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Table of Contents INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................. 3 LITERATURE REVIEW ..................................................................................................................................... 4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS .................................................................................................................................. 8 METHODS .................................................................................................................................................... 10 RESULTS ...................................................................................................................................................... 12 Typology .................................................................................................................................................. 12 Selected Parks ......................................................................................................................................... 16 Selected Parks Analysis ........................................................................................................................... 19 Type 1 (Parks created under federal programs): Adams Park ............................................................ 19 Type 2 (Parks created by non-profit organizations using money from foundations): Kathryn Johnston Memorial Park ..................................................................................................................... 21 Type 3 (Parks funded by state, county, and city dollars): Knight Park ................................................ 24 Type 4 (Parks created by private real estate developers): Atlanta Memorial Park ............................ 26 Type 5 (Parks created by community organizations): Freedom Park ................................................. 28 DISCUSSION ................................................................................................................................................. 30 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................................................... 33 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................................................................ 35 APPENDIX .................................................................................................................................................... 37 2 INTRODUCTION Two green spaces in Atlanta’s English Avenue neighborhood hosted a flurry of activity over the last few years. Kathryn Johnston Memorial Park, formally acquired by the city Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) in 2018 and constructed over the next year, opened in the fall of 2019 with a catered ribbon cutting event. Local neighbors, city council members, the commissioner of parks and recreation, and the president of the National Recreation and Parks Association all gave speeches. The park has a new playground, shade structure, and set of adult exercise equipment. During construction, workers added colossal infiltration chambers for holding stormwater underground and built special curb cuts, catch basins, bioswales, and rain gardens to manage stormwater at the ground level. Named in honor of a woman who lived in the area and was shot and killed in her home by Atlanta police officers, the park is both a memorial and a beautiful, active oasis. Mattie Freeland Park, less than a mile northwest of Kathryn Johnston Memorial Park, is not yet officially a public park. It was a vacant lot not too long ago, when Mattie Freeland herself lived across the street. Though elderly, she took care of her neighbors, offering help of all kinds to those who needed it. She also told friends that she wished for a nicer view from her front porch. After Freeland’s death, residents of the neighborhood worked with some of her descendants to purchase the house, and began fixing up the vacant lot across from it as an informal park in her memory (see Figure 1). With the landowners’ blessing, they assembled a commercially available playset, painted murals together, and put in some picnic tables. Throughout the year, they used the space to host community meals and outdoor movie screenings. These proactive neighbors now have support from public officials for the City of Atlanta to acquire the land and formally establish it as a city park, but until recently, the “park” comprised several parcels held by different, private owners. The community’s substantial success in creating an effective park space despite this ownership barrier is intriguing. Figure 1. A handmade park sign at Mattie Freeland Park. Photo by Ruth Pimentel. 3 Kathryn Johnston Memorial Park received major funding from outside sources, and Mattie Freeland Park—which has an irresistible narrative to offer up on grant applications—may be on the cusp of a similar influx. But those funds weren’t a prerequisite for Mattie Freeland Park to become a space that responded to community needs and addressed neighbors’ desires. Savvy, well-connected, tireless neighborhood advocates made the difference. What questions might these two parks lead planners to ask about effective park funding? The American Institute of Certified Planners’ code of ethics states that planners should give a broad range of people, including “those who lack formal organization or influence,” an opportunity to influence plans that affect them. (AICP, 2016) As the threat of gentrification risks rapidly transforming Atlanta neighborhoods and displacing established communities, what lessons do park planners need to learn so we can listen to legacy residents about the areas they have long called home, and support them in providing the things they know are missing? LITERATURE REVIEW Academic writing and industry reports on parks funding show that parks have lost significant government funding in recent decades and are continuing to lose it. Scholars Crompton and McGregor (1994) have written a good deal about the topic, and they describe an important sea change in the United States’ political and economic world this way: “During the late 1960s and early 1970s state and local governments were the fastest growing employers in the economy,” but towards the end of the 1970s, “persistent and unprecedented double-digit inflation” dramatically slowed the growth of everyone’s income value. People began to find taxes a greater burden and became increasingly reluctant to vote in favor of tax increases. Instead, they pushed their elected officials in the other direction, creating a “tax revolt” (Crompton & McGregor, 1994) that first took legislative form in California’s 1978 property tax-slashing Proposition 13. This change did not confine itself to California, but “reverberated across the nation. By the end of 1979, 22 states had reduced property taxes, income taxes were reduced in 18 states and 15 states cut sales taxes.” (Crompton & McGregor, 1994) In most places, reductions in taxes mean cuts to departments considered less essential than emergency services—parks are often some of the first in line for these cuts. Today, “Proposition 13 and its progeny” continue to limit government budgets (ChangeLab Solutions, 2015), and parks are coping with the local and federal resources they do have, deferring maintenance to cut costs (Fulton, 2012) and relying more on part-time and contract employees. (Crompton & McGregor, 1994) More recently, “the Great Recession (2007-2009) hit local funding for parks and recreation facilities particularly hard” (ChangeLab Solutions, 2015), exacerbating deferred maintenance costs up to a total of “more than $1 billion in many large cities.” (Fulton, 2012) Parks leaders also report that employing staff full-time is becoming more expensive as governments take on the responsibility of paying out more in retirement benefits and pensions. (Fulton, 2012) The governmental money available for caring for and operating existing parks, and for building new ones, is dwindling. At the same time, as parks leaders seek to direct their limited funds to the specific locations and audiences that need them the most, targeting funds proves to be slippery work. One study evaluated a Portland effort to direct public bond-funded “new investments to benefit the parks accessibility of historically disadvantaged population groups.” (Carrell, Chakraborty, & Allred, n.d.) The researchers found that the new parks increased park access more in areas where it had been low than in areas where it had been high, but also that “resulting gains in accessibility disproportionately benefited lower density and less disadvantaged groups.” (Carrell, Chakraborty, & Allred, n.d.) And parks officials who want to use their funding first to care for existing parks rather than bloat an already unmanageable portfolio with new properties have found that, “in general, obtaining funding to maintain and operate 4 parks is more difficult than obtaining funding to create parks.” (ChangeLab Solutions, 2015) Parks leaders are dealing both with limited funds and with not much control over where those funds go and whom they benefit. In the face of this difficulty, parks leaders and scholars are looking to public opinion for ideas on what to do next—after all, many possible “funding mechanisms . require the approval of either the local legislative body or the electorate; sometimes, both groups are