Consider Balboa Park

Balboa Park is an urban park of 1200 acres in San Diego, southern California, USA.

In 1868, the City of San Diego set aside land for the park. Balboa Park is famous for its horticultural treasures – eight gardens set among lawns, trees, or nestled in within peaceful vistas.

The Park is also a large cultural complex, housing over 85 cultural and recreational institutions including 15 museums and various performing arts groups.

In 1985, the Balboa Park Endowment Fund was established by the Pratt Memorial Fund and California First Bank. An online campaign to support for this park forever can be found at Foreverpark.org

Supporters of the Great Park are encouraged to visit the website of Forever Park, a support site aimed at preserving Balboa Park forever. Maybe we can learn something from this example about (a) how to develop a great park,(b) how to develop a long term vision for that design, and (c) how to raise funds effectively.

It may be just as important to imagine what the Great Park can be as it is to fight for land on which to build the Park. Even if all the land we hope for is made available, the Great Park will require a long term vision to reach its full potential.

The Park will always be - and should always be - a work-in-progress, as the Auckland region itself changes over time.

Being a "work-in-progress' does not mean that the Park must be forever "incomplete" or not yet at its full potential. The continuous but gradual working and reworking of a Great Park could become a major and positive contributor to the ecological and social dynamics of our region.