Given the growing interest in landscape urbanism in Indian architectural discourse, this article critically examines the history and impact of its most prominent embodiment, New York’s High Line public park. Landscape urbanism has not contributed to social justice, political emancipation, or ecologically saner designs, as its proponents have argued. Instead, while small privately developed parks like the High Line have cornered most resources flowing to New York’s parklands, far larger parks in poorer areas face a decline due to dwindling public investment.

Neuroscientists study social risk factor for mental illness.

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110622/full/474429a.html

Well-planned urban green landscapes, including wildscapes and green spaces, have the potential to contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Yet for cities in low-income countries, the value of these urban landscapes in climate change response strategies is often disregarded and remains largely unexploited and unaccounted for. This paper discusses the potential role of urban green landscapes as a “soft engineering” climate change response strategy, and calls for the pursuance of management practices that preserve and promote the use of these urban spaces.

Floating gardening, a form of hydroponics using aquatic plants as the medium, is a traditional cultivation system in southern Bangladesh practiced for year-rouund seedling and vegetable production. The livelihoods of marginalized people of the wetlands in North-eastern Bangladesh are often constrained by 7-8 months water stagnation due to floods. A pioneering attempt at scaling up floating gardening in this haor region coincided with repeated, devastated floods in 2007.