Parks & Recreation November 2022

THE

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november 2022

FEATURES

34

Seeing the Urban Forest Through the Trees

Paul Steward and LaDonna Baertlein

Discover five best practices for a thriving, equity-driven urban tree canopy.

40 Building Memory

Alan Reed

Explore why interpretive centers matter in an era of social change.

46 Creating a Community Wellness Hub

Maureen Neumann

Learn how to develop a process framework for reducing barriers to health and well-being.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID LAUER

Private investment in the urban tree canopy adjacent to development blends seamlessly with public realm plazas managed by the City of Denver.

SMART DESIGN EQUALS SMART PLAY

At Landscape Structures, a lot of thought goes into designing our Smart Play® playstructures. Each must include a ton of activities, an equal ton of play value, yet offer a compact footprint. With a variety of innovative themes and concepts to choose from, these preconfigured playstructures are smart, whimsical and easy to order.

Easiest of all: Order a themed pair to entertain kids of all ages. playlsi.com/smart-play

Cover image: Photo courtesy of AECOM

Parks & Recreation is printed using soy ink on at least 10 percent post-consumer recycled paper and is mailed in a wrap — only when required — that is plant based and certified compostable. If you are interested in helping us go even greener, email us at prmagazine@nrpa.org and ask to opt out of receiving the print magazine. Parks & Recreation is always available to read in an ezine format at ezine.nrpa.org

Environmental Review of Chicago Park Obama Center James C. Kozlowski, J.D., Ph.D.

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Recognizing Our Vital Role in Advancing Community Health and Well-Being

On September 28, NRPA made a commitment to reduce hunger and im prove health and well-being across the nation at the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health.

The conference, hosted by the Biden-Harris administration, was held for the first time in more than 50 years, with the goal of “ending hunger and increasing healthy eating and physical activity by 2030 so fewer Ameri cans experience diet-related diseases — while reducing related health dis parities” (tinyurl.com/3au4ej8z). The strategy outlined is segmented into five pillars: (1) Improve food access and affordability; (2) Integrate nutrition and health; (3) Empower consumers to make and have access to healthy choices; (4) Support physical activity for all; and (5) En hance nutrition and food security research.

Of these five pillars, parks and recreation has a di rect impact on each — outnumbering most, if not all, other public services. This positioning of park and recreation professionals and their agencies to im pact so many dimensions of public health is why we promote park and recreation agencies as Community Wellness Hubs. In one of this month’s feature stories, titled “Creating a Community Wellness Hub,” NRPA Senior Health Program Manager Maureen Neumann explains that serving in this role is not new for park and recreation agencies. “Rather, it’s reimagining the way in which programs, services and partnerships are delivered and accessed to support community health and well-being,” she writes. Through your programs and the green spaces you manage, you inherently have a positive impact on public health. By being intentional about implementing Community Wellness Hub models at departments across the country, we can exemplify to our elected officials, public health administrators and community members the integral ways in which parks and recreation contributes to this work.

One highlight of the Conference on Hunger, Nutri tion and Health is that the administration announced

it will promote active transportation and land-use policies to increase physical activity — an action that will directly impact the way our community members interact with their local park and recreation spaces. Supporting this is a new Neighborhood Access and Equity grant program, established by the Inflation Reduc tion Act, that will fund projects to restore walkability and access, including to parks, in historically disadvan taged communities. The administration also called on state, local and territory governments to increase ac cessibility for community members with disabilities to exercise at local parks or recreation facilities. These are just a few examples of the many ways that parks and recreation will play a crucial role in increasing physical activity and reducing health disparities.

As part of our commitment, NRPA has pledged to support the strategy by providing training, as well as $5.5 million in grant funding, to park and recreation depart ments in more than 175 historically disinvested commu nities. More specifically, we have committed to serving 25 million meals at park and recreation sites, and the grant funding will promote access to programming and infra structure that increases physical activity and improves men tal health for 1.2 million community members by 2026.

Your many stories and case studies, the NRPA re search report Parks and Recreation: Advancing Communi ty Health and Well-Being (nrpa.org/HealthReport), and other scientific data prove what we as a field already knew: park and recreation agencies are leaders in tack ling public health threats, such as physical inactivity, chronic diseases, social isolation, food access and more. Thanks to our collective voices, the essential role of parks and recreation in advancing community health and well-being, resilience, and equity is being recog nized by our national leaders, and our participation in the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health is just the beginning.

KRISTINE STRATTON President and CEO

22377 Belmont Ridge Rd. | Ashburn, VA 20148 703.858.0784 | nrpa.org

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Chair of the Board of Directors

Carolyn McKnight-Fredd, CPRP

Eagle Methods Management Consulting Dallas, Texas

Chair-Elect

Jesús Aguirre, CPRE

Waterloo Greenway Austin, Texas

Treasurer Susie Kuruvilla

Gurnee Park District Gurnee, Illinois

Secretary

Joshua Medeiros, Ed.D., CPRE

City of Bristol Parks and Recreation Bristol, Connecticut

At Large

Nonet T. Sykes

Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. Atlanta, Georgia

At Large

Mike Abbaté, FASLA, LEED AP Abbaté Designs Portland, Oregon

President and CEO

Kristine Stratton, Ex Officio National Recreation and Park Association Ashburn, Virginia

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Michael Abbaté, FASLA, LEED AP

Abbaté Designs Portland, Oregon

Kathy Abbott Boston Harbor Now Boston, Massachusetts

Jesús Aguirre, CPRE

Waterloo Greenway Austin, Texas

Rebecca Armstrong North Portland, Oregon

Jose Felix Diaz Ballard Partners Miami, Florida

Victor Dover

Dover, Kohl & Partners Town Planning South Miami, Florida

Angelou Ezeilo Ashoka Africa Nairobi, Kenya

Lakita Frazier, CPRP

Women in Parks and Recreation Columbia, South Carolina

Phil Ginsburg San Francisco Recreation and Park San Francisco, California

Monica Hobbs Vinluan

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Ashburn, Virginia

Susie Kuruvilla

Gurnee Park District Gurnee, Illinois

Joanna Lombard

University of Miami School of Architecture; Miller School of Medicine Department of Public Health Sciences Miami, Florida

Mollie Marsh-Heine Earthjustice Boulder, Colorado

Carolyn McKnight-Fredd, CPRP

Eagle Methods Management Consulting Dallas, Texas

Joshua Medeiros, Ed.D., CPRE

City of Bristol Parks and Recreation Bristol, Connecticut

John Prue, CPRP

Navy Region Mid-Atlantic Kenosha, Wisconsin

Arnold L. Randall

Forest Preserve District of Cook County Chicago, Illinois

Cheredith Rhone Shreveport Public Assembly and Recreation

Shreveport, Louisiana

Breece Robertson

One Tree Planted Santa Fe, New Mexico

Nonet T. Sykes

Atlanta BeltLine, Inc. Atlanta, Georgia

Xavier D. Urrutia

Alamo Colleges District San Antonio, Texas

Greg A. Weitzel, M.S., CPRP

Kids Around the World Las Vegas, Nevada

Philip Wu, M.D.

(Retired) Kaiser Permanente Northwest Region Portland, Oregon

LIFE TRUSTEES

Beverly D. Chrisman Lexington, South Carolina

Anne S. Close Fort Mill, South Carolina

James H. Evans New York, New York

Rosemary Hall Evans Sugar Hill, New Hampshire

Earl T. Groves Gastonia, North Carolina

Charles E. Hartsoe, Ph.D. Richmond, Virginia

Harry G. Haskell, Jr. Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania

Kathryn A. Porter Mendham, New Jersey

Perry J. Segura New Iberia, Louisiana

R. Dean Tice

Round Hill, Virginia

Eugene A. Young, CPRP Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Because one size doesn’t fit all, NRPA offers many ways to support the field of parks and recreation. Choose the one(s) that best suits your situation:

Online Giving is an easy click away.

Monthly Giving enables you to be an anchor for NRPA during these times of volatility.

Tribute Gifts honor someone special or celebrate an important occasion.

Gifts of Appreciated Stock allow you to save on taxes while supporting parks and recreation.

Gifts Through a Donor-Advised Fund are a great way to see the impact of your gift right away.

Gifts from Your IRA may be a great way to avoid taxes on your withdrawal and meet your Required Minimum Distribution (RMD).

Please consult with your tax advisor on the giving option(s) that best fits your personal situation. For more information, visit nrpa.org/Give, email us at development@nrpa.org or call us at 703.858.2190.

NRPA’S MISSION: To advance parks, recreation and environmental conservation efforts that enhance the quality of life for all people.

Research and Nature’s Direct Link to Good Health

Since the early days of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic when shelter-in-place orders were slowly being lifted in communities across the country, NRPA and the park and recreation field at large were sounding the alarm about the importance of getting children outside for the good of their overall mental and physical health. But, what if the amount of time children spend in nature could also directly impact the health of their lungs? In a recent study published in the Europe an Respiratory Journal (tinyurl.com/2p8x2b54), scientists in Portugal found that children who reside near nature have better lung function compared to children who live further away from green environments. “We looked at factors like physical activity and air pollution, but the link between lung function and moving closer to green space remained, even after we took these into account,” Dr. Diogo Queiroz Almeida of the University of Porto states in the journal’s news release. A common thread found throughout the pages of this month’s issue is how research continues to show why access to nature is critical to maintaining our health.

For some people living in underinvested urban communities, access to nature may seem like a pipedream. However, in the cover story, “Seeing the Urban Forest Through the Trees,” on page 34, authors Paul Stewart and LaDonna Baertlein share practices currently used in U.S. cities to support more equity-driven tree canopies. What’s more, they explain how inter-agency and exter nal partnerships could potentially reinforce and enhance roles and responsibilities for these urban forestry programs.

Next, contributor Alan Reed discusses how interpretive centers, known to most as visitors cen ters, can bring individuals new perspectives and clarity during these times of social change in the feature article, “Building Memory,” on page 30. According to Reed: “The challenge of in clusion…makes it all the more important to create interpretive centers…that guarantee different points of view and provide spaces for events and programming to bring in outside speakers who can broaden the center’s scope and invite further participation from the audience.”

Lastly, NRPA’s Maureen Neumann offers a process framework for minimizing barriers to health and well-being in the article, “Creating a Community Wellness Hub,” on page 46. “While Community Wellness Hubs will look different in every neighborhood, city and county, they are united by their shared goals of advancing health equity, improving health outcomes and enhanc ing quality of life for all people,” she writes.

As more studies about the pandemic and the long-term health impact on the global population be come available, I’m sure much of the data will confirm what park and recreation professionals have been telling their community members for decades: nature is directly linked to good health.

PRESIDENT AND CEO Kristine Stratton

EXECUTIVE EDITOR AND DIRECTOR OF PRINT AND ONLINE CONTENT

Vitisia Paynich vpaynich@nrpa.org

MANAGING EDITOR Lindsay Hogeboom lhogeboom@nrpa.org

MANAGER OF ONLINE CONTENT

Jennifer Fulcher-Nguyen jnguyen@nrpa.org

PUBLICATION DESIGN Kim Mabon/Creative By Design CreativeByDesign.net

SENIOR CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT OFFICER

WESTERN REGION AND ASIA Michelle Dellner 703.858.4635 mdellner@nrpa.org

SENIOR CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT OFFICER EASTERN REGION AND EUROPE Paul Semple 703.858.2174 psemple@nrpa.org

DEVELOPMENT COORDINATOR Melissa Hunter 703.858.2199 mhunter@nrpa.org

PHOTOGRAPHY Dreamstime.com or NRPA (unless otherwise noted)

MAGAZINE ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS

Roslyn Johnson, CPRP - Chair

Michael Abbaté, FASLA

Neelay Bhatt

Anthony-Paul Diaz

Ryan Eaker

Kathleen Gibi

Paul Gilbert, CPRP

Tim Herd, CPRE

Denise Johnson-Caldwell

Michele Lemons

Sarah Lisiecki

Sam Mendelsohn

Maria Nardi

Lisa Paradis, CPRP

Paula Sliefert

Shonnda Smith, CPRP, AFO

Ronnetta Spalding

Anne-Marie Spencer

Stephen Springs

Amelia Storer

Bobcat Company is a member of the Doosan Group. Doosan is a global leader in construction, grounds maintenance and material handling equipment, power and

solutions, and engineering that has proudly served customers and communities for more than a century. Bobcat ®, the Bobcat logo and the colors of the Bobcat machine are registered trademarks of Bobcat Company in the United States and various other countries. ©2022 Bobcat Company. All rights reserved. | 1537

WE ARE PARKS AND RECREATION

Tips for Your In-Person Certified Playground Safety Inspector Class

By Joann M. Robertson, CPSI, CPCU, ARM, CSP

As a longtime Certified Playground Safety Inspector (CPSI), I am often asked for advice about obtaining this certification, which is offered by NRPA. The course concludes with a proctored exam, which is not mandatory, but is necessary to achieve the designation. Keep in mind, the class also must be renewed ev ery three years.

properly prepare for the in-person CPSI class:

• Plan to take the class well in ad vance by choosing the best date and location for you.

• Open and read the study materi als when you receive them.

• Keep a running list of questions that you need assistance with.

• Before attending the class, con sider trying the practice tests available on the NRPA website (for a fee).

• Try to stay overnight near the class, since you will want extra time to study, instead of trav eling.

• If you prefer to study in a group, sign up for the same class as oth ers and coordinate staying over night at the same hotel, so you can study in the lobby.

The Certified Playground Safety Inspector (CPSI) certification pro gram is the most comprehensive training program on playground hazard identification and risk management methods offered nationwide. By becoming a CPSI, you will learn how to identify hazards on public playgrounds and playground equipment, rank those hazards according to injury potential and apply that knowl edge, as well as how to establish a playground safety program. To learn more, visit nrpa.org/CPSI

• Pack business cards.

• Bring a jacket and casual shoes for a trip to a playground.

• If unfamiliar with the class lo cation, scout it out before the first day of class, especially since class begins early in the morning.

• Sit at the front of the classroom to see clearly and stay focused.

• Don’t forget to bring your books.

• Packing snacks is never a bad idea.

The CPSI class is available three ways: (1) self-study, and then travel to an exam center to take the test; (2) online; or (3) in person.

I prefer the in-person class be cause it allows me to learn the latest industry news, pose any questions to the experienced instructor(s), participate in the on-site play ground inspection (weather permit ting) and meet new colleagues.

Here are my tips to help you be

• Don’t plan on working and learn ing at the same time, since the class is quite time consuming.

• Don’t enroll in a class during your profession’s busy season.

• Remember to bring index cards, pencils and a highlighter.

• Read over the instructions you receive before class carefully, so you will know what to bring (e.g., proper identification for the exam).

Once the class is completed, it will take a few weeks to receive the results from the exam. This time frame ensures you have just enough time to decompress from the exam before you need to worry about your grade.

Study hard and best wishes!

Joann M. Robertson, CPSI, CPCU, ARM, CSP, is a Certified Playground Safety Inspector and Certified Safety Professional at Playground Medic ( joann@playgroundmedic.com).

Following simple tips can help you prop erly prepare for the in-person CPSI class.

The Official Podcast of

The Latest Park and Recreation News and Trends On the Go

Skate Parks Benefit All

By Heidi Lemmon

When Skate Park Association International was founded in 1996, the profile of the average skater was 12 to 14 years old, male and a street skater. There was only one public skate park at the time that featured obstacles as tall as 18 inches (all others had a lower height restriction), and as a result, kids were riding in the streets, illegally in most cities.

nity for average and beginner play ers to participate. By high school, it’s very competitive as players are seeking scholarships for college.

Free public skate parks provide a place for all levels of skaters, from beginner to advanced level. All skaters can make friends and have a sense of community and belong ing that transfers to any park they visit, worldwide.

are pleased with the results. Welldesigned parks attract skaters, their families and events. In turn, local hotels, restaurants and shops all benefit. Skate parks are an excellent way for out-of-the-way or small cit ies or towns to attract visitors.

The profile of the average skater today is much different; it includes people ages 2 to 60 and older; males and females; individuals with dis abilities; and skateboarders, bicycle motocrossers (BMXers), scooter ers, wheelchair users, and inline and roller skaters. How can a city accommodate all these users?

Free Play

Most youth sports are organized, and they are pay to play. By mid dle school, tryouts are required and only the top players make the team. This eliminates the opportu

“Los Angeles is the epicenter of skateboarding and an outlet for many youth. It’s important to provide youth the opportunity to express themselves and have a fun and safe environment to do so,” says Sonya Young Jimenez, su perintendent of Venice Beach and West Region for City of Los Ange les Department of Recreation and Parks. “The Department of Rec reation and Parks has skate parks throughout the city for youth and families to enjoy. Many people do not fit into ‘traditional sports,’ and providing skate parks allows the op portunity to learn something new and build the skate community.”

Bigger and Better Designed Parks

The skate parks today vary from a few ramps to works of art. Bud gets have soared from $250,000 to millions of dollars, and cities

In Des Moines, Iowa, “there is an incredible cross section of peo ple who visit Lauridsen Skatepark. There are groups of parents who bring their kids for playdates, in credibly talented young athletes training to be even better, and even older skaters who see a safe but vi brant place to continue to pursue the sport of their youth,” says Jes sica Lown of Polk County Conser vation. “We also hear anecdotally through social media and from lo cal hotels that there are a lot of peo ple who travel to Des Moines just for the skate park.... We think a ma jor part of the attraction for visitors is the fact that Lauridsen is a public park — free and open to everyone.”

After-School Programs

After-school programs are not only geared toward elite riders, but also beginners. But most importantly, the programs are focused on the health and fitness of all participants. More often we are seeing these programs offered at public skate parks, either in conjunction with coaches or through park and recreation departments.

In addition to creating job op portunities for young people, these programs get kids moving out in the fresh air. The Centers for Dis ease Control and Prevention reports that there are 14.7 million obese

A well-designed skate park will encour age participation from people of all ages and all levels of development.

PHOTO COURTESY OF TEAM PAIN

children in the United States. According to the Mayo Clinic, “Childhood obesity is...particularly troubling be cause the extra pounds often start children on the path to health problems that were once considered adult prob lems — diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Childhood obesity also can lead to poor self-esteem and depression.” Skate parks help to provide diverse programming that provides youth who may not be inter ested in traditional sports new ways to be active.

Diverse Features for Diverse Users

Bowls and snake runs are elements of skate parks that are easy on the knees, and including them in the design of these spaces can allow older skaters and very young riders to utilize the park. For children under 12 years old, it can be difficult to manage a street course. Thus, by including these features, you open up your park to many more users.

Grassroots Competitions

Grassroots competitions can bring the community to gether, especially children and their parents. Some cit ies bring in bands, food trucks, face painting and more to elevate the event into a festival day. Others focus on the competition. Either way, such events garner partic ipants and even spectators who ideally can turn into park users.

The Olympics

With skateboarding and BMX being featured in the 2020, 2024 and 2028 Olympics, we are seeing cities eager to build better parks, or even their first park. At this time, Freestyle BMX is an official Olympic sport. However, skateboarding is still on the invite list through 2028, meaning not all countries can send a team and the International Olympic Committee can’t fund it.

Some cities have been approached by organizations to get their park “certified,” with fees ranging from $25,000 up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you work with a qualified designer or builder, there is no need for public parks to pay certification fees. These kinds of certified training facilities might be best left to private enterprise and not public parks and recreation and parks programs.

Public parks should encourage participation from people of all ages and all levels of development, with an emphasis on beginners. A well-designed and built skate park has and will continue to do this.

Heidi Lemmon is Executive Director of Skate Park Association International

PHOTO COURTESY OF

Using Technology to Engage Your Community

By Mike Terrell

How well do you listen and respond to the voice of your commu nity? It’s clear that park and recreation departments are eager to find better ways to provide a great customer experience for their residents and visitors. Using technology to engage with res idents to get their feedback can be extremely effective and turn a normal city experience into a great one. Technology can be an intuitive and efficient tool to listen and respond to those you serve. Finding a flexible system is ideal for program participation feedback, facility satisfaction ratings, issue reporting, expressing appreciation, collecting input on master plans, ordering food on the golf course and much more!

Streamlining the Process

Sourcing feedback about facilities and offerings via everyday technol ogy, such as cellphones and quick response (QR) codes, provides an easy and frictionless way for resi dents and visitors to have a two-way conversation with various city de partments and get a response in real time. For example, by simply scan ning a QR code outside the com

munity center, inside the restrooms or next to the picnic area, users can alert the managing personnel that attention is needed without the hassle of downloading an app or calling a phone number. Push notifi cations are instantly sent to officials, who can respond in real time to both complaints and compliments. Once employees receive the feed back, residents can visibly see their

Sourcing feedback about facilities and offerings via everyday technology provides an easy and frictionless way for visitors to have a two-way conversation with various city departments.

experience being elevated, most im portantly, while still on location.

People want simplicity and con venience, and they want it on the personal computer in their pocket. When residents and visitors receive notifications back while they are still hiking around the lake, skipping stones with their families or enjoy ing a great match of pickleball at the recreation center, they appreciate that their thoughts are being heard and they are actively taking part in helping their community. Through conversation and subsequent ac tion, experiences are improved and repeated, satisfaction increases, and trust is earned.

Terrell is Vice President, Business Development at Real Time Feedback.

Mike

Using technology to engage with residents to get their feedback can be extremely effective and turn a normal city experience into a great one.

Member Benefit: Monthly Virtual Learning Subscription

NRPA offers many online learning opportunities, in cluding Virtual Talks, Vir tual Sandboxes and Virtual Clinics for individuals at all levels in the park and recreation field. The NRPA Virtual Learning Subscription for members includes 12 pre-scheduled learning events (one per month) with free access to archived 2022 subscription events throughout the subscription year. The subscription includes eight Virtual Talks and four Virtual Sandboxes. Each Talk is worth 0.1 Continuing Education Unit (CEU), for a total of 0.8 CEU

for the full subscription. Want to know more about NRPA’s learning opportunities?

Virtual Talks feature knowl edgeable subject matter experts presenting on timely insights from research and practice.

Virtual Sandboxes create online networking experiences for partici pants to talk shop, compare notes and swap advice around hot topics in the field.

Virtual Clinics invite participants to discover new skills and concepts through hands-on learning. Par ticipants will immediately apply

these concepts to real-life examples through workshop activities. They will be able to take their newfound skills and these real-world applications back to their agencies.

Take advantage of your NRPA membership by getting started with the monthly virtual learning sub scription today at learning.nrpa. org/upcoming-featured

RESEARCH

Agency Performance Review Survey Is

Ready for Your Input

By Melissa May

If you are like many park and recreation professionals, you are fa miliar with both NRPA Park Metrics (nrpa.org/ParkMetrics) and the NRPA Agency Performance Review (nrpa.org/APR). Both resources are the most comprehensive sources of park and recreation agency data benchmarks and insights in the United States. Perhaps you do not know either resource by name, but you likely know the typical number of people per park or the annual operating expenditures at a typical park and recre ation agency, or even the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) park and recreation employees per 10,000 residents. Many park and recreation professionals have come to rely on the information available in Park Metrics and the Agency Performance Review for their agency’s planning, budgeting and reporting. But have you thought about where these data are coming from? The answer is simple: it comes from you.

From now through the end of Jan uary, the NRPA Research team is conducting its annual campaign to encourage you to complete the Agen cy Performance Survey. This survey provides NRPA with vital data that serves as the backbone of Park Met rics, and that allows us to produce the annual NRPA Agency Performance Review. Your contribution to NRPA Park Metrics by completing the Agency Performance Survey influ ences the entire profession.

Last year’s Agency Performance Re view contained insights from more than 1,000 park and recreation agencies — spanning from large systems located in urban settings to smaller agencies that serve just a few hundred residents in small, rural towns — providing our field with a wealth of data.

Completing the Agency Performance Survey

Annual participation in NRPA Park Metrics is a habit for many park and recreation professionals

and their agencies, but for some, this might be your first opportuni ty to contribute. If your agency is new to Park Metrics, you can cre ate a free account at tinyurl.com/ 2p82kz4b. You will gain access to the Agency Performance Survey and a variety of data, including re porting tools that allow you to filter data to best meet your needs. The survey is split into the fol lowing sections:

• Jurisdiction (location, popula tion, size of area served)

• Agency operations (operating ex penditures, revenue sources)

• Capital budget (current year, five-year capital budget)

• Personnel (FTE counts, distribu tion of responsibilities)

• Workload (number of parks and buildings, mileage of trails, num ber of people served)

• Agency responsibilities (what agen cies operate, maintain, contract)

• Facilities (counts of facilities, athletic fields)

• Activities (sports leagues, cultur

al offerings, out-of-school time programs)

• Policies (tobacco use, admission fees, hiring practices)

If your agency has completed the survey before, simply copy data from the most recent year the survey was submitted and update any informa tion that has changed. If you or your agency are unfamiliar with complet ing the Agency Performance Survey, feel free to download an Excel ver sion to familiarize yourself and your staff prior to beginning. Always re member: the survey can be edited and updated at any time.

In appreciation and recognition of you and your agency’s comple tion of the Agency Performance Survey in NRPA Park Metrics by the January 27, 2023 deadline, you will receive a custom Agency Perfor mance Report. Your custom report compares your agency’s opera tions, budget, workload, personnel and more to that of the nation. We will email these reports, as well as post for download in your NRPA Park Metrics account, beginning in May 2023.

If you are unsure whether your agency has participated in Park Metrics in the past; need to verify the contacts on your Park Metrics account; or have any questions re garding Park Metrics, the Agency Performance Survey or the NRPA Agency Performance Review, feel free to reach out to Melissa May at mmay@nrpa.org.

Melissa May is NRPA’s Senior Research Manager (mmay@nrpa.org).

NRPA PARK PULSE

Parks and Recreation Provides Important Inclusive Programming

88%

of U.S. adults want their local park and recreation agencies to provide adaptive and inclusive recreation programing so persons of all abilities may participate.

Two-thirds of U.S. adults agree that offering this programming is extremely or very important. Adaptive programming can include modifications to timing or movement, providing extra instructors for more individualized attention, supplying additional equipment and more.

Each month, through a poll of 1,000 U.S. residents focused on park and recreation issues, NRPA Park Pulse helps tell the park and recreation story. Questions span from the serious to the more lighthearted. The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com).

Visit nrpa.org/ParkPulse for more information.

Any time you can get a local government official in to see your facilities, services and constituent use is worthwhile.

Advocating for Consistent Funding: A Two-Pronged Approach

By Dr. Andrew Mowen, Dr. Sammie Powers, Dr. Nicholas Pitas and Asia Simms

Local government officials consider parks and recreation to be im portant to their community, but so too are many other commu nity services that compete for limited resources. When funds are tight, park and recreation agencies often face the most drastic budget cuts. However, when there is a budgetary surplus, these funds are typically re-established. Communicating how services address community priorities is important, so what are effective ways to advocate officials for investing in parks and recreation?

A recent study conducted by the Pennsylvania Recreation and Park Society (PRPS) and the Pennsylvania State University surveyed park directors’ opinions regarding funding and effective advocacy strategies (bit.ly/ 3B8cD5f). This study examined the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic on agencies’ operations and their effective advocacy on behalf of their parks.

Researchers also polled local officials to assess what factors corresponded to the importance they placed upon parks and recreation. Findings from the director survey suggested strong support for a two-pronged approach:

1. Having one-on-one conversa tions with officials and providing them with tours of facilities or programs

2. Providing compelling evidence

with data on use, resident opin ions, economic impact and facil ity quality

Any time you can get an of ficial in to see your facilities, services and constituent use is worthwhile, especially in part nership with compelling data that augment the case for invest ing further to support communi ty need. Local officials perceive park and recreation services as more important when they address community priorities, when constituents are vocal in their support, when officials have a good working relationship with park staff, and when they or their family personally use local park and recreation facilities and services.

State and local park and rec reation agencies have generated support using these strategies. In Pennsylvania, PRPS successfully utilized this research to secure funding on both the statewide and local levels. Pennsylvania’s 2022-2023 budget contains the largest investment for Pennsyl vania’s conservation, parks and recreation systems in the past 20 years — nearly $700 million. An additional $100 million in federal American Rescue Plan funding will create a new Outdoor Recreation Program for investments in state park and state forest infra structure, community parks and recreation centers, trails and gre enways, riparian buffers, and other

purposes (tinyurl.com/2ec6k2kk).

“We’re always glad for the op portunity to work with Dr. Mow en and his colleagues [at Pennsyl vania State University] to identify valuable new insights into industry trends and perceptions,” says Tim Herd, CEO of PRPS. “The fresh data helps our recreation and park providers become more adept community leaders in the issues that en rich the lives of all Pennsylvanians.”

As you are planning ways to generate support for your agencies, remember that you are not alone, and there are valuable resources at your disposal. These tactics, when employed in advocating for fund ing support, have tangible benefits. Put these valuable insights to work

for you and the communities you serve, and don’t forget to share the strategies that work for you with NRPA and others.

Dr. Andrew Mowen is a Professor in the Recreation, Park and Tourism Management Department at The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Sammie Powers is an Assistant Professor of Recreation Management at George Mason University. Dr. Nicholas Pitas is an Assistant Professor in the Recreation, Sport and Tourism Department at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Asia Simms is the Park Champions Specialist Intern at NRPA.

you’ve identified gaps in basic needs, belonging and esteem, and opportunities for self-actualization, you can identify where your recreational programming fits in.

Hierarchy Anarchy

How and why to change your approach to recreational programming

By Christy Famolare

As recreation programmers, we often think about our popula tions in terms of demographic measures (e.g., age, economic status, ethnicity, education, etc). But what if we approached programming based on the needs of the community? How would it affect programming? Could this shift in perspective build innova tive programming, lifelong patrons and stronger communities?

esteem), and finally growth needs (self-actualization).

Nearly 80 years ago, Abraham Maslow wrote a paper on the theory of human motivation that is still being actively used today in

education, healthcare, social work and more (tinyurl.com/yavrzpzt). Maslow proposes that there are five categories that dictate an individu al’s motivation, and that the needs in each category must be met be fore they can move on to the next. For example, basic needs — such as food, water and shelter — must be met before a sense of security can be felt. Maslow’s categories start with basic needs (food and safety) and move upward to psy chological needs (belonging and

As with any theory, there is debate for and against this one. The debate against is largely that even individuals struggling to meet their basic needs still seek out a sense of belonging, love, accomplishment, etc. And while there is disagreement about a singular upward climb, it is agreed that these categories encompass the motivations and needs of humans, and that having those needs met or left unmet moves an individual back and forth between these categories.

Over the past few years during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pan demic, we as recreation program mers have seen the great flux be tween the categories. People got

Once

Maslow proposes that there are five categories that dictate an individual’s motivation, and that the needs in each category must be met before they can move on to the next.

sick, became caretakers, were isolated and lost their jobs. We struggled to develop programs that created or maintained a sense of belonging and accomplishment — for our patrons and, sometimes, for ourselves.

In the past, for the most part, recreation sat firmly within the psychological needs that Maslow describes as the belongingness and love needs and esteem needs. This is what we do, and we do it well — we build leagues where champion ships are won, develop programs where lifelong friendships are made, and create events that are in clusive of the community. Howev er, with such fluctuations in recent years, it would be advantageous to use these categories to more con sciously create programming for our communities.

The key to this is to evaluate your community and/or reference available studies for your locale. Where is the community, as a whole, on the hierarchy? Does your community have access and are their basic needs being met? Is the community thriving, or is there a lack of available housing? Are there jobs or homelessness? Is there access to healthy foods or is it a food desert? These types of questions identify gaps in basic needs being met. Where are residents going to find that sense of belonging — other recreation programs, religious institutes, schools, bars, etc.? Is it the same around the facility or parks you serve? And finally, are there opportunities for self-actualization, even if recreation is not providing it?

Once you’ve identified gaps in basic needs, belonging and es teem, and opportunities for selfactualization, identify where your

Belongingness and love needs: intimate relationships, friends

Safety needs: security, safety

Physiological needs: food, water, warmth, rest

recreational programming fits in. Where does your mission and vi sion fit in the hierarchy? Are you meeting the needs that have been identified from your community assessment, and that of your mis sion and vision? Start there; you’ll find programming ideas come eas ier when there is a purpose behind it. Some examples include:

• A program shifts from being a weekend soccer league to a weekend soccer league that holds a farmer’s market at the same place (that accepts Electronic Benefits Transfer and Supple mental Nutrition Assistance Pro gram at all their stalls).

• Create a program specifically for new residents to learn more about the resources in your community. Hold it in different languages, if needed.

These kinds of thoughtful shifts bridge gaps between the levels in the hierarchy and put specific

Psychological needs Basic needs

Creating innovative programs that flow to serve the needs of the community not only will build trust with the community, but also will serve to create a sense of belonging for your patrons.

meaning and intent into your pro gramming. You know your com munity; you know what will work. Creating innovative programs that flow to serve the needs of the com munity not only will build trust with the community, but also will serve to create a sense of belong ing for your patrons wherever they happen to be on the hierarchy, building lifelong patrons and a stronger community.

Christy Famolare is a Freelance Writer with 20 years of experience in community engagement and 15 years’ experience in parks and recreation.

Self actualization: achieving one’s full potential, including creative activities

Esteem needs: prestige and feeling of accomplishment

Self-fulfillment needs

The Mental and Therapeutic Benefits of Nature for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder

By Tim Herd, CPRE

Whether it’s simply walking in a park, gardening, biking, kayaking, wildlife watching or even just sitting with a view of green space, nature is good for what ails us.

Our physical, mental and emotional health is surprisingly codependent on interactions with our natural environment. Regular expo sure delivers restorative benefits; a lack of it brings detrimental consequences.

In his book, Last Child in the Woods, author Richard Louv describes the effects of what he called “naturedeficit disorder,” which is a distressing bundle of physical and emotional afflictions from the lack of personal interaction with nature — like low self-esteem, social anxieties, obesity and cardiovascular diseases.

And he’s not a lone prophet cry ing in the wilderness — a growing body of worldwide research backs

him up.

Such studies have shown that time spent in nature can raise our morale, sociability and mental clarity. It can reduce the effects of stress, anxiety, attention deficit dis order behaviors and more.

For children with Autism Spec trum Disorder (ASD), research shows that engagement with nature provides sensory motor skill, emo tional and social benefits. Howev

er, related issues — like sensory challenges, phobias, inappropriate behaviors and safety concerns — may make the adventure a bit hard er than just your average walk in the park. Of course, each child’s strengths and needs vary, but psy chologists say nature exposure can be an effective intervention strategy.

Beyond its calming attributes for children with ASD, nature also can be an exciting place to focus their exceptional powers of observation. The same single-mindedness that can master a narrow, arcane topic may also find fascination in the feel of a breeze, the ripples in a puddle, the rhythm of a katydid (a bush cricket), the colors in a rainbow, the

Studies have shown that time spent in nature can raise morale, sociability and mental clarity.

fragrance of a rose, or the textures and patterns in a pinecone.

Interacting with animals is anoth er encouraging ASD-nature con nection. Equine therapy uses horses and trained instructors to help children stay calm, focus, think, talk, behave and learn. Family pets can be a ready-at-any-time, home-based therapy. Studies have shown that children with autism who had a pet from a young age tended to have greater social skills. Other research verifies how social behaviors in children with ASD temporarily im prove after even a short play period with a live animal, such as a guinea pig (versus a toy).

My family experience with my youngest son, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, bears this all out. From the time he was 5 years old, we lived in the country, with nature literally outside our door, and he often played and explored outside contentedly for long stretches. (We did have a neighbor through the woods who sometimes blasted his radio as far as our yard, which greatly upset our son in his quiet communing with nature. We had to go ask him to turn it down, which he graciously did.) For a time, we had a knuckleheaded dog, named Toby, which our young son loved and treated very well, as he did a series of multicolored cats. One year, he incubated bobwhite quail eggs and raised the chicks un til they matured, and we released them into our back field. Another year, he raised chickens until the roosters crowed at 4 a.m. In all his animal interactions, he brought en thusiasm and a pleasant demeanor to his interest and grew in his re sponsibilities for caring for them.

The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry adds

that caring for a pet can help chil dren develop nonverbal communi cation, compassion, empathy and trusting relationships. Along with their connection to nature, pets also can bring comfort contact for unmet physical and emotional needs. Here are some simple starting steps to introduce children with ASD to nature:

• Allow them to enjoy unstruc tured play in a natural setting in their own way. Do not feel you must direct them; self-directed nature play builds creativity and problem solving. Let them stare at a leaf, if that’s what they like. Getting dirty is fine.

• Your natural area need not be a park or preserve set aside for such purposes. It can be a flow er bed, a backyard tree or even some sticks and leaves. Start from where you and your child are both comfortable, and plan for incremental steps.

• Look for different kinds of wild life or plants, even if it is through a window. Set up a birdfeeder or watch for squirrels. Let them count the number of butterflies, or how many different kinds of weeds they can find growing in

For children with Autism Spectrum Dis order, research shows that engagement with nature provides sensory motor skill, emotional and social benefits.

the crack of the sidewalk. Nature is all around, even in urban ar eas, there to be noticed.

• Add small excursions as comfort and interest grows. Go on a na ture scavenger hunt. Plan a trip to pick apples, strawberries or pumpkins. Try to identify con stellations in the nighttime sky. Go out in a rainstorm. Make bark rubbings of trees. Order a chrysalis and watch the butterfly emerge. Create a windowsill gar den. Plant a tree. Build a snow man. Erect a small hut as a safe outdoor shelter as a play retreat, where they can simply sit and be silent if they want. Collect differ ently colored leaves, etc. Simple interactions with nature can bring both immediate and long-range therapeutic benefits for children with ASD. All they need is someone to introduce them in ways they can appreciate; nature provides the rest.

Tim Herd, CPRE, is CEO of the Pennsylvania Recreation and Park Society.

Rooted in dynamic partnerships of both public and private entities, the Atlanta BeltLine has created a unique model for engaging both the community and funders in ambitious park and trail projects that rejuvenate people’s spirits and livelihoods, and has contributed significantly to the economic health and appeal of Atlanta.

The Atlanta BeltLine

How partnerships are transforming a 22-mile trail system into a beacon of equity and wellness for the South’s largest city.

By Ruben Brooks

In Atlanta, along a 22-mile loop of open and planned trails and parks, the Atlanta BeltLine is building a legacy of equity and well ness for its residents.

The Atlanta BeltLine, a multibillion-dollar transformational in frastructure project, is knitting back together 45 neighborhoods, many of which are connected by large, public green spaces. The communities that live along what used to be a cargo rail line were split — dividing the city’s haves from the have nots — during the railroad era of the past century.

Today, this iconic trail — which attracts 2 million visitors annu ally — is a beacon for equity and wellness. Whether a casual stroll through reimagined, resilient parks or a dedicated tour of the BeltLine Arboretum — 46 acres of planted space and 39 acres of natural area undergoing restoration manage

ment — Atlanta residents and visi tors alike enjoy the benefits of con servation. Better air quality, more abundant opportunity for wildlife viewing and recreation program ming lead the way to a more eq uitable city, with wellness benefits attached.

“I call it the ‘People’s Project,’”

says Clyde Higgs, president and CEO of Atlanta BeltLine, Inc., the entity entrusted with building the path and creating programs for eq uity and inclusion. “It’s an incred ible opportunity to work on what I think is the most transformational project in Atlanta that will impact generations to come.”

Rooted in dynamic partnerships of both public and private enti ties, Atlanta BeltLine has created a unique model and template for engaging both the community and funders in ambitious park and trail projects that rejuvenate people’s spirits and livelihoods, and has contributed significantly to the eco nomic health and appeal of a city.

A New “System of Community”

With a planned completion date of 2030, the BeltLine initiative has become a much-beloved destina tion not just for people running, walking and riding the trail for fun or commuting to work, but also for philanthropic and government partners to work together to finish this transformational asset that al ready is having a citywide impact.

Programs are ensuring both housing and commercial affordability and access to opportunity — not to mention a safe way to travel between neighborhoods that were split by railroads, highways and broad intersections.

The Atlanta BeltLine is designed to break down barriers and connect people, communities and cultures that have been intentionally segregated for generations. The over-arching goal is to implement the BeltLine project in a way that ensures all Atlantans have the chance to participate in and benefit from its economic growth for generations to come.

Through these efforts, the Atlanta BeltLine has created not just a system of connected trails and green spaces, but also a new community.

How It Works

The BeltLine has become a national model for public-private partnerships and collaboration as a way to expedite huge, visionary goals that transform a city. To manage a project of this scope and size, the Atlanta BeltLine has two organizations that work in tandem.

One arm is Atlanta BeltLine, Inc., tasked with building the Belt

Line infrastructure and creating programs that ensure equity and inclusion. It operates as an exten sion of the City of Atlanta, enabled through 2030 to get the trails and parks to completion, as well as to ensure housing and commer cial opportunities for all who live near the corridor.

Atlanta BeltLine, Inc., also runs an established arts and culture program that includes Art on the Atlanta BeltLine, a year-round outdoor art exhibition, and en compasses popular events, like the Atlanta BeltLine Lantern Parade, which attracts tens of thousands of people annually.

The Atlanta BeltLine Partner ship is the nonprofit arm in charge of programming for BeltLine resi dents, including affordable hous ing workshops and job training resources, and philanthropic con tributions. Wellness is a central pillar of the Atlanta BeltLine proj ect, with bike tours, running clubs and races, and a host of free fitness events for all ages and abilities.

Economic and Affordable Housing Opportunities

To ensure equitable access to economic and affordable housing opportunities, the BeltLine has several programs, including:

• BeltLine Marketplace, a pilot program that put six retailers into container storefronts, giving af fordable commercial space to lo cal, minority business enterprises and access to millions of visitors

• A façade improvement grant program that connects business es with artists who paint façades and create unique community landmarks

• A Business Solutions Office that helps businesses establish them selves along the BeltLine

• A Legacy Resident Retention Program that offsets property taxes for qualifying homeowners through the end of 2030

“It’s not just a place where people live, it’s not just a conglomeration of houses, it really is people taking care of and looking out for each other,” says Jason Hudgins, the Westview neighborhood communi ty organization president. Hudgins appreciates the many ways Atlan ta BeltLine leaders are working to embrace feedback and input from residents as the project unfolds and partnerships strengthen.

Community Investment

The Atlanta BeltLine project is scheduled for completion in 2030 at an estimated cost of more than $4 billion, requiring numerous sources of funding. Those include public and private sources, such as the At lanta BeltLine Tax Allocation Dis trict (TAD), which is administered by Invest Atlanta; the City of At lanta; private investment and phil anthropic contributions; county, re gional, state and federal grants; and public-private partnerships.

In public-private partnerships, return on investment often is one measure of success. By any ac count, the Atlanta BeltLine is wild ly successful, attracting more than $8.3 billion in private development. Approximately $670 million has been invested in the project’s deliv ery from 2005 to 2021, represent ing a positive return on investment of more than 10 to 1.

Ruben Brooks is Atlanta BeltLine, Inc.’s Chief Operating Officer.

In the case of Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. Buttigieg, an organization representing a group of residents continued their opposition to the construction of the Obama Presidential Center in historic Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side.

Environmental Review of Chicago Park Obama Center

By James C. Kozlowski, J.D., Ph.D.

The federal court opinion described herein illustrates the proce dural nature of a limited environmental review process by the federal judiciary under various federal statutes as applied to the conversion of public parkland by a local government. In the case of Protect Our Parks, Inc. v. Buttigieg, 2022 U.S. App. LEXIS 18252 (7th Cir. 7/1/2022), an organization representing a group of residents continued their opposition to the construction of the Obama Presidential Center (the Center) in historic Jackson Park on Chicago’s South Side.

Facts of the Case

In 2014, the Obama Foundation be gan searching for a home for Pres ident Obama’s presidential library. After evaluating several potential sites, it chose Jackson Park, a pub lic park in the neighborhood where President Obama lived and began his career as a community organizer, law professor and state senator. The Center would feature a museum, a

public library, spaces for education al and cultural events, green space, and an archive commemorating the life and legacy of the nation’s first Black President. Construction of the Center is wholly funded by the Obama Foundation.

After the Chicago City Council unanimously approved building the Center in Jackson Park, the City acquired the needed parkland

from the Chicago Park District, signed a use agreement with the Foundation, and prepared to break ground. When completed, the Cen ter will take up 19.3 acres, which amounts to about 3.5 percent of Jackson Park.

The City’s plan to build the Center in Jackson Park has been opposed from the start by Protect Our Parks, Inc., a nonprofit organi zation started by Chicago residents who resist conversions of Chicago parkland. Just days before the City broke ground on the Obama Cen ter, Protect Our Parks sued to halt construction. In the complaint, Protect Our Parks alleged the City’s moving ahead with the Center had failed to comply with several feder

al environmental review laws.

The federal district court denied Protect Our Parks’ motion for a preliminary injunction. In so do ing, the court held a preliminary injunction was not warranted be cause Protect Our Parks was not “likely to succeed on the merits, likely to suffer irreparable harm in the absence of preliminary relief, that the balance of equities tips in its favor, and that an injunction is in the public interest.” Protect Our Parks appealed.

The federal appeals court agreed with the district court that “the federal government had no role in the Foundation’s or Chicago’s deci sion to house the Center in Jackson Park.” The federal appeals court, however, acknowledged that “the City’s approval did trigger sever al federally mandated agency re views,” which Protect Our Parks had claimed were inadequate.

The federal appeals court would, therefore, consider the adequacy of the “several mandated agency re views,” including: the National Envi ronmental Policy Act; section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act; and the Urban Park and Recre ation Recovery Act (UPARR Act).

NEPA Environmental Review

As described by the federal appeals court, the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) requires federal agencies to prepare an envi ronmental impact statement (EIS) for “major Federal actions signifi cantly affecting the quality of the human environment.” 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C). Preparing an EIS is ex pensive and time-consuming. The average EIS takes four-and-a-half years to complete.

In some circumstances, however, the court acknowledged “agencies may instead conduct an environ mental assessment (EA), a less burdensome form of preliminary review used to decide whether a proposed action will cause such significant harm to the environ ment that an EIS is necessary.” 40 C.F.R. § 1501.3 (2019).

Following an environmental assessment, the court noted “an agency has two choices: proceed with the full EIS, or issue a ‘finding of no significant impact,’ generally referred to as an FONSI, explain ing why the proposed federal ac tion would not significantly affect the human environment.” Fur ther, in reviewing agency action under NEPA, federal courts apply a deferential standard of judicial review under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) to determine whether agency action is “arbitrary and capricious.”

APA review is particularly def erential to agency decisions in ar eas of agency expertise. Applying the APA “arbitrary and caprious” standard of judicial review, the court would uphold agency deci sions when the agency acts in ac cordance with applicable law; has considered all relevant factors; and there is no clear error in judgment.

In this case, the court found the National Park Service (NPS) and the Department of Transportation (DOT) had conducted a joint EA pursuant to NEPA. The joint EA by DOT and NPS had explained the City had decided to place the Center in Jackson Park and the City would close portions of three local roads to accommodate the Center.

In the EA, DOT and NPS recog nized “the federal government had

no say in those matters.” On the other hand, the joint EA acknowl edged: “The federal government did have a role, however, in approv ing the new use of the parkland and funding for new transportation infrastructure in the park.” On that limited basis, the agencies had as sessed the environmental impact of the following three options:

Option A, in which neither the Park Service nor the federal De partment of Transportation ap proved the City’s plan; Option B, in which only the Park Service ap proved it; and Option C, in which both did.

DOT and NPS found that Alter native C best met both agencies’ goals. Moreover, the EA also con cluded that “Alternative C would not have a significant impact on the environment.” As a result, “the agencies could move forward with only an environmental assessment, rather than a full-blown environ mental impact statement.”

In the opinion of the federal ap peals court, DOT and NPS had prepared “an exhaustive review of the direct, indirect and cumula tive effects of each option, includ ing the potential consequences on trees, wildlife, water quality, air quality, traffic control, noise and cultural resources.”

In describing limited role of ju dicial review under NEPA, the fed eral appeals court noted “NEPA is a procedural statute, not a substan tive one”:

It is now well settled that NEPA itself does not mandate particu lar results, but simply prescribes the necessary process. Thus, in reviewing an agency’s compliance with the law, a court’s only role is to ensure that the agency has tak

en a hard look at environmental consequences that may flow from a project, not to second-guess the agency’s substantive judgment about how serious those conse quences might be or what to do about them.

In this particular instance, Pro tect Our Parks had argued, “the agencies’ decision not to prepare an EIS was arbitrary and capricious” because “a finding of no signifi cant impact” had not adequately examined relevant environmental impacts, including:

[T]he project requires the City to cut down about 800 trees and fell ing those trees may adversely affect certain migratory birds, and in part for historic preservation and other reasons.

The federal appeals court reject ed this argument. As characterized by the court, Protect Our Parks had objected to “the agencies’ response to the procedural steps they took, not arguments about their failure to adhere to the required process.” In the opinion of the federal appeals court, in their EA, DOT and NPS had indeed been “very thorough” in their adherence to NEPA proce dural requirements:

Their environmental assessment includes, for example, an exhaus tive Tree Technical Memorandum, which catalogs the species of the trees that will be cut down and confirms that each tree lost will be replaced by a newly planted tree. The Memorandum concludes that the tree replacement plan will have an “overall neutral” impact and may even improve the park, be cause dying trees will be replaced with healthy ones.

Similarly, the EA includes a detailed discussion of the proj

ect’s effect on migratory birds. It considers the City’s tree replace ment plan, the hundreds of acres of Jackson Park that will remain untouched by the project, and the birds’ nesting habits.

Accordingly, the federal appeals court held “NEPA requires no more” because “the record shows that the Park Service and Department of Transportation took the necessary hard look at the likely environmental consequences of the project before reaching their decisions.”

NEPA Regulations

On appeal, Protect Our Parks had also argued that “the Park Service and the Department of Transpor tation did not adequately consider three of the [10] factors set forth in the NEPA regulations in effect while the review was underway.” The federal appeals court rejected this argument.

In the opinion of the court, “the administrative record amply shows that the agencies considered the proper factors” and, therefore, “their decision is entitled to deference.” In so doing, the federal appeals court cited the applicable federal environ mental regulations that implement NEPA: “Whether or not a project ‘significantly’ affects the environ ment turns on the project’s context and the intensity of its effects.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b) (2019).

Protect Our Parks also faulted the federal agencies for “ignoring the unique characteristics of Jack son Park.” The federal appeals court, however, found the joint EA had satisfied the regulatory re quirement to “take into account the historical and cultural resources in the park before concluding that the

Center’s effects will be minimal.”

Similarly, Protect Our Parks had contended that the agencies did not satisfy the regulatory requirement to “consider the degree to which environmental harm from the project is likely to be highly con troversial.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b) (4). In so doing, Protect Our Parks had offered evidence of “controversy” from “extra-record declara tions from neighbors who oppose the project.” The federal appeals court, however, noted “the contro versy factor is not about whether some neighbors do not support a project.” Rather, in determining whether a project is “likely to be highly controversial, NEPA regula tion would simply require an agen cy to consider whether there are substantial methodological reasons to disagree about the size, nature, or effect of a project.”

Cumulative Impacts

Protect Our Parks also had accused the agencies of failing to consider the “cumulatively significant im pact” of the project. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(7) (2019). Once again, the federal appeals court rejected the claim that environmental re view of the project by the agencies had failed to comply with applica ble NEPA regulations.

In the opinion of the court, the EA and FONSI had adequately considered the significance of cu mulative impacts of the project. In so doing, the court found the agencies had simply “reached a conclusion with which the plain tiffs disagree, when it determined that the cumulative effects would be negligible, minor, or otherwise relatively small”:

The Park Service and the De

According to the court: “Federal law does not require agencies to waste time and resources evaluating environmental ef fects that those agencies neither caused nor have the authority to change.”

partment of Transportation thor oughly studied the project through the lens of the required regulatory factors before reaching their deci sion that no environmental impact statement was required.

Accordingly, since the joint EA/FONSI by the agencies im plicated “substantial agency ex pertise,” the court acknowledged appropriate judicial review would find agency conclusions were “entitled to deference.”

Reasonable Alternatives

Protect Our Parks also had argued “the Park Service and Department of Transportation sidestepped NEPA’s reasonable-alternatives re quirement by treating the City’s de cision to locate the Center in Jack son Park as a given.” In particular, Protect Our Parks argued, “NEPA required the agencies to evaluate alternative locations for the Center throughout Chicago.” According to Protect Our Parks, a “proper as sessment” would have also “exam ined a site in nearby Washington Park, about two miles to the west of Jackson Park.”

Protect Our Parks further claimed the decision not to ques tion the Jackson Park site was an illegal form of “piecemealing or segmentation” of the required environmental review process.

As a result, Protect Our Parks claimed the Park Service and the Department of Transportation had improperly “segmented” two aspects of the overall project by separating the federal decisions to approve the UPARR conversion

to “expand roads, bike lanes, and pedestrian paths” and “the City’s earlier decision to build the Center in Jackson Park.”

In conducting an environmental review, the federal appeals court acknowledged that an agency ef fectively “dodges its NEPA obliga tions by breaking up an overall plan into smaller parts involving action with less significant environmental effects.” Further, the court found NEPA requires agencies to “study, develop and describe appropriate alternatives” to major federal proj ects. 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(E). That being said, the court noted, “NEPA reaches only major federal actions, not actions of non-federal actors,” defining “major Federal actions” as those “potentially subject to Federal control and responsibility.”

Citing Supreme Court prece dent, the federal appeals court ac knowledged: “where an agency has no ability to prevent a certain effect due to its limited statutory author ity over the relevant actions, the agency cannot be considered a le gally relevant ‘cause’ of the effect.” Similarly, the court acknowledged the federal government had “no obligation to examine the effects of state and local government action that lies beyond the federal govern ment’s control.”

Since “NEPA requires agencies to consider only environmental harms that are both factually and proximately caused by a relevant federal action,” the federal appeals court then determined whether NPS’s approval of the project had effectively caused the Obama Cen ter’s placement in Jackson Park. In this particular instance, the court found the City, not the federal government, had selected Jack son Park as the site of the Obama Presidential Center. As a result, the court held the Obama Center “was not a federal project, and no federal agency had the authority to dictate to the Obama Foundation where the Center would be located.”

As a result, the federal appeals court held there was “no federal action” under NEPA, which was the alleged “proximate cause of any environmental harms resulting from the choice of Jackson Park.” Accordingly, in the opinion of the federal appeals court, “it was prop er for the Park Service and the De partment to confine their analysis to the portions of the project that are subject to federal review.”

Section 4(f) Review

As described by the court, the plans for the Obama Center required the closure of portions of three

roads within Jackson Park, which would not require federal approv al. However, to accommodate the resulting effect on traffic, the court noted “the Chicago Department of Transportation has proposed us ing federal funding to build or im prove other roads, bike paths, and pedestrian walkways in the park.”

According to the court, this use of federal highway dollars to build such replacement infrastructure would give rise to the approval re quirement under Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. 49 U.S.C. § 303.

As cited by the court, Section 4(f) permits the Secretary of Transpor tation, through the Federal High way Administration (FHWA), to approve federally funded transpor tation projects that have an impact on public parks or historic sites, so long as “(1) there is no prudent and feasible alternative to using that land; and (2) the program or proj ect includes all possible planning to minimize harm to the park result ing from the use.”

The federal appeals court ac knowledged the Center proposal implicated four properties protect ed by Section 4(f), including Jack son Park itself. In the opinion of the court, a “comprehensive analy sis” by the FHWA had determined “there was no feasible and prudent alternative to using Section 4(f) properties for new transportation infrastructure, which was need ed to substitute for the roads that would be eliminated.”

After considering nine alterna tives to minimizing the negative impacts of the affected parks and historic sites, as noted by the court, the FWHA had selected an alterna tive that would “meet the project’s

goals of accommodating traffic changes and improving pedestrian and bike access to Jackson Park.”

In response, Protect Our Parks re iterated its general claim that the federal agencies should have con sidered locations for the Center outside Jackson Park.”

The federal appeals court found this Section 4(f) argument failed, applying the same rea soning in which it had rejected a similar alternate location argu ment under NEPA:

No federal law prohibited the City from building the Center in Jackson Park and closing road ways in connection with the proj ect. Entities that proceed on their own dime need not meet con ditions for federal assistance or approval. Because the Highway Administration could not have compelled the City to locate the Center at a different site, it was neither arbitrary nor capricious for that agency to take the City’s deci sion to build the Center in Jackson Park as a given — not to mention the fact that choosing a site for and building the Center is not a trans portation project.

UPARR Review

The federal appeals court also considered whether the review by NPS had complied with the UPARR Act. 54 U.S.C. §§ 200501511. As described by the court, the UPARR Act is a grant program enacted in 1978 to provide federal funds to local governments to improve urban parks and recreational facilities. Further, as cited by the court, the UPARR Act requires that any community that received a UPARR grant must maintain that land for public

recreational use, unless NPS approves converting the space for another purpose.

In this case, Chicago had re ceived UPARR grants to rehabilitate Jackson Park in the 1980s. Be cause Chicago wanted to dedicate about 10 acres of parkland to nonrecreational space to make room for the Obama Center’s buildings and related transportation im provements, the City sought NPS’s approval of the following partial UPARR conversion:

[T]he City proposed replac ing the lost parkland by turning property on the Midway Plai sance between Stony Island Av enue to the east, and the Metra Electric Railway to the west, into public recreational space. The replacement parkland borders (and effectively extends) Jackson Park’s western border.

Under UPARR, Protect Our Parks had again claimed NPS should have considered alterna tive locations for the Center. As cited by the federal appeals court, UPARR regulations required NPS to consider whether a proposal to convert parkland supported by a UPARR grant evaluated “all prac tical alternatives to the proposed conversion.” 36 C.F.R. § 72.72(b) (1). That being said, the federal appeals court noted UPARR reg ulations would require NPS to ap prove a proposed conversion if: (1) the conversion aligns with a local park-recovery action pro gram, and (2) steps are taken to en sure that the community has “ad equate recreation properties and opportunities of reasonably equiv alent location and usefulness.”

Under the City’s plan, the fed eral appeals court found “the new

space will include improvements, such as pedestrian walkways and a play area,” which “would yield a net gain of about 6.6 acres of recre ational space in Jackson Park.” Following a review of the proposal for the Center, NPS had determined “the proposed replacement satisfied the UPARR Act’s requirements” and, therefore, NPS was required to approve “a partial conversion to make way for the Center.”

In the opinion of the federal appeals court, the Park Service review of the project had indeed satisfied statutory obligations un der UPARR:

[T]he Park Service evaluated the City’s UPARR conversion proposal, found that the City had considered practical alternatives,

and explained that no practical alternatives existed in light of the City’s goals.

Moreover, under UPARR, the federal appeals court held “the Park Service has no authority to force the City to move the Center to a different location.”

Conclusion

In rejecting various environmental review claims by Protect Our Parks to the location of the Obama Cen ter, the federal appeals court con cluded: “The problem with this argument is that none of the federal defendants had anything to do with the site selection — it was the City that chose Jackson Park, and the federal agencies had (and have) no authority to move the project else

where.” According to the court: “Federal law does not require agencies to waste time and resourc es evaluating environmental effects that those agencies neither caused nor have the authority to change.”

The federal appeals court, there fore, affirmed the federal district court’s denial of Protect Our Parks’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

See also: “Standing to Challenge Obama Center in Chicago Park,” James C. Kozlowski, Parks & Recreation, Aug. 2021 Vol. 55, Iss. 8 (mason.gmu. edu/~jkozlows/lawarts/08AUG21. pdf).

James C. Kozlowski, J.D., Ph.D., is an Attorney and Professor emeritus in the School of Sport, Recreation and Tourism Management at George Mason University ( jkozlows@gmu. edu). Webpage link to an archive of articles (1982 to present): mason.gmu.edu/~jkozlows/lawarts/artlist.htm

Seeing the Urban Forest

Through the Trees

Five best practices for a thriving, equity-driven urban tree canopy

By Paul Stewart and LaDonna Baertlein

The experience a person has walking down a street in any given city on a hot summer day can tell you a lot about the status of its urban tree canopy.

In many communities, there are neighborhoods where the sun beats down onto a sizzling pavement unadorned by any meaningful foli age, creating waves of heat that assail pedestrians from above and below. In other neighborhoods, large, well-groomed historic trees offer an idyllic experience that lends character and invites people to linger. The difference in the pedestrian experience can change in a short city block — sometimes even property to property.

As one of the first Denver projects to capitalize upon the Downtown Denver Partnership’s “Build the Canopy Grant Program,” Dig Studio worked with developer Unico to transform a once-barren plaza at a key multimodal connection into a shaded, vibrant public amenity.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DIG STUDIO

As more cities recognize the im pacts of the collective communi ty and urban forest on everything from public health and equity to climate resilience, municipalities nationwide are committing to in creasing their urban tree canopies. However, as many communities can tell you, it is one thing to set a goal; it is quite another to put the proper structure in place to see those goals through.

Recognizing the growing imper ative to better understand and sup port a healthy, equitable canopy for the community, the city and coun

Private investment in the urban tree canopy adjacent to development blends seamlessly with public realm plazas man aged by the City of Denver.

ty of Denver engaged nationallyrecognized landscape architecture, urban planning and design firms Dig Studio and Design Workshop, along with master’s program stu dents from the University of Colo rado, to conduct research into best practices for enhancing equitable and sustainable outcomes in ur ban forestry.

The student research had two primary goals: to learn promising practices being used in other cities to support more equitable urban forestry programs, and to learn how inter-agency and external collaboration might strengthen and clarify roles and responsibil ities for urban forestry programs. Fifty-three stakeholders were in terviewed from 15 cities and na

tional organizations as part of this initial effort.

From there, the group conduct ed interdepartmental interviews to identify opportunities and chal lenges, diving deeper into cities that the student research revealed closely aligned with the challeng es Denver faces. This culminated in four city representatives from Portland, Oregon; Boise, Idaho; Cincinnati; and Pittsburgh being invited as guests to share forest ry best practices at a spring 2022 workshop with City of Denver department leaders, nonprofits, city council members and community stakeholders.

The results of this effort are now available online (tinyurl.com/ 4cabf9w9) and have applicability in

PHOTO COURTESY OF DAVID LAUER

Vermijo

communities big and small across the country.

Among the most vital takeaways are five key steps cities can take to increase collaboration and ac countability, secure appropriate funding and partnerships, and ul timately build the framework for a more equitable canopy that bene fits all residents.

Increase Inter-agency Coordination

Many cities interviewed identi fied challenges with inter-agency alignment of guidelines and stan dards between forestry, public works, stormwater and utilities. The most common conflict zone was consistently the right-of-way. Where there is limited area from curb to building face, competition for space impedes the ability to support tree infrastructure with ideal soil volumes.

Making things even more chal lenging, many cities do not have rules and regulations for the right-of-way that include a green infrastructure zone, creating a mismatch between the rules and regulations of public works and wastewater agencies.

So, how can cities better coordi nate and align priorities between their agencies? One exciting exam ple of a partnership to increase ur ban tree canopy in a long-term, sus tainable manner came from Boise.

In 2014, City of Boise, Capital City Development Corp (Boise’s Urban Renewal Agency, or URA) and the County Highway Department col laborated to develop streetscape standards that addressed green infrastructure goals and incorpo

rated trees as living infrastructure. Within these standards, suspended paving systems provide the ideal conditions for urban trees to thrive with expanded root zones and un compacted soil.

The unique partnership be tween the varying agencies puts the URA in charge of implement ing streetscape projects and co ordinating with private develop ment within the URA boundary, which had a funding stream es tablished for that purpose. Storm water responsibility lies with the County Highway District and the city public works department, while the parks department as sumes maintenance responsibil ity for the suspended pavement systems. The clear division of responsibilities, budgets for rightof-way infrastructure and fund ing through a URA offer lessons for other communities struggling with these same challenges.

Define Accountability

Some of the biggest challenges when it comes to urban tree can opy is clarity of maintenance re sponsibilities. Put simply, whose job is it to maintain the trees on the sidewalk? As cities grow and change, the public realm is pro foundly impacted by whether the integration of an urban tree cano py — with clear roles and respon sibilities — is part of the develop ment conversation.

Where urban forestry rules and regulations are not well-defined, or where building codes are mis aligned with right-of-way alloca tions for green infrastructure, the tree canopy often becomes an af terthought, inconsistently applied across an urban fabric.

The available planting area in most cities is concentrated on private property, which poses a challenge for government agencies around tree planting and maintenance strat

Street is a newly revitalized hybrid street, linking Colorado Springs downtown to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Muse um and America the Beautiful Park.

PHOTO COURTESY OF AECOM

egies. Often a city forestry agency is not part of the decision-making pro cess to ensure trees are equally pri oritized in right-of-way allocations. The tree canopy requirements and responsibilities for management of these trees vary wildly between municipalities, ranging from no respon sibility for trees on private property, to full maintenance responsibilities and in certain instances, funding sources. While there was no “right answer” identified, the point is that clarity of roles and responsibilities is vital in ensuring the consistency of the canopy.

Get Creative With Funding Sources

Municipalities seeing the most consistent strategy and impact on their urban tree canopy are often those that have a dedicated fund ing source. Cincinnati has a rightof-way linear frontage property tax

assessment on all property types, which provides funding for inter nal forestry crews and equipment for maintenance. In 2019, Portland convened a task force to research the political viability of various funding options for equitable service and funding levels for parks and forestry, with voters approving the levy in 2020. “Before going out to the voters, we put together an Alternative Funding Task Force to test the political viability of a ballot measure, and to weigh the pros and cons of various funding options,” says Jenn Cairo, Portland city for ester and urban forestry manager. “A five-year local option operating levy was tailored according to voter preferences and approved in 2020. Portland is proud to be among U.S. cities that now have a dedicated funding source that supports en hancement of the urban tree can opy, among other priorities. Since

the Parks Levy is not a perma nent funding source, Portland Parks is continuing to explore funding options, and in summer of 2022 has convened a com munity member Ballot Initiative Task Force to advise on funding options and next steps.”

Some cities are responding to the challenge of balancing wide spread development with invest ment in the urban tree canopy by providing creative financing and maintenance strategies. In Denver, a partnership between the city, the Downtown Denver Partnership and private donors funded the Ur ban Forest Initiative to support pri vate investment in the urban forest by providing grant funds for tree installation within the downtown district. In Pittsburgh, the city re ceives fees to support its urban tree canopy maintenance from Lamar Advertising for billboard advertis ing in the right-of-way. This kind of creativity and public/private/non profit coordination have proven time and again to yield the greatest impact on the urban canopy.

Harness the Power of Partnerships

Along these same lines, many com munities benefitted from partner ships with nonprofits to advance their urban tree canopy goals. From fundraising and volunteer coordination for tree planting ini tiatives to citizen education on the care and maintenance of trees, bio fuel management and distribution, and training the next generation of urban forestry stewards, as the ex amples showed, it truly does take

Renovations of the 1.25-mile 16th Street Mall in Denver include a new generation of trees that were sourced by the City of Denver three years in advance.

PHOTO COURTESY OF DIG STUDIO

Boise has focused initial efforts in large-scale reforestation within its urban renewal area, where street standards include suspended paving systems.

a village to nurture the tree canopy.

In Denver, The Park People non profit works with communities to plant trees and improve parks by raising funds and managing pro grams that provide residents with free and low-cost trees for public and private property. Mile High Tree Champions, in partnership with Denver Parks and Recreation, supports Denver-area businesses with turnkey tree planting proj ects designed specifically for their companies, while the Community Forester program trains people as active stewards of The Park People.

Focus on Equity

In all these efforts, if the distribu tion of trees isn’t viewed through the lens of equity, communities will never truly realize the full benefits of a robust urban canopy. Across

geographies and climates in the United States, under-investment in street trees in certain areas has cre ated conditions of inequity between residents (tinyurl.com/4u6eran2). Per the Tree Equity Score Map project (tinyurl.com/2p8sptbf), the poorest communities have 41 percent fewer trees than wealthier areas, contributing to high heat is land conditions, lowered air qual ity, less permeability for stormwa ter runoff, higher energy costs and lack of quality in the public realm. Several communities have piv oted to respond and focus on this condition, with concerted effort to plant, establish and maintain trees within communities with low tree canopy coverage. In Pittsburgh, nonprofit partnerships have led the way in initiatives to balance urban canopy coverage. Tree Pittsburgh spearheaded an urban forest master plan in collaboration with the city, with a clear goal to prioritize ur ban forestry efforts in underserved

neighborhoods. And the Pittsburgh Shade Tree Commission’s equita ble street tree investment strategy identifies low-income/low-canopy neighborhoods to prioritize invest ment in tree planting and mainte nance in those neighborhoods.

Look Around as You Look Ahead

As Denver and countless other cities are grappling with challeng es ranging from climate change to health and equity, the research and dialogue they have led with communities across the country has shown there is much we can learn from one another. Together, we all have a part in greening our urban environments and building a thriving tree canopy. Realizing and working toward this greater common good cannot happen a moment too soon.

Stewart, ASLA, PLA, LEED AP, is Principal at Dig Studio. LaDonna Baertlein is Senior Associate, Director of Business Development at Dig Studio.

Paul

MAP COURTESY OF STEVE HUBBLE/BOISE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS

Traditional “visitor centers” paved the way for what we refer to as “interpretive centers” today.

PHOTO COURTESY OF TOM HOLDSWORTH

BUILDING

Why interpretive centers matter in an era of social change

By Alan Reed

The past few years have borne witness to some of the most rapid — and at times, most jarring — cultural shifts in our nation’s long history. If the experience has taught us anything, it is that we must find a way to keep our history in view, while also putting it in perspective. Monuments, landmarks, battlefields, whole landscapes, and sites of struggle, loss and triumph — all of these require a new spatial framework. It should be one that can transmit their meaning, not just to the present generation, but also to generations to come.

Fortunately, architecture puts at least one invaluable tool at our disposal to further explore these relationships and foster productive and inclusive discourse. It’s called an interpretive center, and it’s a type of building our office has been researching, reimagining, design ing and building for the past three decades, completing more than 65 such projects.

Most people have been to an interpretive center of one kind or another. In its simplest form, it’s fa miliar to anyone who recalls — as I certainly do — being dragged off by their parents on a long vacation drive and stopping along the way at

Interpretive centers provide a compre hensive informational environment that begins with the building and its surroundings, and then extends to every aspect of its interior.

various spots of natural or histori cal interest. There, at the far end of the parking lot, was the visitor cen ter; usually a modest, boxy affair, the building would often include a few dimly lit, not-very-engrossing exhibition displays, a gift shop packed with themed keychains and shot glasses, and perhaps a little lit erature and a few basic services to help guests navigate the site. They might not always have been inspiring, but those buildings succeeded on basic terms at least, and they paved the way for what we refer to as “interpretive centers” today.

From Visitor Center to Interpretive Center

Beginning in the 1990s, we started to think about this typology of in terpretive centers in a new way. Put succinctly, the difference between

the visitor centers of the past and an interpretive center is that, while the former is typically little more than a nondescript box with infor mation inside it, the latter provides a comprehensive informational environment that begins with the building and its surroundings, and then extends to every aspect of its interior. A good example of this is the Fort McHenry Visitor and Education Center in Baltimore.

Designed in 2011 by GWWO Ar chitects, the project was intended to be a destination — a landmark that would drive traffic to the site and then actively engage visitors from the moment they arrive. At Fort McHenry, home to the orig inal star-spangled banner, the structure’s curved, flag-like façade begins to tell the story of the place even before the guests go inside.

PHOTO COURTESY OF GWWO ARCHITECTS & RTA

Once past the threshold, visitors progress through the interior in dis crete, carefully planned stages, with spatial cues, lighting, didactic and interactive displays and more, all flowing together to produce a nat ural, understandable narrative. As in all of our interpretive projects, the aim in Baltimore was as much to convey the relevant facts about the site as to express its essential emotional import, turning the en counter with history into a moving, transformative experience.

Beyond the building envelope, there are an array of strategies that can make for an effective interpretive center. Context is one. In the past, buildings like these were often locat ed near the historical site but with no organic relationship to it. Now, as in the recent Niagara Falls State Park Welcome Center, the focus is on forging a vital connection to the site, with views out to the Niagara River Gorge and the roaring cataract to allow the landscape to tell its own

story. The variety of different media, ranging from artifacts to video to digital interactives, also is crucial to appeal to potential visitors of all ages and backgrounds, and to present them with as many options as possi ble to engage with the subject matter. The opportunity to guide the user experience isn’t confined to the center’s interior. With intuitive wayfinding routing visitors around and through the site, we are able to extend the experience and activate the whole environment. Even ame nities like dining, rest areas and the gift shop can be marshaled in the service of stirring, provocative space-making, along with many things ordinary visitors might not notice but that, nonetheless, rein force the key themes of the site. Pikes Peak Summit Visitor Center in Colorado, for instance, meets the stringent ecological standards of the Living Building Challenge, thereby helping to preserve the very natural environment it celebrates.

The opportunity to guide the user expe rience isn’t confined to an interpretive center’s interior.

Ensuring the curatorial message hits home is key, and it is incum bent upon us to make sure it’s the right message, or messages, that get through. In the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Visitor Center in Maryland, there was a particular imperative to hear Tub man’s voice alongside the voices of millions like her desperate to es cape from slavery. The challenge of inclusion — ensuring that everyone is present and accounted for, most of all those who were traditionally left out of the historical conversa tion — makes it all the more im portant to create interpretive cen ters, like the Tubman center, that guarantee different points of view and provide spaces for events and programming to bring in outside speakers who can broaden the cen ter’s scope and invite further partic

PHOTO COURTESY OF GWWO ARCHITECTS

ipation from the audience.

Sourcing the Story

Architects don’t create these sto ries, nor do exhibit designers. Rather, we tell these stories, and in their telling we rely on experts in their respective fields and the people who lived it, or are descen dants of those who did, to share their experiences and perspec tives. This is a highly inclusive process that ensures stories are told from various vantage points.

In the case of our project at Niag ara Falls, for example, our team worked with members of the Seneca Nation and Tuscarora Nation to co-create graphics and exhibits that tell the stories of the region as it was first known.

For the Harriet Tubman Under

ground Railroad Visitor Center, our team’s research required a multi-pronged approach that in cluded working with historians; interviewing numerous descen dants, local experts and families that lived near Tubman’s family; developing a scholars roundta ble with representatives from the Harriet Tubman Organization, Dorchester County Tourism, Car oline County Tourism, Maryland State Archives and the National Park Service; and conducting a large community session to hear the voices of the people who live near the center.

Creating Equitable Experiences

As critical as it is that we share a complete history in our centers, it is equally as important that we en sure an equitable experience. The top of Pikes Peak would usually be all but inaccessible, especially for older visitors and those with

physical challenges. But gentle grading and accessible overlooks elevated above the fragile tundra ecosystem, along with parking and a cogwheel train to carry guests to and from the summit, ensure the center and experience are as equitable as they are sustainable. The functional, as well as formal, so phistication of any interpretive center can be measured by way of a few simple questions: For whom does this building make room? Who does it speak to, and whom does it allow to speak?

It is in answering these questions that the interpretive center, unique in the contemporary architectural repertoire, may be precisely what we need to escape our present cultural impasse. The forces that have been pulling so insistently at the fabric of our national life must somehow find expression and be woven into our shared history. Taking the best developments in interpretive center design to date

Architects and exhibit designers rely on experts in their respective fields and people with lived experiences to share their perspectives.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT CREAMER

and combining them with some of the most promising trends emerg ing in the field — incorporating new forms of technology, includ ing augmented reality or virtual reality; forging connections be tween institutions and sites, es pecially ones in the same city or region; and encouraging visitors to shape their own experience — interpretive centers could perform that delicate act of intertwining.

Here are six tips for park and rec reation professionals considering creating an interpretive center:

• Create a project-specific mission statement. Drafting a vision statement and project goals is an iterative process that should be undertaken with your design professional. Whether natural, historical or cultural, the site is key. Interpretive centers are, by definition, site specific, and your mission

should be site specific, too.

• Make your process as inclusive as possible. Think beyond the established stories and histories. Reach out to appropriate experts and stakeholders for input.

• Consider every type of visitor. Visitors can roughly be divided into three types: streakers, stroll ers and scholars. Design your center so all visitors can take in your message, no matter how much time they spend.

• Design for visitors to “build their own adventure.” Through robust orientation and intuitive wayfinding, individuals can cu rate their own experience.

• Plan for holistic sustainabili ty. Can it meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs in terms of people, planet and business?

• Architecture and landscape de-

As critical as it is that we share a com plete history in our centers, it is equally as important that we ensure an equita ble experience.

sign should be part of the story. Designers should consider using massing, sequencing, materiality and detailing in their storytelling. With many more interpretive centers, big and small, appearing in many more of those contested places that so sorely need them, we could create a vast interconnected network — a nationwide, brickand-mortar system for mediating between the past and present — that could help forge a new nation al consensus. For a building type with such humble beginnings, it’s a lot to hope for, and it’s definite ly a lot to expect of the architects tasked with designing them. But it’s a great place to start.

Alan Reed is Principal at GWWO Architects.

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROBERT CREAMER

Community Wellness Hubs remove barriers and bridge gaps to help people access vital health and social resources, ensuring that all people can thrive.

Creating a Community Wellness Hub

By Maureen Neumann

In communities across the country, park and recreation agencies are le veraging their integral role as public health professionals and stepping up to serve as stewards of intentional Community Wellness Hubs. Community Wellness Hubs are trusted gathering places that con nect every member of the community to essential programs, services and spaces that advance health equity, improve health outcomes and enhance quality of life across the seven dimensions of well-being (see graphic on p. 48). Community Wellness Hubs are essential to health and well-being — they remove barriers and bridge gaps to help people access vital health and social resources, ensuring that all people can thrive.

This isn’t anything new for park and recreation agencies. Rather, it’s reimagining the way in which programs, services and partner ships are delivered and accessed to support community health and well-being. Community Well ness Hubs build on the existing strengths, assets and foundations of local park and recreation agen cies, working to address the root causes of health and social ineq uities and promoting health across multiple levels of intervention (in dividual, interpersonal, communi ty, etc.) and holistically across sev en interconnected dimensions of well-being. Health equity is at the center of Community Wellness

Hubs, leveraging hubs to reduce barriers to health for people who have been historically disenfran chised by unfair power structures, policies, environments, social norms and resources.

Park and recreation profession als can transform a specific physi cal space, like a community center or local park, into a Community Wellness Hub by providing an equitable and inclusive set of pro grams and services in one central location. But a hub also can be a concept, focusing on a larger, system-wide level, shifting their agency mission, operations and practices to function in a more holistic, intentional and intercon

nected way and delivering services out in the community.

While Community Wellness Hubs will look different in every neighborhood, city and county, they are united by their shared goals of advancing health equity, improving health outcomes and enhancing quality of life for all people. Although hubs meet the unique needs of each community, NRPA has developed a digital re source, Community Wellness Hubs – A Toolkit for Advancing Commu nity Health and Well-Being Through Parks and Recreation (nrpa.org/ CommunityWellnessHubs), to pro vide ideas and guidance to help park and recreation professionals advance Community Wellness

To learn more about what Community Wellness Hubs look like in action, check out 10 case studies from park and recreation professionals and their community partners in section 5 of Community Wellness Hubs – A Toolkit for Advancing Community Health and Well-Being Through Parks and Recreation (nrpa.org/CommunityWellnessHubs).

Developing a process framework for reducing barriers to health and well-being

Hubs. The toolkit provides a pro cess guide to creating a Communi ty Wellness Hub in alignment with seven dimensions of well-being.

Process of Creating a Community Wellness Hub

When creating a Community Well ness Hub, there are four primary phases to work through. In addi tion to each phase, there are key considerations that should be present throughout the development process. Before you begin working through the components, consider these key questions:

• Are there existing organizations, coalitions or partners that are already supporting community health efforts? If so, can partner ships be formed to leverage these existing assets?

• Are there clear, unmet needs that have been identified by the com munity? How will your hub meet these needs?

• Who is leading conversations

about the needs and priorities of underrepresented and historical ly disenfranchised groups in the community? Equity is at the cen ter of this work, and all voices should be heard in the planning of your hub.

Answering these questions up front will help determine next steps and strategies related to creating a hub, and what your agency’s role should be in advancing solutions to health and social inequities within your community. Once the ques tions have been answered, agencies can move into the development phase of their hub model, which is ideally planned in phases, with each phase building on the previ ous one (see graphic on p. 49).

We see these phases as cyclical, and agencies are encouraged to revisit them throughout the pro cess, rather than viewing them as a checklist of to-do items. The needs of your community will change as your community grows, and your

hub framework should be revisit ed often to ensure those needs are heard and met, and reflective of your current community.

Phase 1: Develop Partnerships and Collect Information

Building partnerships with likeminded organizations, or organi zations working to advance sim ilar goals, is a key way to build community-wide health and wellbeing. Additionally, consider com munity members as partners in this work. Engaging with community members, partners and organizations to understand current needs, assets and resources, and gathering infor mation and data from a variety of diverse sources are a crucial part of this phase. Conducting community health needs assessments and creat ing community asset maps can help inform opportunities that exist across the community from voices that will be directly impacted by this work.

Phase 2: Engage Core Stakeholder Group

To develop an overall vision, goals and an action plan for your hub model, you’ll want to create a core stakeholder or advisory group. Examples of stakeholders include community members; agency staff of all levels; partners — such as health departments, local govern ment, universities, nonprofits and community-based organizations; and many others. Stakeholders should be engaged early in the pro cess to increase acceptance and participation in the program and to provide valuable feedback in the planning process.

Phase 3: Identify Vision and Objectives

During the next phase, you’ll work

with your core stakeholder group as you get clear on what you want your hub to be. Consider spending time defining the vision and mis sion of your hub and identifying the main goals you’d like to accom plish. From there, break the goals into short-, medium- and longterm objectives, and identify the resources you’ll need to get to each of those points.

Phase 4: Define Key Strategies and Develop an Action, Implementation and Evaluation Plan

This last phase is your action phase. Take the time to create clear plans for achieving your goals, including timelines, roles and responsibili ties, and measuring progress. Be sure to share this plan widely with your team and stakeholder group to create transparency and encour age accountability.

There also are six key consid erations you’ll need to keep top of mind throughout the develop ment of a Community Wellness Hub. As the process guide demon strates, these factors should be present and addressed in every phase of planning.

Centering and Advancing Equity: When the needs of those most impacted by inequity are ad dressed in both process and prod uct, you are more likely to achieve your goals of advancing communi ty health and well-being for all.

Building and Maintaining Partnerships: Community Wellness Hubs do not need to be the direct provider of all health and wellness services. Given the many directions a hub can take, considering the dif ferent types of partners and orga nizations that will be necessary or the key for achieving overall goals is important.

Advocating: It’s important that elected officials, external stake holders and the public recognize the essential nature of parks and recreation and your Communi ty Wellness Hub, and it all starts with telling your story. Provid ing updates and information to decision-makers and policymak ers about the hub — especially the overall vision, goals and objectives — will be critical to its success.

Providing Continuous Communications: Maintaining continu ous, transparent communication on hub progress updates, programs or initiatives, or evaluation findings is essential. This also is the time to create space and opportunities for the community to provide feedback or advice about the hub.

Evaluating: Having measurable, focused and understandable met rics that are related to your hub’s efforts will be critical for under standing if you are making prog ress toward longer-term goals and

outcomes, and where refocusing is necessary to achieve goals.

Identifying Funding: Securing and diversifying funding for staff ing and needed resources to sup port the implementation of hub strategies is critical to success and can help ensure long-term sus tainability.

Park and recreation agencies are in the perfect, and incredibly unique, position to serve as Com munity Wellness Hubs that provide essential and high-quality programs and services to all members of the community. By intentionally plan ning, designing and implementing a hub model, agencies across the country are meeting community members where they are and cata lyzing health and well-being.

For more on Community Wellness Hubs, visit nrpa.org/ CommunityWellnessHubs

Maureen Neumann (she/her) is Senior Health Program Manager at NRPA (mneumann@nrpa.org).

OPERATIONS

Creating a Recreation Center That Your Community

Genuinely Wants

By Nicole Crawford

Recreation centers provide the perfect setting for families and friends to meet and have fun. They also provide individual benefits, like promoting an active lifestyle and enhancing mental health. However, for your recreation center to be successful, it is important to create one that the local community will want to visit. What are some of the best ways to ensure you are creating a space that provides the benefits your community is looking for?

Talk to the Community

The first step is understanding your community’s needs. This will help you identify gaps, which you can use to create goals and strategies to fill them. One of the best ways to know what your community wants is sim ply to talk to the people. Meet people where they gather, such as places of worship and schools, to sell your vi sion. Another method is to conduct surveys. Ask community members to give their suggestions and input to help you improve your vision. Ad ditionally, talk to local government,

business and community leaders to draw support and help you sell your vision.

Study the Demographic

In addition to speaking with your community, it is important to take a hard look at the demography of the area and their preferences. Since it can be difficult to talk to every member of the community, this can help you determine the features that most people will likely want in the recreation center. After this study, you might decide to have:

• Picnic areas – If your communi ty has social clubs, sports groups and families, a picnic area would be ideal to offer a lovely place to gather and dine together. This would call for aesthetically pleas ing and comfortable benches and picnic tables, park grills and trash receptacles.

• Playgrounds, gym areas and sports fields – If there is a need to attract families and corpora tions, playgrounds, gym areas and sports fields can be great for both family fun and teambuilding activities.

• Dog areas – Are dog owners common in your community? They might want a recreation

center that they can visit with their dogs. A dog area may fea ture climbers, hoops, tunnels, trash receptacles and more.

One of the best ways to improve a business is to look at what the competitors are doing. Likewise, finding out what other recreation centers in the community are of fering can shed some light on what the community wants.

Keep Improving

If you are to consistently offer what your community wants, your best strategy is to keep track of the com munity’s changing needs. Focus on collecting data on your program ming and event offerings, as well as tracking activities and visitors’ feed back (tinyurl.com/52eh7fde).

With updated data, you can tell which programs and activities are popular so you can capitalize on them. Additionally, feedback from users can reveal weaknesses that can be improved upon.

Recreation centers can bring health and economic benefits to a community. But, you will want to make sure it is what the community genuinely wants. Talking to the com munity, looking at the demograph ics and studying other centers can provide insights on what the people want. Additionally, striving to keep improving and maintaining the cen ter is crucial in constantly delivering what the community wants.

Nicole Crawford is a Freelance Writer (crawfordnicole44@gmail.com).

If your community has social clubs, sports groups and families, a picnic area would be ideal to offer a lovely place to gather and dine together.

Breaking Equity Barriers in Golf in Wichita

Many traditions surrounding golf stand at the forefront as the defining aspect of the game. Behavior, rules, etiquette, clothing and respect for the game are some that come to mind. However, there are many stereotypes that go with these traditions. For many years, the sport was deliberately exclusive to wealthy, elite white males.

Today, that exclusivity is noticeably changing, in many cases by design. But at City of Wichita (Kansas) Park and Recreation, we real ized it was not enough. At the local level, golf and park professionals need to be the spark that generates even more of a paradigm shift.

As our department reviewed our values and growth opportunities, one recurring conversation focused on the unfortunate and obvious lack of diversity on our golf courses. Everyone is welcome on our greens, but we knew that because of past golf participa tion stereotypes, we needed to work to ensure that all community members know they belong and are welcome at all golf courses.

We knew that this intentional work could not be done alone, and a community call to action was required. We began by recruit ing 10 young women of color. Our goal was not just to introduce them to golf, but also to give them confidence and invest in their ability so they could excel at the game. We worked with coaches and physical education teachers from the local school district to identify students who would be interested in the program and had no prior experience with golf. We reached out to a regular Golf Wichita donor who helped us purchase 10 sets of women’s golf clubs that participants would keep.

Next, we needed golf instructors, so we turned to golf agency First Tee. The agency staff developed a curriculum, meeting twice a week during a 10-week period. We provided them with space on our practice greens and driving range, tee times and teaching space. First Tee recruited Black instructors to show that the game of golf is not just for wealthy white males.

We needed this program to be accessible beyond the first 10 weeks. Therefore, we decided to give these 10 young women free access to play the rest of the year, which expanded our partnership with First Tee.

This was a true effort by many partners and a grassroots movement with a clear goal, based on action and the desire to make a difference in our community. Next year, we are planning to expand our effort with more diverse representation.

It is difficult to measure the success of the program in just one summer, but these young women were excited and took advan tage of the opportunity with enthusiasm and determination. From a long-term programming standpoint, true success can only be measured in the future by what they learned, if they continue to play golf and, perhaps, their future achievements on the golf course. But for the impact in the lives of these 10 students and community awareness, it was a hole-in-one.

–

Troy Houtman, CPRE, Director of Parks and Recreation, City of Wichita

For many years, golf was deliberately exclusive to wealthy, elite white males. Today, that exclusivity is noticeably changing, in many cases by design.

PHOTO COURTESY OF FIRST

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