The Promise of Green Cities
The 1992 Earth Summit’s Agenda 21 Sustainable Development Plan, brought cities to the forefront and recognized urban areas as essential to creating a healthy environment and world. The conference acknowledged that globally, the urbanization process is intensifying, and cities are rapidly growing to accommodate the influx of new populations migrating from suburban and rural areas. City governments began aligning with the United Nations for the explicit purpose of creating an environmental agenda to combat the effects of climate change. Cities in the United States started exercising municipal autonomy, bypassing federal environmental regulations deemed insufficient, and collectively mobilizing nationally and globally around environmental concerns. What has since emerged is the concept of the sustainable green city: an urban area designed to advance sustainability goals, address climate change, improve quality of life, and minimize negative environmental impacts. A crucial part of creating the green city is the production of green spaces (e.g. parks, gardens, and urban agriculture). Green spaces absorb CO2 and air pollutants, reduce flooding from storm water run-off, mitigate the urban heat island effect, and can serve as areas for recreation, community/cultural connection, food production, and wildlife habitat formation. The promise of the green city is particularly vital for low-income neighborhoods and communities of color who tend to be the most environmentally compromised, and are less likely to live next to or have access to healthy green spaces.
Parks, Recreation & Climate Justice
It is time to think about parks beyond recreation. Most of today’s parks and recreation centers within the US reflect a 20th century past with many created during the Progressive era to serve urban residents at the neighborhood level. As current public infrastructure, recreation facilities are equipped with resources such as gyms, multipurpose rooms, kitchens, bathrooms, and/or showers. These centers are ideally positioned as a decentralized network of buildings in neighborhoods and close to residents who may need help riding out severe weather shocks as we face a world in the midst of climate change. While the Covid-19 pandemic revealed and at times upheld parks/green spaces as critical infrastructure for public health and wellbeing, recreation centers and facilities overwhelmingly remained closed to the public.
Urban parks and recreation facilities consist of both green and grey infrastructure that contributed to the natural and built environment and supports the health of flora, fauna, and folks. While greening has been the leading discourse in sustainable and climate resiliency plans, particularly tree planting and green space production, which provide important ecosystem services. What has been less discussed is how recreation centers/facilities can provide critical services and act as shelters during environmental and severe weather events. Recreation centers and community centers must also be retrofitted with cooling, heating, and air filtration systems to cope with the weather fluctuations which will become more intense and will occur more frequently. This means acting as heating centers in cities like Texas which were not prepared during the last unexpected deep freeze and cooling and clean air centers in cities Portland, Seattle, and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area during heatwaves and poor air quality days due to wildfires. For this to be a viable solution recreation and community centers must become energy independent via solar and wind power which can also act as microgrids when the electrical grid becomes unreliable due to increased energy consumption from those who have access to AC which allows them the ability to shelter inside.
All this takes funding and equitable distribution. Historical and current policies and practices, and uneven distribution of funding and resources created and contributes to the underserved (or neglected) low-income neighborhoods we see today and that disproportionally impacts the lives and livelihoods of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian (BILA) residents. Retrofitting existing park facilities while building new ones will be key. By leveraging and growing this decentralized network of park and recreation infrastructure we will also be providing a climate justice solution for vulnerable residents and those made vulnerable during these uncertain environmental times.
Urban parks and recreation facilities consist of both green and grey infrastructure that contributed to the natural and built environment and supports the health of flora, fauna, and folks. While greening has been the leading discourse in sustainable and climate resiliency plans, particularly tree planting and green space production, which provide important ecosystem services. What has been less discussed is how recreation centers/facilities can provide critical services and act as shelters during environmental and severe weather events. Recreation centers and community centers must also be retrofitted with cooling, heating, and air filtration systems to cope with the weather fluctuations which will become more intense and will occur more frequently. This means acting as heating centers in cities like Texas which were not prepared during the last unexpected deep freeze and cooling and clean air centers in cities Portland, Seattle, and the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Area during heatwaves and poor air quality days due to wildfires. For this to be a viable solution recreation and community centers must become energy independent via solar and wind power which can also act as microgrids when the electrical grid becomes unreliable due to increased energy consumption from those who have access to AC which allows them the ability to shelter inside.
All this takes funding and equitable distribution. Historical and current policies and practices, and uneven distribution of funding and resources created and contributes to the underserved (or neglected) low-income neighborhoods we see today and that disproportionally impacts the lives and livelihoods of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, and Asian (BILA) residents. Retrofitting existing park facilities while building new ones will be key. By leveraging and growing this decentralized network of park and recreation infrastructure we will also be providing a climate justice solution for vulnerable residents and those made vulnerable during these uncertain environmental times.