Building San Francisco's Parks, 1850-1930 (review)

This comprehensive book offers fascinating insight into the process of creating and designing places for nature in the city of San Francisco, California. While likely to be too academic for casual reading, this book is complete with theoretical discussion supported by historical maps and photographs giving the academic geographer an excellent centerpiece for discussion. Young presents a study of the construction of recreational space and its link to social philosophy and political forces, pulling evidence from historians, landscape architects, and geographers. Reading this book will lend a new understanding of how recreational spaces such as Golden Gate Park have been strongly influenced by social ideals during the first third of the 20^th century. Placed in a larger geographic context of park development in the United States, this book lends a unique interpretation that emphasizes the importance of the geographic perspective.

Young has organized his book into two sections. The first section, comprised of a single chapter, sets forth the philosophical and organizational issues of park development. The second, containing five chapters, provides a case study of park development in San Francisco in general, and Golden Gate Park in particular.

Chapter 1 discusses the meaning and geography of San Francisco parks through a social-scientific investigation into the theoretical and historical issues surrounding American park-making. During the mid-19^th century, park advocates valued parks based on societal improvement. These improvements rested in what Young calls the virtues of public health, prosperity, democratic equality, and social coherence. Young argues that public health and prosperity were related to the material well-being of society. During the mid-1800s, parks were thought to improve public health. For example, the clean and naturally pure park air was considered to counteract "miasma," the vaporous emanations in large, densely populated cities that were thought to be the source of diseases. In addition to public health, parks were considered to improve prosperity. An increase in property values adjacent to parks and an increase in taxes on more luxurious homes adjacent to parks were considered to be an overall benefit to the city. In addition, large parks with unique physical landscapes were likely to increase tourism, as evidence by New York's Central Park, also improving the overall prosperity of the city.

Considered by Young to be behavioral concerns, democratic equality and social coherence were the second set of virtues used by park advocates during the mid- to late-19^th century. During a time when rising class divisions were of concern, parks were argued to be a public space that would "naturally" close social gaps by creating a place to meet outside the confines of class structure. Parks were also considered to provide a sense of unity in principles, relationships, and interests during a time of increased immigration and alienation of social groups as cities increased in population.

Young also differentiates between two periods in the history of American park-building: the romantic versus the rationalistic periods. The transition from the romantic period to the rationalistic period occurred during the 1880s, shortly after the establishment of Golden Gate Park. The romantic proponents saw nature as "an interrelated world of mind, body, and being, an organic whole that included God, people, and the physical world" (p. 5). As such, parks were seen as a corrective to the ills of urbanization, such as disease and crime, because they brought nature back into cities with increasing social problems. Romantics argued that parks should not be clearly organized for specific recreational activities, but should provide picturesque and natural landscapes for viewing. In contrast, rationalistic park advocates saw themselves as separate from nature. Rejecting the idea that scenic landscapes could reform society, parks were "reborn" as places for organized leisure and recreation.

Golden Gate Park was established during the romantic period, but during the late 1880s new spaces were added to the park, such as ball parks and museums reflecting the transition to a more rationalistic approach. Chapter 1 concludes with a brief history of the American park movement prior to 1870, with an...