The Renegade’s Guide to Dallas Parks
We’d like to know what parks you love – why you love them, how you use them and how they could be better. Tell us where you congregate. No space is too small.
When we first conceived of this park project, we thought that the four of us on RenegadeBus could somehow swathe the city, going to every single city park and green space, observe how each worked, and create a huge, glorious catalogue of Dallas park-life. We realized that plan would prove a mite too ambitious for a number of reasons, but we also noted one (the most) compelling factor: Parks are best when come back to again and again, when they function like an extension of our own backyards, and when we find ourselves somehow feeling entitled to the space and recreation they afford. Who are we to talk about any park that we don’t know intimately? Good parks, and even not so good ones, bring us out of the hobbit holes of private life and into a public arena that exposes us to strangers and offers an escape from routine, or silence, or noise, or cubicles, or white walls and concrete, or the swing set you paid a lot for but your kids are already bored of. Parks have the unparalleled ability to make us all need the same thing at the same time in a myriad of ways, and each reason nearly always proves to be beneficial.
Shoot, we’re not talking about the Agora here, but we tend to think that parks make cities better. So. We’d like to know what parks you love – why you love them, how you use them and how they could be better. Tell us your anecdotes of times spent in public parks, green spaces, or even public concrete places (since we seem to have plenty). Tell us where you congregate with pets or kids or all on your lonesome and why you choose to be there. No space is too small.
We started the process with Kidd Springs Park in Oak Cliff. To participate in this ongoing cataloging of Dallas parks, post your comments to this article or send us an email with photos to editor@renegadebusdallas.com. As your thoughts and images come in, we will add them to the individual park pages. Below is a preliminary list of this city’s parks, but by no means restrain yourself to the spaces listed below.
Glad you started with Kidd Springs Park. I love walking there with my hubby and dog. Did some research on the Japanese/Chinese garden there so that so needs to be adopted by some good citizens and brought back to the original splendor that had been donated by Lamberts way back when.
Just back from walking the new trail at Kessler Parkway…that’s a wonderful respite for those of us in North Oak Cliff.
I spend many days walking White Rock Lake and the Katy Trail as well.
18 May 2009 at 7:26 pm