Show Me the Green: A Comparative Study of the Value Ascribed to Philadelphia Neighborhood Pocket Parks

Abstract

This thesis is an evaluation of Philadelphia pocket parks, a small urban green space form, and their capacity to take on various socio-spatial meanings. To evaluate this ability, my data collected includes interviews with individuals involved in the upkeep across four park sites, observational visits, and textual analysis of online and print materials. The findings display the ability of pocket parks to take on representational and intrinsic values for their local communities; however, these can work in tandem with or push against the distributional effects they have on their surroundings, largely their role in gentrification. The neighborhood’s developmental phase, the involvement of community members in the imagining process, and the design of the space are highly determinant of how these projects are conceptualized. These findings hold implications for the ways in which individuals make sense of the public/private spatial divide, community cohesion, and the future of their neighborhoods.