September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 34

OVERCOMING
BARRIERS
TO PARK EQUITY
How parks and recreation can address
historical inequities on multiple fronts
By Jai Cole
P
ark equity is having its renaissance right now. I have been working
toward equity for a while, and during the first 20 years of my career
I didn't see a fraction of the movement toward racial equity in
parks as I've seen since 2020. A lot of things happened that year:
Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, protests, the impeachment trial, derechos,
wildfires, murder hornets, locust swarms and more. Amid all those things, I
believe it was the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that pushed equity into
the forefront. It had never been more apparent than during the pandemic
what a lifeline parks are to our communities - and just how paralyzing the
pandemic was for communities without equitable access to parks.
According to the Trust for Public
Land (TPL), in the 100 most populated
cities, neighborhoods where
most residents are people of color
have access to an average of 44
percent less park acreage than predominantly
white neighborhoods
(tinyurl.com/yc3f8mpw). In addition,
parks that serve a majority
of people of color are half as large
and serve five times as many people
as parks that serve a majority
white population. Further, parks
that
serve primarily low-income
households are, on average, four
times smaller than parks that serve
a majority of high-income house34
Parks & Recreation | SEP T EMBER 2 0 2 3
holds. There have been important
correlations found nationwide between
the quality and access to urban
parks and the income and racial
diversity of the surrounding community
(tinyurl.com/y54asddz;
tinyurl.com/ytp2w6ps).
This
is a problem, but how did
this happen?
Redlining
On Tuesday, October 20, 1929, the
stock market dropped 22 percent,
and the Great Depression began.
Across
the
country, 15 million
people became unemployed, the
Dust Bowl drove farmers into the
| PARK S ANDRECRE AT ION . OR G
cities to compete for the limited
amount of work, and homelessness
and poverty were widespread.
Bread lines and soup kitchens became
the norm. While President
Herbert Hoover didn't believe that
the government should have a direct
role in creating jobs or bolstering
the economy, his successor,
Franklin D. Roosevelt,
believed
the opposite. In very short order,
he was elected in 1932 and then
created the New Deal. The New
Deal brought us some of our most
recognizable infrastructure projects
across the country, like the Hoover
Dam on the border of Nevada and
Arizona, New York's Triborough
Bridge, LaGuardia Airport and
the Lincoln Tunnel, and the Bay
Bridge in San Francisco. It created
jobs, brought women into the
workforce, and for us park folks, it
created the Civilian Conservation

http://tinyurl.com/y54asddz http://tinyurl.com/ytp2w6ps http://tinyurl.com/yc3f8mpw

September 2023 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2023 - Parks & Recreation

September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - Intro
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - Cover1
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - Cover2
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 1
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 2
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 3
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 4
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 5
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 6
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 7
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 8
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 9
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 10
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 11
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 12
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 13
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 14
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 15
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 16
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 17
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 18
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 19
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 20
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 21
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 22
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 23
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 24
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 25
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 26
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 27
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 28
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 29
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 30
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 31
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 32
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 33
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 34
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 35
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 36
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 37
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 38
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 39
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 40
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 41
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 42
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 43
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 44
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 45
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 46
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 47
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 48
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 49
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 50
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 51
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 52
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 53
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 54
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 55
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 56
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - Cover3
September 2023 - Parks & Recreation - Cover4
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/september-2023
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/august-2023
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/july-2023
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/june-2023
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/may-2023
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/april-2023
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/march-2023
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/february-2023
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/january-2023
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/december-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/november-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/october-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/september-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/august-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/july-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/june-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/may-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/april-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/march-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/february-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/january-2022
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/december-2021
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/november-2021
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/october-2021
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/september-2021
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/august-2021
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/july-2021
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/june-2021
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/may-2021
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/april-2021
https://ezine.nrpa.org/nrpa/ParksRecreationMagazine/march-2021
https://www.nxtbookmedia.com