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Bring Urgency to Parks in Urban Areas

Bring Urgency to Parks in Urban Areas

Have an idea for this challenge? If you haven't already, be sure to join the site (upper right hand corner) and post up your thoughts below!

How can The Trust For Public Land bring urgency to the importance of having parks in urban areas? Please post ideas, comment to engage other contributors, share resources and ask friends to sign up at http://www.ChangeAgentsUnite.com!

CHALLENGE DETAILS: Parks have the power to transform our communities for the better. They promote exercise, combating an epidemic of diseases related to inactivity; they strengthen local economies, build neighborhood ties and help reduce crime; and they offer our children the chance to experience nature close to home. Given the economic, social and political climate, how does this become a priority?

ORGANIZATION OVERVIEW: The Trust for Public Land (TPL) is a national nonprofit that conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, gardens, historic sites, rural lands, and other natural places. We work from the inner city to the wilderness, ensuring livable communities for generations to come.

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PRIZE SPONSOR:Columbia Sportswear - a leading innovator in the global outdoor apparel, footwear, accessories and equipment industries ( http://www.columbia.com/ ).
PRIZE RECIPIENT DETAILS: The Trust for Public Land will reward two individuals whose ideas help most.
CHALLENGE END DATE: 12pm PT on June 22, 2012

PRIZE YOU CAN WIN: Your choice of one of these two jackets - Men’s Sawyer Creek Softshell in abyss/squash MSRP $140 each http://bit.ly/sb2r8i and Women’s Hot to Trot Softshell in oxide blue MSRP $130 each http://bit.ly/vMRyWk
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Latest activity

  1. Courtney Timm

    Congratulations to the winners! Posted by: Courtney Timm

    • On Aug 1, 2012, 11:25:15 AM Central Daylight Time
    • Topics: (None)

    Congratulations to Chris Dennet and Adrian Down! Your idea has been selected as a winner by The Trust for Public Land for the "Bring Urgency to Parks in Urban Areas" challenge and you will be rewarded. The challenge sponsor, Columbia Sportswear, has been contacted and will be in touch with you to sort out the details on getting the prize in your hands. If no contact has been made by August 15th, please let us know.

    Thank you for being a Change Agent!

  2. Chris Dennett

    Create Engagement & Measure the Value Posted by: Chris Dennett

    • On Nov 23, 2011, 1:04:03 PM Central Standard Time
    • Topics: (None)

    In order to maintain the importance of protecting and increasing urban public space in today economic and political climate, The Trust For Public Land will need to assign an economic value to urban parks and space. The urban commons need to be recognized for the services they provide: mitigation of climate change and urban pollution control, maintenance of water quality and storm water run-off, and cultural services, including recreation, maintenance of historical or iconic landscapes, and the long-term savings of preventing sedentary diseases in today’s children.

    The field of Ecosystem Services has produced many assessments that show that urban public space is more effective than other land and water management strategies in ensuring that natural ecosystems remain intact and functioning. Economists are starting to look more seriously at the wider socioeconomic values of the ecosystem services maintained by protected urban spaces and parks. These are often a far cheaper investment than either the costs of restoring degraded ecosystem services or trying to engineer expensive alternatives, such as massive programs to prevent childhood sedentary disease.

    I think The Trust For Public Land needs to have a two pronged approach to maintain the importance of urban parks:

    1) Develop a community parks program that engages children and youth to be active in public spaces, that can be scaled to any community in America. This program will teach children the importance of personal health and protecting public spaces. This program needs to create the next generation of conservation and health advocates. It should be a program that encourages parents to participate with their children.
    2) Engage in an ecosystem study to determine the economic impacts of urban public space and how much can be saved over the long-term in regards to health care savings, pollution control and to local economies (property value, livability, small business creation, etc.)

    Chris Dennett

    1. Justin Yuen

      Justin Yuen on Nov 28, 2011, 9:09:03 AM Central Standard Time

      Great approach, Chris! A great resource for Trust for Public Land could be Portland State University's ESUR program. The Ecosystem Services for Urbanizing Regions (ESUR) program focuses on critical ecosystem service issues related to rapidly urbanizing areas. They will be helping community partners solve their ecosystem services opportunities. ESUR is part of PSU's IGERT program - here's more information:

      http://pdx.edu/esur-igert/

    2. Kristen Anderson

      Kristen Anderson on Nov 28, 2011, 1:16:20 PM Central Standard Time

      Thanks for your thoughtful answer, Chris. At The Trust for Public Land, we do a lot of research around the health, economic, and environmental benefits of parks and open space. You can see some of that research on our website here: http://bit.ly/sdIofJ.
      In NYC, we're working with the City to create several hundred playgrounds. We involve the local students in the design process every step of the way. We build gardens so the kids can learn not only where food comes from, but how it grows, too. We hope we're fostering a nature-ethic in these young ones, at a time when most children grow up without access to close-to-home nature.

    3. Chris Dennett

      Chris Dennett on Nov 29, 2011, 12:19:53 PM Central Standard Time

      Kristen- Thanks for your reply and for passing on that link to the research TPL has done in this area. That's a great resource that will be useful to me.

      So it sounds like TPL has the ecosystem services aspect covered. Besides, research tends to create value over the long-term and may not satisfy your need to develop "urgency" for this topic. I'd like to think about this more, as it parallels the work that I do for my current employer. Hence, these two questions:

      1) What is your definition of a timeline in bringing "urgency" of the importance of urban spaces? How long is your horizon? The next election cycle (since you mentioned the political environment in the Challenge Details)? 2-5 years? To survive this economic downturn? The long-run to combat childhood obesity? This would be helpful to know in developing more suggestions.

      2) Is the TPL interested in program development as I was suggesting. Or, is the TPL more interested in community outreach, marketing campaigns, advocacy/policy work, acquiring new land for parks, etc., to maintain and enhance the importance of urban spaces during such times?

      I’d love to think about this more.
      Chris

    4. Kristen Anderson

      Kristen Anderson on Dec 5, 2011, 6:29:55 PM Central Standard Time

      Chris - defining the "urgency" timeline is complex. There's the immediate message of urgency that needs to be communicated to donors and potential donors. Why parks when there are starving kids and dying puppies? Parks are not often at the top of one's "must be addressed now" list. But if not now, when? With more traditional land conservation, it's easy to see and communicate that we aren't making any more land and once it's gone it's gone. Stepping back - and away from the fundraising angle - we're looking ahead 5-10 years as our populations swells and our cities bulge. How do we create equitable access to close-to-home parks so that every urban resident has a safe place to enjoy the outdoors? And every child has a place to play and exercise (and combat obesity). We're more interested in marketing and creating parks in cities at this juncture.

  3. Adrian Down

    Micro ownership Posted by: Adrian Down

    • On Dec 2, 2011, 4:18:04 AM Central Standard Time
    • Topics: (None)

    I recall a number of years ago over here in the UK the state was trying to build a road through an area of outstanding national beauty. This area ran to a few hundred acres, but as it was the natural habitat of some rare species it had significant ecological value. Our government can undertake what is called a compulsory purchase of land if they want it. They have to pay the owner true market value but if its use is deemed to be in the public interest you can be forced to sell. This was about to happen with this habitat so the following happened. The owner split the land into micro parcels approximately 4 feet square and then sold them for varying values between $10 and $100 to a huge number of different people who were interested in saving this habitat. This completely crushed plans to turn this land into a roadway as it instantly put the cost of the compulsory purchase up by hundreds of millions of pounds to the government as they would need to enter into separate negotiation with the thousands of owners of the individual sites.
    Using the above as an example would it be possible to encourage a community to own a proper little bit of the park (probably giving them an exact GPS location so they can visit their land) which is then guaranteed for public enjoyment (ie you can't put a fence around your 4ft square and if you sell it you can only sell it back to the community for shared use). This would make it a fun and shared pursuit, I can imagine Grandparents buying their Grandchildren a little bit of a park for example, and the costs involved could be broken down into small enough chunks that even those on a low income could become involved.

  4. Adele Wilson-Hamaker (Webologist)

    We're Excited! Posted by: Adele Wilson-Hamaker (Webologist)

    • On Oct 28, 2011, 4:18:48 PM Central Daylight Time
    • Topics: (None)

    We are excited to be part of Change Agents Unite, and can't wait to see what ideas folks have. Thanks Columbia for sponsoring us!