Trust for Public Land Research & Innovation 2021

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Block Group with higher % white population

Block Group wit

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§ ¦ ¨ 66

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695

§ ¦ ¨ 295

§ ¦ ¨ 495

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2021 ParkScore® index: Equity W A S H I N GT O N , D. C .

The Equity category of the ParkScore® index awards points in part based on the difference in nearby park space between neighborhoods in a city: •On a per person basis, ratio of nearby public park space between communities of color and white communities •On a per person basis, ratio of nearby public park space between low-income communities and high-income communities

are considered low-income; households with income greater than median income (greater than $150,000 in Washington) are high-inco

Nearby park space per person effectively measures the available park space within a 10-minute walk of a micro-neighborhood, identified as those with the highest concentrations (top 20% of all census block groups in a city) of people of color or white population and high-income or low-income households. Households with income less than 75% of city median income (less than $75,000 in Washington)

The metrics for people of color reflect each of the Census-designated groups: Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous and Native American, Asia Pacific Islanders, multiple races, and other communities of color.

The Trust for Public Land Research & Innovation THERE IS SO MUCH TO BE PROUD OF

in 2021

AND MORE TO LOOK FORWARD TO IN THE YEAR AHEAD

In Washington, neighborhoods of color have 15% more park spa neighborhoods, and low-income neighborhoods have 9% more than neighborhoods.

Demographic profiles are based on 2020 Forecast block groups provi

CLOSING THE PARK EQUITY GAP WITH DATA Your Trust for Public Land support helps make a case for park and open space funding, creation, and maintenance in the most underresourced communities.

At The Trust for Public Land, community is at the heart of every decision we make. Data represents a cornerstone of our effort to create more inclusive, equitable neighborhoods. We dive deep into neighborhood-scale data to draw insights that create meaningful, nature-based change.

We use data to build a rigorous, shared understanding of the circumstances that residents face, including their needs and opportunities— an essential prerequisite to inform our efforts with partners on the ground. From Camden,

New Jersey, to Macon, Georgia, we use residentinformed data and insights to create a shared understanding that challenges assumptions and helps rewrite the narrative of collective response and local innovation.

The pandemic and climate crisis have exacerbated the vulnerabilities in communities that have been historically under-resourced and intensified the ongoing dialogue about race, inclusion, and belonging in America. Luckily, our data drives tangible outcomes for millions of people.

Thank you for your support. You allow us to be results-driven. You help us package information in a way that empowers people to make their own decisions about priorities and opportunities.

As a result, you ensure that we create parks and protect land for people who need them the most.

ANNIE BANG

NEW YORK CITY OPEN STREETS AND PARK EQUITY

parks and green space, where residents are more than a 10-minute walk from a park and yet did not have an open street for safe, physicallydistanced recreation and social gathering.

During the pandemic, cities nationwide temporarily banned thru traffic on streets to give pedestrians and cyclists more space to move around safely.

The Trust for Public Land’s analysis shows that New Yorkers in low-income neighborhoods have access to 21 percent less park space than those in high-income neighborhoods. Residents in neighborhoods of color have access to 33 percent less park space than those in predominantly white neighborhoods.

To support a more equitable distribution of this initiative, we created a map that shows the city’s open streets in the context of areas in need of

Two months after we created the map, the city opened up an additional 30 miles of streets that were more equitably distributed. New safe stretches of car-free blocks were added in lowincome communities and communities of color, such as East New York, Harlem, and Brownsville, where there were none before.

ALEX A HOYER

In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the City Council announced that 40 miles of streets would open for safe recreation, focusing on streets near parks. But because low-income communities and neighborhoods where most people identify as people of color lack open space, the initial plan excluded many people who would have benefited the most.

Unfortunately, these same people were also hit hardest by the Covid-19 crisis.

HISTORIC MACON FOUNDATION’S SAVING PLACES INDEX Building by building, neighborhood by neighborhood, historic sites in Macon, GA, are being preserved and revitalized. To ensure thoughtful stewardship and careful planning for preservation, conservation, and recreation, we partnered with the 1772 Foundation and the Historic Macon Foundation (HMF) to develop and test a holistic community asset mapping model.

Our joint engagement and listening exercise resulted in the Saving Places Index—marrying community insights and spatial data. The index supports HMF’s programs and lets residents identify culturally and historically relevant places.

HMF uses the parcel prioritization tool to support its existing programs like “Macon’s Fading Five,” a list of significant places threatened by neglect or demolition.

We also created the Saving Places Survey App in partnership with HMF so anyone can nominate new places that are overlooked for land conservation, recreation, or historic preservation.

Local government, nonprofits, and private citizens use the tool to identify, evaluate, and protect those places that are valued by the community at large.

CHRISTOPHER IAN SMITH

PARKSCORE ® INDEX The Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore index is the national gold-standard comparison of park systems across the 100 largest cities in the U.S. We created the index to help cities across the U.S. improve their parks and provide a fair and objective way to compare park systems.

ParkScore ratings are based on access, acreage, investment, amenities, and—now for the first time in the index’s 10-year history—park equity!

Adding a park equity measure gives us a more complete understanding of the racial and economic disparities and who does and doesn’t have access to parks nationwide. It also helps us identify a path forward to closing the park equity gap.

The ParkScore index is a vital tool for helping cities understand how they can equitably improve access to parks—especially necessary

after a year of dramatically increased use of parks, steep park agency budget cuts, recordbreaking heatwaves, and the stark realities of inequitable distribution of benefits across race and household incomes.

We discovered that across all 100 ParkScore cities, residents of neighborhoods where most people identify as Black, Latinx, Indigenous, or Asian American and Pacific Islander have access to an average of 44 percent less park space per capita than residents of neighborhoods that are predominantly white. Residents of low-income neighborhoods have access to 42 percent less park space than residents of high-income neighborhoods.

CHRISTOPHER T. MARTIN, LLC

But we have a lot of reasons to be optimistic!

Collectively, the 100 most populous cities have seen a 15 percent increase in park access since their inclusion in the ParkScore index. This represents more than 6 million people within the 100 largest cities who now have a park within a 10-minute walk of their home.

ParkScore® Index Equity Measures

We continue to build on our commitment to improving the park equity measures we introduced in this year’s ParkScore index. Through a Communities of Practice approach with our park agency partners, we will focus on the distribution of park resources throughout ParkScore cities.

GREEN + HEALTHY CAMDEN Cities like Camden, New Jersey, are on the frontlines of the climate crisis—experiencing rapidly warming temperatures and rising sea levels. Further exacerbating these threats, Camden uses a combined sewer system, an outdated form of infrastructure that carries sewage and stormwater through the same pipes.

The combined volume overwhelms the system during storm events, causing polluted water to back up into the streets and discharge into nearby waterways without treatment.

To address this pressing issue, The Trust for Public Land and Cooper’s Ferry Partnership came together to develop the Camden Parks and Open Space plan. The plan combines geospatial analysis with in-depth community engagement to help urban planners decide where to put parks and green infrastructure to maximize social

and environmental outcomes and simultaneously close the park equity gap.

GIS data plays an integral role in the plan. Using the best available data on extreme heat, flooding, health, equity, and local parks, we created interactive maps and engaged nearly 500 local residents to identify their top priorities for park improvements. The resulting Open Space Plan identifies locations where new parks can deliver climate, health, and social benefits in neighborhoods that have been historically under-resourced.

The public can easily access these maps and data through an online, interactive app called Green + Healthy Camden, which shows the highest priority places for park and green infrastructure investment.

TPL STAFF

PARKSERVE ®

Albuquerque mayor Tim Keller joined our 10-Minute Walk™ mayoral campaign in 2018, committing to ensure a close-to-home park for all residents by 2050. To advance this promise, city planners use ParkServe to identify gaps where access to parks and trails can be increased.

City planners found that in many cases, gaps in park access overlapped with lands owned by potential public partners like the local school district and the irrigation management agency.

The city is now exploring creative ways to expand access to parks and green space for residents using these publically-owned lands.

ParkServe is the most comprehensive database on parks ever assembled, covering 75 percent of America’s population. The site tracks and maps park access in 14,000 cities and towns in the U.S. so advocates like city planners in Albuquerque can quickly identify where parks are needed most.

This year we added new data so park advocates can see where park need areas overlap with policy-relevant neighborhood-level data, including: • K-12 public schools locations

• equity metrics like education level, access to a vehicle, and linguistic isolation • health metrics, including mental health and physical activity levels • climate metrics, including urban heat islands and air pollution burden.

This additional data offers a more rigorous understanding of community conditions and allows for a more granular evaluation of the impact of parks and open space interventions across the country. Compared to last year, the average number of monthly ParkServe users has increased by nearly 2,000 users.

Improving park access metrics in rural communities We recognize that the 10-minute walk metric is a less useful indicator of access to the outdoors in areas that are not densely populated, designed for vehicles, and where people live on large parcels with lawns and trees. The Trust for Public Land plans to develop metrics that are more appropriate for these types of communities.

GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE AND URBAN AGRICULTURE ANALYSIS FOR WASHINGTON, D.C. Green infrastructure is an approach to water management that protects, restores, or mimics the natural water cycle. But there is also tremendous potential for green infrastructure to address challenges such as climate change, food insecurity, inequity and limited resources. Green infrastructure can also improve the social and ecological health of cities.

radiation potential. To assess rooftop areas, we used building footprints and digital surface models to calculate and filter for building height, area and slope.

We partnered with the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences at the University of the District of Columbia, a historically Black land-grant university. Together we identified current areas in Washington, D.C. where green infrastructure and urban agriculture are used and then pinpointed opportunities to expand those areas.

• heat reduction

To assess the suitability of surfaces for agriculture and green infrastructure, we used data on parcels, zoning, and a digital surface model to calculate and filter for area, slope, and solar

We also quantified several citywide benefits of vegetated green infrastructure, including: • food production • flood protection • prioritized improvement in historically underresourced neighborhoods • carbon sequestration and storage • energy use from buildings Integrating ecosystem services into small-scale greening projects also allows creativity and local empowerment that can inspire broader transformation of green infrastructure at the city level.

JOSHUA DOBAY

BACK COVER: ANNA KUPERBERG PHOTOGR APHY • FRONT COVER: DARCY KIEFEL; TED SOQUI PHOTOGR APHY; RICH FREEDA; NANA TAIMOUR, THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC L AND.

Thank you for helping improve the health, equity, and climate outcomes for communities across the country.

We couldn’t do this without you.

Join us Help ensure everyone has access to the outdoors. Every park we create, schoolyard we transform, trail we extend, and landscape we protect is thanks to supporters like you.

tpl.org/donate

Linda Hwang Director of Strategy and Innovation 415.570.1571 | linda.hwang@tpl.org