Why Attend Greater & Greener

The Premier Event for Urban Park Professionals

A group of conference attendees listening to a female tour guide in a university park

Greater & Greener is the only conference dedicated to exploring the full potential of parks as city-building tools. It’s a conference for doers from government, nonprofits, and communities who are utilizing the power of parks to create more sustainable, vibrant, and equitable cities.

Greater & Greener is an exciting blend of indoor sessions and outdoor experiences that bring the power of parks to life. The highly curated agenda sets tables for honest, cross-sector dialogue with others doing hands-on work. Attendees will take home strategies and tools for using parks to build more sustainable, vibrant, and equitable cities.

With dozens of sessions and over 1,200 attendees, including urban park leaders, planning and design professionals, public officials, nonprofits, community-based organizations, advocates, and funders, Greater & Greener is a value-packed learning opportunity.

Reasons to attend

reason #1:
Address the Major Issues Facing Parks and Cities

Greater & Greener is the only conference solely dedicated to exploring the role of parks, recreation, and green space in building better cities. Conference tracks will explore:

Parks as Resilient Infrastructure
Sustaining Park Funding in Turbulent Times
Parks & Equitable Community Development
Parks’ Roles in Healthy & Inclusive Communities

By attending, you will take home actionable strategies and tools related to the biggest challenges facing park professionals today.

reason #2
Invest in Your Career and Earn Continuing Education Credits

Greater & Greener 2026 offers invaluable opportunities for professional development and continuing education, allowing you to grow your knowledge base and maintain career-advancing certifications.

reason #3
Hands-on Learning & Networking Opportunities

Through a unique blend of weekend tours, mobile workshops, panels, peer conversations, and general sessions, Greater & Greener explores the connections to nature in your own cities. The conference also provides valuable networking opportunities with park leaders from different sectors across the country and around the world.

reason #4
Experience Austin’s Parks & Recreation System Firsthand

At Greater & Greener 2026, you will experience the unique Austin Parks and Recreation system and the vibrant and diverse city in which it resides. Enjoy expert-led tours and workshops highlighting our conference tracks. You’ll learn about local projects and initiatives and meet the partners and innovators behind these creative approaches.

download reasons to attend

The best thing about Greater & Greener is the diversity of professionals from all disciplines within city, state, and national government. You meet people that you don’t typically and you see people that are doing amazing work across the country on all different levels.

Al Bangoura

Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board

This experience was life-changing. I was able to network with people who felt similarly to me about the communities we serve and the environment we live in.

Melissa Eakright

Green Team Member, Groundwork NRG

Greater & Greener is one of my most anticipated conferences. Beyond a celebration of parks, the sessions, presenters, and experiencing park life and innovation in the host cities via tours and visits are creatively crafted, well done, and always a delight. I learn more at this meeting from colleagues from all walks of ‘park’ life than any other place. The network I foster become trusted colleagues and a great resource who elevate my work in parks in every way imaginable!

Frederick R. Bonci

President, LBA Landscape Architecture

One of the great things about the Greater & Greener conference is that we get to bring people from different broad-based networks together to share ideas and innovation. And what’s unique about this conference is that people walk away with the tools that they need to get projects implemented.

Maria Nardi

Former Director, Miami-Dade County Parks and Recreation and Open Space Department

There’s no gathering for our field of practice like Greater & Greener. It is the single largest, single best organized, most generative, and most exciting gathering of the field of urban park management practitioners. I leave every time I come with a dozen new ideas that I’m excited to try and I know that’s the experience that every other participant is having as well.

Maura Lout

Chief People Officer, Brooklyn Bridge Park

Our Cleveland cohort found the whole experience to be tremendously valuable and look forward to bringing the momentum and ideas from the conference back home to support our local work.

Stephen Love

Program Director, Cleveland Foundation

We’re really pleased to be a sponsor. I can just see the energy that people have toward improving their own park systems and their communities.

Rick Olson

Chairman and CEO, The Toro Company

The Greater & Greener conference is one of the most unique conferences we have in the parks world. This is something you have to go to every other year. You walk away with knowledge and also the experience of being in some of the great park systems in this country.

Mitchell Silver

Principal, McAdams

We came back from Greater & Greener inspired, energized, and full of innovative ideas for Los Angeles.

Carolyn Ramsay

Former Executive Director, Los Angeles Parks Foundation

The Premier Event for Urban Park Professionals

Reasons to attend

reason #1:Address the Major Issues Facing Parks and Cities

reason #2Invest in Your Career and Earn Continuing Education Credits

reason #3Hands-on Learning & Networking Opportunities

reason #4Experience Austin’s Parks & Recreation System Firsthand

reason #1:
Address the Major Issues Facing Parks and Cities

reason #2
Invest in Your Career and Earn Continuing Education Credits

reason #3
Hands-on Learning & Networking Opportunities

reason #4
Experience Austin’s Parks & Recreation System Firsthand