April 2019 - Parks & Recreation - 46

H E A LT H & W E L L N E S S

PHOTO BY ANNIE BANG. PROVIDED COURTESY OF THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND

Benito Jaurez Park in Los Angeles, California.

and managed parks and natural
lands buffer cities from rising seas,
coastal storms, inland flooding and
wildfires.
Connect: Trails, greenways and
park systems provide carbon-free
transportation options and link res-

idents to popular destinations and
to one another.
While each of these objectives
is robust in isolation, to maximize
positive climate and health outcomes, it's important to develop
and implement strategic green in-

Useful Resources
The 10-Minute Walk Campaign (www.10minutewalk.org/) is a growing nationwide movement
to ensure there's a great park within a 10-minute walk of every person, in every neighborhood,
in every city across America. More than 230 mayors have signed on to this growing campaign.
Check the website to learn more and get your mayor to take the pledge.
NRPA's Great Urban Parks Program (www.nrpa.org/greeninfrastructure) is helping advance
green infrastructure stormwater management projects within parks. Check out its Resource
Guide for Planning, Designing and Implementing Green Infrastructure in Parks.
Parkology™ (www.parkology.org/) is a comprehensive online resource and community of
experts dedicated to improving access to close-to-home, quality parks. Check out the knowledge
section for tips on how to design climate-smart parks. This site is managed jointly by The Trust
for Public Land, City Parks Alliance and NRPA.
The Trust for Public Land's Climate Smart Cities Program (www.tpl.org/how-we-work/
climate-smart-cities) helps cities use people and data-driven decision making to maximize social,
health and climate benefits of new and proposed parks.
Field Guide for Parks and Creative Placemaking (www.tpl.org/field-guide-creative-place
making-and-parks) lays out how to create parks that serve as cultural assets that build social
cohesion and social capital - key ingredients in creating resilient, prepared communities.

Parks & Recreation

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frastructure networks that stack
these benefits at the site, neighborhood and city scales. It might seem
obvious, but it's worth stating:
Projects that provide multiple benefits - cooling, absorbing, protecting, connecting - will generally
provide a greater return on investment than single-purpose projects.
In addition to siting projects strategically, it's important that park
development and programming
build social cohesion. A community's ability to withstand climate
disasters and come back stronger
is determined, in large part, by the
social fabric of the community. In
times of hardship, this social cohesion can define the successes or
failures of a community. Parks and
open space directly improve environmental resilience, but they also
build social and economic resilience, particularly if they are developed and stewarded in a collaborative, community-driven approach.
Finally, it is important to remember that climate change impacts everyone, but it is often low-income
communities that are hit first and
hit the hardest. It is critical to prioritize park investments in underserved communities that lack access to high-quality parks.
Are you ready to act? Keep these
guiding principles in mind and
check out the resources included at
left to get started helping your community deploy parks as a climate
solution.
Detailed references for this article are
available at www.nrpa.org/parks-rec
reation-magazine/2019/April/parks
as-a-solution-to-climate-change.
Taj Schottland is the Climate-Smart Cities
and Green Infrastructure Program
Manager for The Trust for Public Land
@TajSchottland (taj.schottland@tpl.org).

April 2019 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2019 - Parks & Recreation