You wouldn’t necessarily notice, not unless you’ve had a particular reason to be paying attention, but the US has way more golf courses than the industry and its enthusiasts can support. Once-flourishing fairways, greens, and clubhouses are being decommissioned all over the place, leaving communities with empty land, sometimes contaminated from years of intensive chemical applications designed to maintain greens and fairways in an artificially pristine condition. Adding insult to injury, in many cases these vacant sites are now attracting illegal dumping and crime. Something needs to change.

Can this surplus land be repurposed in a way that helps give our suburbs a stronger sense of place, that contributes nonsprawling infill development and, at the same time, better-ordered public green space and ecological services? A few signs are starting to point in that direction.

via Could Placemaking Become the New Golf? Repurposing Obsolete Courses | F. Kaid Benfield.