National Historic Landmark Village of Riverside, IL, represents the quintessential American suburb designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in 1869. This pioneering plan is a joy to experience every day. Residents, however, must balance the goals of preservation with the demands of new technologies, recreation, climate change, shifting demographics and social trends. Decisions made in Riverside intimately and insistently affect residents’ daily lives. After 15 decades, what challenges have been met, and what contests remain?
Join Riverside resident and author Cathy Maloney as she explores how Riverside’s layout and design presaged today’s urban planning goals of walkability, green space, public transportation access, sustainability and resiliency. Just ten miles west of Chicago, Riverside offers a sylvan haven from the bustling metropolis, its winding roads and lush greenspace a relief from the concrete grid.
Drawing from her book, Olmsted’s Riverside: Stewardship Meets Innovation in a Landmark Village, Maloney provides engaging examples of how citizen involvement can protect a community’s ideals. From the earliest threat of mosquitoes to mammoth floodwalls contemplated today, discover the triumphs and trials of stewarding this historic masterpiece.
Cathy Jean Maloney is a landscape historian and author of six books on garden and environmental history. She is a frequent lecturer including keynote addresses for the Smithsonian Institute, the Garden Conservancy and various venues across the country. For more than 20 years, as Senior Editor of Chicagoland Gardening magazine, she developed, sourced, wrote and reviewed articles on the region’s horticulture and natural spaces. Ms. Maloney chaired the Landscape Advisory Commission in historic Riverside, Illinois; managing stakeholder interests and creating the Master Landscape Plan for the Village, spearheading the effort for the Village’s certification as a Level II Arboretum and expanding outreach and education through multiple new programs and events. She also served on the historic Prairie Club board, leading a team to create a Land Management plan for the organization’s 1930s camp in the Michigan dunes. She teaches at The Morton Arboretum and the Chicago Botanic Garden, has appeared on numerous radio and TV shows and writes for national and regional publications. In her early career with Accenture, she managed hundreds of change management, systems and process consulting projects for Fortune 500 or large nonprofit organizations. She and her husband live in the Gardener’s Cottage in Riverside, a Frank Lloyd Wright home with Jens Jensen landscape.
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