Public parks are now ubiquitous features of the landscape of most cities in the developed and developing world. They are more or less taken-for-granted and familiar social spaces in towns and cities, providing opportunities for a variety of leisure and recreational functions and activities in the everyday lives of most urban inhabitants. The historical origins of modern urban parks lie in a complex of social, economic, and political factors that coalesced in the nineteenth century around the need to address the perceived problems of the degradation and pollution of the environment of cities. It was considered that this dilapidation and deprivation was having deleterious consequences on the medical and moral health of expanding urban populations and thus contributing to the creation of potentially revolutionary conditions. ...