Every tree fixed with a purpose: Contesting value in Olmsted's parks

Abstract

Olmsted was an influential landscape architect whose works include many parks, recreation grounds and more. Inspired by Romantic and transcendentalist thinkers, he developed ‘pastoral transcendentalism’, a style of designing parks that mimicked natural spaces to reproduce their values within cities. Although environmental justice scholars have pointed out how these designs limit access to parks, I argue that environmental philosophers have not adequately discussed Olmsted, particularly his axiology of nature. Reflecting on it reveals how environmental injustice consists not only of restricting access to nature to protect its essential value – for Olmsted, scenery that could induce a contemplative mindset – but in delimiting nature's value without consideration of how people actually appreciate it.