four largest cities.

With no end in sight to the boom in urban and close-in suburban multifamily housing construction, developers are eager for ways to save money on ever-increasing land and construction costs. Experts speaking at the 2016 ULI Fall Meeting said that reducing parking requirements and increasing use wood-frame construction for buildings up to five stories could help keep costs in check.

A Gathering Place for Tulsa, under construction along the eastern bank of the Arkansas River two miles (3.2 km) south of downtown, is one of the biggest greenway projects under development from scratch in the United States.