Symposia and Workshops

The Urban Greenspaces Institute took a lead role in planning and carrying out the 2003 Olmsted centennial symposium at Portland State University.
In his 1903 Portland Park Masterplan, which John Charles Olmsted, presented to the citizen park board, he advocated for a comprehensive, interconnected park system.

John Charles Olmsted’s 1903 Portland park master plan, which called for the creation of a comprehensive system of parks, trails, natural areas, boulevards, and parkways remains the inspiration for our modern day regional parks, Greenspaces, and trails planning.

Urban Ecology and Conservation Symposium

The Institute is a co-founder of the Urban Ecosystem Research Consortium (UERC), which annually hosts an Urban Ecology and Conservation Symposium that brings together people from the academic, nonprofit, and agency communities to share their research on the urban ecosystem, with an emphasis on research in the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region.

2008 Keynote Speaker, Dr. Stan Ghert, Ohio State University, describes his research on urban coyotes in Chicago, IL

Joe Blowers, local school teacher, questions a 2008 Urban Ecology and Conservation Speaker

January 26, 2009 will be the seventh annual symposium, which will be hosted at Portland State University. Information on how to submit abstracts:
Jennifer Thompson, jennifer_thompson@fws.gov or call 503-231-6179); Alan Yeakley, Portland State University Environmental Sciences and Research Program, yeakley@pdx.edu or call 503-725-8040.

The Institute works with multiple partners to plan and conduct conferences, symposia, workshops and other public forums to bring urban park and greenspace experts from around the world to share information with the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan region and to share our experiences with others.

Olmsted Symposium
In 2003 the Urban Greenspaces Institute, working with Portland Parks and Recreation, the Portland Park Board, Portland State University’s Geography Department, American Society of Landscape Architects, Seattle’s Friends of Seattle’s Olmsted Parks, hosted the Olmsted Landscape Legacy, 1903 to 2003 symposium at Portland State University. More than 300 park and trail advocates came together in Portland and Seattle to celebrate the centennial of John Charles Olmsted’s park master plans for Portland and Seattle.

John Charles Olmsted, adopted son of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., was invited to Portland by the citizen park board. Olmsted's visionary plan for a comprehensive, interconnected park system remains an inspiration to modern park planners, In his report Olmsted noted, "Marked economy in municipal development may also be effected by laying out parkways and park, while land is cheap, so as to embrace streams that carry at times more water than can be taken care of by drain pipes of ordinary size. Thus brooks or little rivers which would otherwise become nuisances that would some day have to be put in large underground conduits at enormous expense, may be made the occasion for delightful local pleasure grounds or attractive parkways."

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