Resources

Resources for Park and Recreation Professionals

With help from our members and research partners, we make the following resources and tools available to equip parks and recreation departments, municipalities, urban design and landscape architecture firms, and advocacy organizations to enhance capacity and build equitable, healthy, and engaged communities.

  • Report

    Ecology for Health: Design Guidance for Fostering Human Health and Biodiversity in Cities

    San Francisco Estuary Institute

    This document provides science-based guidance for designing urban spaces that foster both human health and urban biodiversity.

  • Report

    Resilient Cities at the Intersection of Climate and Health

    Resilient Cities Network and Yale University

    2023 survey of city leaders to identify priorities in climate and health, capacity and existing infrastructure, and opportunities for collaboration.

  • Report

    Fundamentals of Funding for Local Parks and Greenspace

    Trust for Public Land

    TPL’s 10-Minute Walk Program has compiled a list of common funding mechanisms for parks, along with a high-level summary of what they can fund.

  • Technical Tool

    The Spectrum of Community Engagement to Ownership

    Facilitating Power; Movement Strategy Center

    Leaders across multiple sectors can use this spectrum to assess and revolutionize community engagement efforts to advance community-driven solutions.

  • Report

    Managing High-Quality Parks Environments: Models and Lessons from Selected Parks in New York City, Chicago, and Cincinnati

    University of Buffalo

    This report examines the management features of the 21 parks to identify lessons for how to create and maintain a premier waterfront gathering place.

  • Report

    Associations of Greenness, Parks, and Blue Space With Neurodegenerative Disease Hospitalizations Among Older US Adults

    JAMA Network Open

    A study of Medicare beneficiaries suggests that nature may also help protect against the risk of developing certain neurodegenerative disorders.

  • Case Study

    Inequalities in urban greenness and epigenetic aging: Different associations by race and neighborhood socioeconomic status

    Science Advances

    This research article studies the association between exposure to greenness and epigenetic aging in a large, biracial U.S. urban cohort.

  • Report

    2022 Outdoor Participation Trends Report

    Outdoor Foundation

    This research study examines interest in outdoor recreation after the COVID pandemic disruption.

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