At City Parks Alliance, we believe excellent urban park systems are critical infrastructure for equitable, resilient, and thriving cities. We focus on the design, funding, building, programming, operations, and stewardship of parks and how they support related urban systems and public policy goals. Parks today are not just a collection of disparate assets in a […]
At the Park Circle Playground in North Charleston, South Carolina, kids can explore a sensory tunnel full of colors, lights, and textures, wide enough for a wheelchair and stimulating yet calming. This sensory tunnel is part of the world’s largest inclusive playground, a place where people of all abilities and ages can be engaged, challenged, […]
As a park and recreation planner with an eye for new technology, I’ve made a two-decade long career of looking into the future. I serve as Director of Digital Engagement at MIG, a planning, design, communications, and technology consulting firm. We were hired by City Parks Alliance to support the Parks and Technology Initiative, examining the opportunities […]
Tower Grove Park in St. Louis, MO, has long been an urban park where history, nature, culture, and community converge. And now, with an innovative stream restoration project, it is a model of how green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) can make public spaces more vibrant, sustainable, and equitable. More than just a physical upgrade, the East Stream […]
The past few years have thrown parks into the spotlight. Parks are safe havens, critical urban infrastructure, and manifestations of equity, or too often the lack thereof, in our cities. The COVID-19 pandemic, the national reckoning with racial equity and justice, and the impacts of climate change have all highlighted the vital role urban parks […]
“Parks make our cities work.” I shared those words at a press conference in late November on the steps of the US Capitol building, calling for passage of the Outdoors for All Act. The legislation would codify much-needed funding for park projects in underserved urban communities. It has yet to pass Congress but is the […]
P.S. 162 John Golden in Queens, New York and Fairview Park in Ohio City (Cleveland, Ohio) are two neighborhood parks that hold a special place in my heart. At P.S. 162 in my hometown, I learned how to ride a bike, played tag and then handball, and simply hung out. It was the neighborhood backyard. […]
Originally published at Governing. Photo credit: Flickr/Bart Everson. In recent decades, once-struggling cities have been reimagining themselves by evolving from 20th-century-style manufacturing centers to 21st-century hubs of commerce and culture. While each city realizes its own evolution in its own way, one important ingredient of these transformations is consistent among them all: city parks. Like the […]