I like the London practice of having a small square of park in the center among the homes. Although it seems a practice of wealthier urban areas, the parks are gated, the home owners have a key and they pay for the upkeep. I don't know how common this is. NYC Central Park is beautiful and vast, but sometimes I wonder if cities need more smaller little parks. There's a lovely lawn behind Rodin's house in Paris where people go and stretch out, tall trees on the perimeter and open space, it's very beautiful and relaxing to view.

Parks and gardens seem an afterthoughts in American urban planning. The National and state parks are gems but not accessible near the cities.

Edited to add, there's a very good Economist article about building miniature forests in cities, I can't find it right now but here's an article that was referenced: https://daily.jstor.org/the-miyawaki-method-a-better-way-to-...

Somebody mentioned Rome downstream, one more thing I love about Rome, all the public fountain water is potable. There's something so awesome about going to the fountain and getting water that you can drink. (Native Romans, don't crush my dreams by telling me I was a dumb tourist and who knows what I drank when I took my chances with the public fountains.)