Kaupunkiluonto

Some ancient observers found that the diversity of the agora – serving same king of functions as public, open urban spaces as the parks - disturbed their sense of political decorum and gravity. In the Politics, Aristotle wrote, "a city is composed of different kinds of men; similar people cannot bring a city into existence." (Sennett 1994, 56.) From the days of Plantagenet dynasty in the latter part of the 12th century, the public had already been allowed the privilege of walking on the royal hunting parks of London. The first documented case for the promoting of public interest of green areas was an act passed in the English Parliament in 1592, according to which "no person shall inclose or take in any part of the commons or waste grounds within three miles of the gates of the city of London, nor sever nor divide by any hedges, ditches, pales or otherwise any of the said fields lying within three miles etc., to the hindrance of the training or mustering of soldiers, or ...

By being out in the open air, a citizen, the president Thomas Jefferson said, breathes free: he applied this metaphor to the countryside, which he loved (Sennett 1994, 270). From cities´ point of view, the function of parks is integrative. Parks are – according to Cranz – historically, politically and aesthetically integrative (Cranz 1982, 248-249). According to Lefebvre (1996, 147), the citizens of cities have several social needs in respect to cities. These needs are conceptualised in dialectic form, and they include: - need for security/opening - need for certainty/adventure - need for the predictable and the unpredictable - need of similarity/difference - need of isolation/encounter - need of independence (solitude)/communication - need of immediate/long-term prospects - need for creative activity; the need for information, symbolism, the imaginery and plan o play, sexuality, physical activities (e.g.sport), creative activity, art, knowledge These urban needs can not be reduced int...