{"id":537014,"date":"2010-04-21T11:35:13","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T15:35:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dirt.asla.org\/?p=4382"},"modified":"2010-04-21T11:35:13","modified_gmt":"2010-04-21T15:35:13","slug":"the-value-of-urban-parks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/537014","title":{"rendered":"The Value of Urban Parks"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nThe U.S. House Urban Caucus’<\/a> Urban Parks Taskforce organized a briefing on urban parks and their role in creating\u00a0green spaces which can\u00a0revitalize neighborhoods, improve health, and create jobs. Parks also play a major role in fighting childhood obesity, providing safe and healthy places to play. Caucus members heard from Joe Hughes<\/a>, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology; Susan Wachter<\/a>, Professor of Financial Management, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania; Eddie George<\/a>, former NFL player and landscape architect; and Salin Geevarghese, Senior Advisor, Office of Sustainable Housing & Communities<\/a>, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The National Recreation and Parks Association (NRPA)\u00a0and ASLA played key roles in putting the panel together.<\/p>\n

Introducing the briefing, Representative Chaka Fattah<\/a>,\u00a0Democrat from Philadelphia, who is chair of the caucus, said a new consensus\u00a0is forming\u00a0among the administration and legislative branch: urban parks can’t be separated from broader urban revitalization efforts.<\/p>\n

Representative Albio Sires<\/a>, Democrat from New Jersey, sponsor of the Urban Revitalization and Livable Communities Act (HR 3734)<\/a>, which now has 114 House co-sponsors, said when he arrived from Cuba in his youth, local parks were\u00a0his refuge. In his community, parks\u00a0provide\u00a0a crucial space for working class families and\u00a0a\u00a0foundation for\u00a0”important social structures.”<\/p>\n

Sires said parks need both to enable both\u00a0”passive” activities (sun-bathing, dog walking, or sitting and reading the newspaper) and “active” activities\u00a0(frisbee-throwing, jogging, touch football). “What’s active, what’s passive — we need to plan these out and integrate into park design.” In addition to the health benefits,\u00a0he\u00a0argued that\u00a0parks are\u00a0crucial to economic revitalization.\u00a0”If you fix up a\u00a0park, you’ll see\u00a0the houses nearby\u00a0get fixed up. Businesses come back.” \u00a0<\/p>\n

However,\u00a0Sires said\u00a0small city mayors still need to continually hunt for funds wherever they can get them, “pulling a little from here and a little from there,” to get their local park projects off the ground.\u00a0To increase the federal\u00a0funds that\u00a0can be used for park investment,\u00a0he led the development of the Urban Revitalization and Livable Communities Act.<\/p>\n

The panelists made\u00a0arguments for increasing investment in\u00a0urban parks:<\/p>\n

Joe Hughes, Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology<\/strong>: After studying the role parks can play in resolving the real estate crisis, Hughes\u00a0found that\u00a0under-performing commercial real estate in urban areas could be\u00a0transformed into urban parks. Vacant properties, if\u00a0turned into parks, become productive assets, instead of economic drains on\u00a0local communities. “Parks play a role in market restoration, value creation, job creation, green space development, and neighborhood stabilization.”<\/p>\n

In the case of Atlanta, which has had a high rate of bank failures, a five billion investment in transforming underperforming real estate into urban parks could create 100,000 new jobs. Additionally, the plan could yield higher property values (and, therefore, higher tax revenue). To make his case, Hughes pointed to a study that shows homes less than 1,000 feet from a park are worth 11 percent more than other homes. “Parks are critical drivers of economic development. We should be thinking at a big scale about how to transform our urban core.”<\/p>\n

Susan Wachter, Professor of Financial Management, Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania<\/strong>: “Parks help create communities of lasting value,” which Wachter says is the true measure of neighborhood sustainability. “Parks bring nature to the city, create safe spaces, enable social interaction, sequester carbon.” Most importantly, Wachter added, parks can create environmentally and economically resilient communities.<\/p>\n

She cited a “before and\u00a0after event”\u00a0study done in Philadelphia that isolated the effects of investments in various forms of green infrastructure. The return on investment (ROI) was high for homes near the improvements. Planting trees raised nearby property’s value by 10 percent. Improved streetscapes yielded up to 28 percent gains. While residing next to a vacant lot dropped property values by 20 percent, stabilizing the empty lot led to a 17 percent increase. Being located within a business improvement district (BID) improved property values by 30 percent. “Planting trees alone can help create a virtous cycle of reinvestment.”<\/p>\n

Eddie George, former NFL player and landscape architect<\/strong>: “I am all about healthy people and healthy spaces.” George said parks are linked to economic development, combat the urban heat island effect, and provide critical stormwater management services. In Columbus, Ohio, George’s firm is revitalizing the downtown, pulling down a vacant 9-acre shopping mall. “The City Center Mall outlived its usefulness. It was designed as a fortress and cut off connectivity. The demise of the mall led to increased disinvestment in the area.”<\/p>\n

The new 9-acre park George is designing\u00a0in the\u00a0mall’s place, Columbus Commons<\/a>,\u00a0will\u00a0tranform the space\u00a0into a sort of\u00a0Millennium Park for\u00a0the city. The park, which will open in 2011, will\u00a0offer mixed-use spaces and ground-level retail. There will be green roofs on parking garages.<\/p>\n

George argued that maintaining parks will cost local governments. “Many cities can’t afford this, but we need to invest.”<\/p>\n

Salin Geevarghese, Senior Advisor, Office of Sustainable Housing & Communities, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)<\/strong>: Geevarghese said the issues were all interconnected. “People don’t see these things as separate and don’t live these things separately.” As a result, EPA, HUD, and the Department of Transportation forged a partnership on sustainable communities (see earlier post<\/a>) to deal with the cross-cutting issues related to transportation, green space, and housing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Echoing arguments made by Ron Sims, Deputy Secretary of HUD (see earlier post<\/a>), Geevarghese said where you live, “your zip code,” can predict how healthy you are, how educated you are. “How can we disentangle that?” He thinks that community\u00a0ownership is intimately linked with community safety, and that requires investment in community infrastructure, including parks.<\/p>\n

Also, Geevarghese thinks the concept of green jobs need to be reformulated to include parks and recreation, or “conservation,” jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The panelists agreed on a range of other points:<\/p>\n