Top 100 Public Spaces in the US and Canada

Lrfox

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An interesting take on the US and Canada's top 100 public spaces.

Surprisingly, not a single space in Boston made the top 100.

The New England spaces that made the list were:
2) Temple Plaza- New Haven CT (I do love this spot)
10) Church Street- Burlington VT
66) Waterplace Park- Providence RI
84) deCordova Sculpture Park- Lincoln MA

The list is pretty open ended. the spaces mentioned range from Montreal's underground city to Yosemite Valley. I like a lot of the spaces listed, but haven't heard of a bunch of them either.

I would have mentioned Copley Square, the Comm Ave Mall or even Faneuil Hall Marketplace or Harvard Square.
 
Such "crowdsourced" projects are to be taken with a grain of salt I guess. But this is probably a good place to ask what forumers think are the best public spaces in and around Boston.

Personally I think Copley Sq. is a pretty crap public space. A few of my favorite public spaces are the Comm Ave Mall, Public Garden, Esplanade, Fenway Victory Gardens and Rose Garden, Brookline's Hall Pond and Amory Woods, Jamaica Pond, the Arboreteum, Castle Island. Lots of other smaller nooks and crannies.
 
The Public Garden at least deserves a spot and possibly the Common. Our urban plazas (including Copley Sq) are another story. There is a reason why certain things work in Italy and it never should have been assumed that they would work in Boston.

I also agree with Briv on Jamaica Pond. It's an incredible retreat.

Edit: I just read the article and they openly denounce the Emerald Necklace. They specifically call it out. That's pretty disgusting. The entire Emerald Necklace is heavily used.
 
I wouldn't say that the article "denounces" the Emerald Necklace, but they do exclude it on the basis of being too large-scale for their project.
 
A traffic circle in Conn is #2?! Am I reading this right? Or is there more to the plaza than the picture reveals?

Church St looks great, kind of like a Quincy Market and DTX hybrid that got scaled down to typical New England town downtown.
 
Church Street is good, absolutely fantastic. Went to school in Burlington and visited a few weeks ago, awesome public space. There are public spaces, and just plain good urban spaced, and there is a difference, in my opinion, and that's why a lot of the great urban nooks weren't mentioned. Briv had another good point that this was just an opinion poll limited in scope to those who check planetizen often.
 
I wouldn't say that the article "denounces" the Emerald Necklace, but they do exclude it on the basis of being too large-scale for their project.

But Yosemite Valley is HUGE and it made the list.

Two places that aren't parks/plazas/ped malls would be Harvard Square and the Blackstone Block. I would count them as great public spaces.
 
I guess we have better things to do in Boston than rally a vote for this obscure website poll.
 
Ha actually a good point. I think boston didnt make it because it has so many places to choose from. The entirety of newbury for starters. Way better than church st but with cars, which probably did it in.
 
I find the plaza in the middle of Davis Square to be a fine urban place -- it's always crowded on any warm-weather day or evening. Like many other things around here, it required a second try to get right.
 
I find the plaza in the middle of Davis Square to be a fine urban place -- it's always crowded on any warm-weather day or evening. Like many other things around here, it required a second try to get right.

One of the best types of urban public spaces is the city's sidewalks themselves--and Boston does quite well with those...even the not so well maintained ones...because of its historic buildings with high degrees of fenestration and close proximity to other buildings and a decent mix of uses...basically all the things that New Urbanists try to re-create today. Do you really need to design major public spaces when most of the city already functions as a public space? I keep thinking of Newbury Street, which I know is not characteristic of Boston as a whole and only represents a small bit of it, but really it is a continuous stretch of public open space, where bikes, people, cars, shops, restaurants, residences all come together. One of my favorite streets anywhere.
 

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