In the age of video games and attention deficit disorder, "open space" is a dirty phrase. Open space in America's parks is being wiped out, revised, or populated by new structures and parking lots. Municipal officials, wrongly, tend to see it as a void that must be filled, "programmed" to amuse all comers. With the rise of bottom-up planning, community representatives now decide, ex cathedra, that in order for our parks to succeed, they must have ten "focal" points and "ten things to do at each focal point," to quote the website of the Project for Public Spaces, a nonprofit in New York City.

Earlier this year, I visited several urban parks around the country: Rochester, N.Y.'s Seneca Park, Atlanta's Piedmont Park, and New Orleans' City and Audubon parks, among others. I found them under siege from a variety of culprits, including zoo expansions (proposed for both Rochester and New Orleans' Audubon); new parking lots (one is planned for Atlanta); and new "destination features," like a sculpture garden in New Orleans' City Park. These parks' collective plight left me dispirited and angry. When was it decided that strolling under a dappled canopy of trees, or over a sloping lawn, is not a sufficient experience in its own right? When did we stop valuing the sound of running water, the humanizing scale and tactile marvels of nature? Who still appreciates historic, moss-covered walls and paths or a landscape designer's choice of plants and ornaments?