From today's editorial:

A community's parks are sometimes compared to a person's lungs. Lungs take up a lot of space, because they need room to perform their dynamic function – breathe in, breathe out – and people with compromised lungs often feel as if they are suffocating.

Drive through the core of Coeur d'Alene, and you'll see construction cranes everywhere. Buildings are on the rise in Boom Town, USA. The building boom could feel suffocating were it not for the city's 21 parks.

Last week, Coeur d'Alene added a new one. It's called Riverstone Park, because it's part of Riverstone, a housing and retail development just off Northwest Boulevard. The 11-acre park features a man-made lake, an amphitheater, walking trail, playground, 600 shrubs and 1,000 aquatic plants.
Developer John Stone described what the area looked like before the park plan came to be. "There was a mined-out gravel pit and a couple of dead horses. We had some major reclamation to do."

What green space near you would you most like to preserve?

(Tony Wadden photos)

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