I’m talking about a massive park in the absolute heart of the city. Located such that is naturally surrounded by city high rises. *People are giving examples of parks that are way off in the boonies. I’m trying to say located centrally, heart of the city, you know where the high rises are. Yes I understand nyc has more, the point is centrally located.
Copied by younger cities in North Americ. You know, the cities younger than NYC that could have seen the value of setting aside a large area for parkland before it was developed.
Detroit is laid out differently from NYC, more like the spokes of a wheel or a spiderweb, instead of a grid like Manhattan. Downtown Detroit (the most “urban” area of the city) and Belle Isle are both at the center of the wheel.
Not sure you’d get a sense of that by “looking at it” on a map, but Belle Isle at least as close to downtown Detroit as Central park is to lower Manhattan.
You do have to take a bridge to get there though, since it’s an island, so you may have a point about accessibility in that regard.
Nevertheless, Belle Isle is a large park in the middle of an urban area. Especially if you bring Windsor into the mix.
Central Park is immediately surrounded on all 4 sides by residential areas. That is the exact middle of the urban area. Belle Island is island off to the side of the city, only accessible by 1 bridge. I wouldn’t count Windsor when border crossing and passports come into it.
Again, I acknowledge your point about accessibility.
When you say something like “I wouldn’t count Windsor,” however, it suggests to me that you’ve never been to Detroit and that you still don’t understand what I’m talking about.
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EDIT to add:
I don’t think you’ve been to Detroit, but I’m not sure that you’ve been to New York City, either?
It seems as if you are thinking of Manhattan as all of NYC, or at least as the center of NYC. Geographically, it is not.
I’d agree Manhattan is “central” to NYC, in terms of culture and politics and money. But it could not be – it would not even exist as it does today – were it not for the other four boroughs. It takes all five boroughs to make New York City. The shape of the whole city is as irregular as any other city built on the water, and the center of it is nowhere near Central Park or Manhattan.
In fact, the only way that Central Park is close to being geographically “central” to the whole city is if you include Newark NJ as part of the city. But New Jersey is a totally different state from the State of New York. (I mean sure, you don’t need a passport to go across bridges or through tunnels, but still: You see where I’m going with this, don’t you?)
? You tried to bring Windsor, Canada in for some reason. For Canadians to go to Belle Island they need to cross a border and have a passport. This is obviously not the kind of city park I’m talking about.