Research has demonstrated that urban residents need access to greenspaces. Residents derive important benefits from greenspace, including physical and mental health benefits, and emotional and spiritual benefits among others (e.g. increased levels of physical activity, mental restoration, and improved socialisation). For the past two hundred years, formal green spaces such as parks and recreation areas have served this function well. But we have entered a period od epochal change on a planetary scale - where unprecendented rates of urbanization are concentrating most of the world's population in cities. Globally, rapid urban development has been accompanied by environmental degradation and a loss of access to green and open spaces, with concomitant impacts on residents' health and wellbeing, as well as biodiversity loss. Parks no longer seem up to the task of meeting residents' greenspace needs.