The Queen’s Park Savannah is another great attraction of the
city as it hosts many activities such as recreational sports, military events
and carnival festivities. In addition, it helps to promote the informal sector
of the city where vendors make a living around the park area. The photo above
captures the essence of the park as a man is seen exercising making use of the
public space available to him. There are also many cars parked around the
savannah and this indicates that the area is indeed a busy one and the savannah
area breaks the monotony of the busy city life as it offers a green and
leisurely environment.
This area together
with the botanical gardens can be seen as the urban green space of the city
promoting eco-tourism in the mitts of the hustle and bustle of the urban area
(Hall 2012). The savannah is also known as being the largest roundabout in the
world with a circumference of 3.5km and is Port-of- Spain’s largest public
space, a very important component in an urban area. The benches seen in the
photo conveys the public space that is openly accessible to citizens as it they
were placed there to facilitate recreational purposes. These urban green spaces
can be seen in many major cities around the world as open public spaces where a lot of social interactions
occur and so is a major component to a city.
According to Banerjee 2001, historically, these parks were
originally placed in the urban city to serve the upper elite as ‘pleasure
grounds’ in the early 19th century as they resided around the city. As
the savannah is located opposite the Magnificent 7, this statement was seen to
be somewhat true as only the elites and wealthy persons lived around the
savannah area. However, presently in the city this space can be used by everyone
as there is no particular restriction to the area and anyone from any social
status can enjoy the space.
References
Banerjee, Tridib. 2001. “The future of public space: Beyond
invented streets and reinvented places.”
Journal of the American Planning Association
(67): 9-24
Hall,T. 2012. Urban Geography 4th Edition. New York:
Routledge.
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