Urban Pocket Parks and Community Gardens
Beyond the great public gardens, the past thirty years have seen an explosion of small-scale urban green space: linear parks on disused infrastructure, neighbourhood community gardens, balcony gardens, vertical green walls. These projects collectively transform how cities feel and function.
The High Line, New York
Opened 2009 on an abandoned elevated railway. Around 8 million annual visitors. The model from which most subsequent linear park projects descend.
Petite Ceinture, Paris
Sections of Paris's abandoned ring railway have been opened as wild urban gardens, with native flora that has self-seeded over decades.
Promenade Plantée (Coulée Verte), Paris
Opened 1993 on an abandoned elevated railway in eastern Paris — the prototype linear park that influenced the High Line.
Cheonggyecheon, Seoul
A stream restored in 2005 by removing an elevated highway in central Seoul, with 5.8 kilometres of linear green space.
Madrid Río
Opened 2011 after burying the M-30 motorway alongside the Manzanares — 10 kilometres of riverside park.
Community gardens in New York
Around 550 community gardens scattered across New York neighbourhoods, mostly on disused lots reclaimed by neighbourhood groups since the 1970s.
Schreber gardens, Germany
The German tradition of allotment colonies (Schrebergärten) provides around 1.4 million plots — most of any country in Europe.
Bahnhof Berlin Südkreuz station green roof
A demonstration project of large-scale green roofing on infrastructure — increasingly important as cities seek to manage heat and stormwater.
Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park, Singapore
The 62-hectare park created by removing a concrete drainage canal and restoring it as a natural waterway — a landmark for ecological urban park design.
Atlanta BeltLine
A 22-mile loop of trails, transit and parks on a former railway corridor — perhaps the most ambitious linear park project ever undertaken in the United States.
Explore on the map
All of the gardens mentioned in this article are pinned on the interactive map. Use it to plan a route, group nearby sites into a single trip, or compare gardens by style and season.