When writers, politicians, and reformers debated over the merits of an agrarian or urban life, the city almost always suffered in comparison.  Its appearance suggested to many the alienation, depersonalization, and demoralization which typified urban living.  City newspapers emphasized the differences between rural and urban ways of life; it fed its readers on murders and scandals, as well as the deplorable state of the poor.  Nevertheless, there were those who clung to a different vision of the city and what it could become.  They talked of ways of altering the physical appearance of the city in order to make it a decent place to live.

            To recapture some of the moral virtues lost in an urban environment, a few far-sighted planners tried to bring the country to the city.  The vision of a garden city had been caught in 1858 when landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux designed Central Park in New York.  Not only was the idea of a planned public park itself almost unprecedented, but also their ingenious and tasteful efforts to accommodate roads, lawns, and buildings to the topography ushered in a new era in landscape design. 

            Several motivations led to the creation of Central Park.  Among these motivations was the desire to improve the conditions of the poor and to display New York's cultivation while improving the health of its citizens.(1)  One of Olmsteds key goals for Central Park was to segregate the Park from the city.  According to Olmsted, this division represented a division of order (tranquility) from disorder (bustle), freedom (spaciousness) from confinement, and refinement (intricacy) from monotony.(2)  The park envisioned by Olmsted and Vaux however, has undergone many significant changes, both favorable and unfavorable.  Central park has also experienced periods of decline; yet in spite of this Central Park continues to be one of the focal points of New York City.