What does progress sound like? It will be heard when the wrecking ball hits the buildings along Locust Street and Grand Avenue between 13th and 15th streets in preparation for the Western Gateway Park. Fourteen years in the planning, the $30.5 million park will make downtown infinitely more livable and enjoyable.

Dismissed as a frill unworthy of public funding by some, the park is a sound investment that strongly bolsters Des Moines’ economic development efforts. Though still in the planning stages at the time the downtown building boom began, the Western Gateway Park has been cited as a major factor in the decisions by businesses such as Meredith Corp., Allied Insurance and ING Groep NV to expand or build downtown.

That was hardly a fluke. Study after study shows that economic development activities follow the creation of urban parks, greenbelts and other open spaces. Gone are the days when urban planners tried to fill every parcel of real estate with bricks and mortar and when parks were amenities restricted to suburbs and small towns.

But the Western Gateway Park is more than an incentive for businesses to build nearby. It represents a growing awareness that urban spaces should be geared for pleasure as well as business. Park development figures strongly into the plan for more downtown housing and provides anecdotal evidence that a one-pronged approach to make the city more attractive to residents won’t work. Like the new library, science center, events center, proposed riverwalk and other attractions, the park is a piece in a jigsaw puzzle that ultimately will offer a picture of a downtown full of life.

The park development represents the reversal of a trend that caused many people to flee to the suburbs in the first place. Quality of life is a nebulous concept, but one point upon which most people agree is that downtown residents both crave and need the sanctuary that open spaces provide. Without a park, downtown is like an ice-cream cone without the ice cream – an empty shell that provides a modicum of sustenance, but little enjoyment.

To those who opposed the Western Gateway plan, the roar of the heavy equipment will hardly be musical. To us, though, it is a sweet rhythm that keeps time with the cadence of a city teeming with life.