Best Urban Landscaping

University of Arizona

For those among the 30,000-plus students and several thousand faculty and staff--if they can take a bookworm break or stop gawking at coeds long enough to look around this place they call home away from home--the UA campus is educational eye candy from an environmental point of view. Red brick buildings, some traditional, some modernistic, provide color contrast for the year-round green-grass malls leading east from Old Main fountain toward the public art installations at University Boulevard and Campbell Avenue. One little known fact that won't be found on any pop quiz is that the campus is an arboretum and home to more than 500 individual plant species. An electronic preview can be found by logging on to arboretum.arizona.edu. The real thing can be seen just by looking around on your next trip to campus.

Runners up:

2. Tucson Botanical Gardens, 2150 N. Alvernon Way

3. Mountain Avenue