ABSTRACT
In considering how to progress towards a climax urban state, three operational scales become useful: that of the CITY, as an agglomeration of urban centers, districts, and neighborhoods; that of COMMUNITY, as the space within which the lives of discrete populations unfold on a daily basis; and that of BUILDING, as a distinct development program within definable site boundaries. The National Park Service has planned a floodgate near Constitution Avenue to prevent rising waters from extending past the Mall into the city. Places like the National Mall that in parts evoke or reveal a city's founding landscape foreshorten the path between the eye and the soul. Frederick Law Olmsted strategically located and purposefully designed the city's three main parks around specific aspects of the region's ecology: for Cherokee Park, the Bluegrass Savanna and stream valley; for Iroquois Park, the Kentucky Knobs or mountain region; and for Shawnee Park, the Ohio River bottomlands.
