Wuhan, capital city of Central China’s Hubei province, is going ever greener with plans to add 100 more so-called pocket parks in 2020, according to the city’s greening plan for the current year.
Local officials said it will be the largest scale construction of pocket parks in Wuhan city.
The pocket park is a new concept that has evolved in recent years. They are mainly created by using unbuilt urban green space, idle land and urban micro-spaces. Officials said that, typically, it is a small-scale public space that has a certain functional flexible use.
For example, in the event of a major natural disaster, they can be used to temporarily accommodate disaster relief tents and as a venue to distribute disaster relief materials.
According to Wuhan garden and forestry bureau officials, the area of the pocket park ranges from 300 to 5,000 square meters, many of which are built using leftover land parcels and materials in the wake of urban land development. The site selection is flexible and the construction period is short.
Since 2017, Wuhan has added an average of about 40 pocket parks annually. After the completion of this year’s 100 pocket parks, the total number of Wuhan’s pocket parks will exceed 200.
