One might consider an ideal series of parks as you might a great water system, using the metaphor of green water in massive lakes emptying into larger reverse and small creeks, rushing narrowly over waterfalls and following placidly and broadly through the flat countryside in a continuous sequence of parklands. Then it curls around and through cities in man-determined forms, held back by reservoirs, channeled over aqueducts and finally rising -- as in Rome, in fountains, small ones in dusty corners and large, baroque ones in mighty plazas. Thus, the fields and trees of parks should be, as water, not scattered oases such as Yosemite, but a weaving, interconnected green mass that changes in size and purpose, but always inter-penetrates forcibly but gently the urban, suburban, and rural scene.

William M. Roth