Afolayan, Samuel S., "Creating Successful Open Spaces in the Urban Core: A Study of Open Spaces in Downtown Dartmouth

The City of Dartmouth has a wealth of open spaces. More acreage is set aside for open spaces than there is for buildings in the City. This has been a direct result of suburbanization which started in the sixties and continues until the present. This sprawl has brought in its wake acute pressure for urban services in the new suburb, and the abandonment of the downtown to virtually non-residential land-use types.

This thesis focuses on the study of the physical qualities of urban parks in downtown Dartmouth. It approaches the issue of success from the urban design point of view and attempts to assess the parks not only as destinations in themselves but also as very important design entities that play a major role in determining the structure, legibility and character of the downtown. The assessment is done using facts derived from research into literature on open space design, observation of patterns and intensity of use of parks in the study area, comparing these with other parks in the United States and Canada, to evaluate the success of two downtown parks - the Dartmouth Common and Ferry Terminal Parks.

The recommendations in this study are products of a careful study of what ought to be, after a thorough consideration of what was and what now is, and comparing this with what happens in other successful parks. It is a first stage in the process of developing a workable open space system for the City of Dartmouth. It could be another step in the on-going process of revitalizing downtown Dartmouth.

Atlantic Planners Institute

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This document was last modified on November 30, 2000.