Growing up—and green, too?

Posted on by Kathleen Pierson

Thanks for the [master-plan] article last week [“City Asks for Opinions, Gets a Rally and an Overflow Crowd,” May 14], and thanks for including the photo of Laura Thomas’ model of the proposed [hotel] building. Gazing at that model, with its vast, flat roof space, gave me the craziest idea: Since Asheville could indeed use more downtown green space, and since we probably will have numerous multistory buildings added to the downtown architecture over the years, what if there were green-space public gardens on top of the new buildings, with exterior glass-wall, mountain-view elevators for access? This could add green space up above the traffic and capitalize on the unique views!

There must be good reasons why I’ve not seen it suggested, and those of you who know those reasons are probably guffawing at my naiveté—but gosh, with these views it could be so beautiful to have multiple rooftop, leafy public-park spaces around town, overlooking everything.

There are hundreds of online images of such rooftop-garden designs in NYC and Chicago and elsewhere. I wonder if maybe public green space up above could be an Asheville idea to, um, cultivate?

— Kathleen Pierson
Asheville

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One thought on “Growing up—and green, too?”

  1. Alan7

    Because it will help the environment more to use the money for contraception, same for the newsprint. Title X is not all contraception.

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