No Single Leader Can Make Thriving Parks Happen Alone
No single leader—or agency—can meet the full potential of parks today.
Once green islands whose boundaries were managed independently, parks today touch other urban infrastructure and need to be managed accordingly. In 2026, a park isn’t just a place to sit; it’s a cooling center, a transit hub, and a public health clinic rolled into one.
Parks and recreation are levers for positive societal change, strengthening ecological, economic, and community systems. To realize this potential, today’s park leaders are embracing a group project mindset. By collaborating with public health agencies, housing authorities, and water districts, cities are finding creative solutions to pressing urban issues that no single agency could solve on its own.
When we stop viewing parks as “nice-to-haves” and start seeing them as infrastructure, their utility expands. A greenway becomes a transit priority, linking bikeshare programs to residences and schools.
Operating beyond silos also drives resiliency in the face of the unexpected, allowing these networks to pivot quickly to provide emergency childcare, shelter, and supplies in response to extreme heat or flooding. In an unpredictable world, our partnerships are our greatest safety net.
City Parks Alliance is the Connective Tissue
Partnerships aren’t an easy solution. They take time, resources, and a skillset that may be new to some, but they are essential to addressing complex, often intractable problems. To support our network, we have created a series of skill-building workshops that help leaders strengthen the effectiveness between public agencies and their private and non-profit partners for greater impact.
As the only independent, multi-sector organization dedicated solely to the future of urban parks, City Parks Alliance serves as the field’s collective voice. We connect and convene a diverse ecosystem: public agencies, city planners, landscape architects, funders, and grassroots advocates.
This intersection of practitioners is where the most vital conversations happen. At our Greater & Greener conference, we facilitate rich conversations in which park and recreation leaders can explore topical issues with other professions and stakeholder groups, both formally and informally.
Our plenary session, New Roles for Park Partners in Disruptive Times, will explore how recent crises, from 9-11 to the pandemic, brought unlikely partners together for rebuilding and healing. After the Burn: Building Back Together After the L.A. Fires features panelists from the Los Angeles County Department of Parks & Recreation and Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority who will share how they leaned into multi-jurisdictional planning and public-private partnerships to recover from the Palisades and Eaton Fires in 2025.
Peer learning at Greater & Greener takes place through 35 peer conversations on topics ranging from Models for Community Impact, to Strategies for Securing Votes for Local Park Taxes to Building Better Boards, or less formally, as attendees join 50 weekend tour and mobile workshops like Partnerships for Public Purpose that link city leaders to each other and to leaders in the places we visit, blending local with national and international perspectives.
The conference is also a chance for leaders from similar types of organizations to share knowledge and problem solve, from mature citywide park nonprofits, to new or emerging conservancies, to new and emerging citywide park nonprofits. And while many issues are common across all cities, the particular challenges of building and sustaining parks in small- to mid-sized cities, or of spurring downtown commercial development, will be the focus of some sessions.
Cohorts of leaders who share similar roles will meet at the conference. A Funders Learning Network peer conversation offers philanthropic leaders the chance to share strategies for transformational investments. A workshop for urban park agency leaders will explore ways to strengthen collaboration with elected representatives, public servants, nonprofit partners, and community leaders with diverse agendas and perspectives. Our Mayors Forum will feature elected officials from Austin, Ft. Worth, Cleveland, and Greenville, SC, discussing how they see parks as a source for solutions.
Connect and Learn at Greater & Greener
Cities are constantly changing, influenced by everything from the economy to extreme weather. As we adapt to these new conditions, a network of diverse perspectives and experiences matters more than ever.
Greater & Greener is the place to build those connections. Join us in Austin for a dynamic four-day exchange that will refresh your practice and inspire your work.
