World National Park

The form and layout of Paxton’s ornamental grounds, structured about an informal lake within the confines of a serpentine carriageway, put in place the essential elements of his much imitated design for Birkenhead Park. The latter was commenced in 1843 with the help of public finance and deployed the ideas he pioneered at Princes Park on a more expansive scale. Frederick Law Olmstead visited Birkenhead Park in 1850 and praised its qualities. Indeed Paxton is widely credited as having been one of the principal influences on Olmstead and Calvert’s design for New York’s Central Park of 1857.
Another early public park is the Peel Park, Salford, England opened on 22 August 1846. Another possible claimant for status as the world's first public park is Boston Common (Boston, Massachusetts, USA), set aside in 1634, whose first recreational promenade, Tremont Mall, dates from 1728. True park status for the entire common seems to have emerged no later than 1830, when the grazing of cows was ended and renaming the Common as Washington Park was proposed (renaming the bordering Sentry Street to Park Street in 1808 already acknowledged the reality).
Parks can be divided into active and passive recreation. Active recreation is that which require intensive development and often involves cooperative or team activity, including playgrounds, ball fields and skateparks. Passive recreation is that which emphasizes the open-space aspect of a park and which involves a low level of development, including picnic areas and trails.
Many smaller neighborhood parks are receiving increased attention and valuation as significant community assets and places of refuge in heavily populated urban areas. Neighborhood groups around the world are joining together to support local parks that have suffered from urban decay and government neglect.