I really liked this article because it brought green infrastructure in a new light for me. I’ve read a lot about sustainable architecture in the places we’ve discussed like green roofs and more permeable roads. The idea of putting this same technology in playgrounds is a brilliant idea. This can reinforce the importance of greenery to the children that play in the park as well as to the community as a whole. Furthermore, it can increase the positive relationship children have with nature, which can play out in adulthood as well. This makes the areas safe, fun, and dry even when the weather isn’t great.
The green infrastructure was a great addition to the playground. Innovation like this can be a great help to making New York a greener place to live. A few things I thought was amazing about this was the goal of capturing 500,000 – 700,000 gallons of stormwater per playground per year. This is an incredible amount of stormwater and can be a tremendous help with New York’s current draining/filtering system. We have approximately 30 billion gallons of raw sewage and stormwater that flood our pipes and having this sort of absorption can help us fix that. Even though it will take a lot of resources and time to completely upgrade our sewage and drainage systems, this can help in the meanwhile.
If this feature is added to parks as a temporary fix while we continue to upgrade the water systems we have, this can be extremely effective in the future. However, I would hate for this to be another bandaid fix like we have discussed in the past since it has so much potential to improve the system as a whole. Just because this is an incredible idea, doesn’t mean we should ignore the greater problem in the city of our pipes having overflows 75 times a year. Instead it should be utilized in combination with these systems. I think this article is really important because it opens up the idea of adding green infrastructure in different types of places. This way we can think about new places to improve instead of just business and public buildings.
