In part two of this series, we excerpt from another book addressing the issue of public private partnerships as the most successful way to manage urban parks.
This is the approach we have been calling for the Parkway and will be focusing on it this year.
An excerpt.
Partnerships: The Key to the Future for America's Urban Parks
By Martin J. Rosen
Until the early 1990s, the meandering stream corridor in the Gwynns Falls Valley, in Baltimore, Maryland, was scoured by floods, piled with trash, and all but abandoned by the residents of the middle- and low-income neighborhoods through which it passed. As early as 1904, the sons of Frederick Law Olmsted had envisioned the 14-mile-long stream corridor as a linear urban park to be anchored by the existing 1,400-acre Gwynns Falls/Leakin Park. But the vision was never realized, and by the 1960s, the downward spiral of the stream corridor was escalating. Even neighborhood children avoided Gwynns Falls--a vital open space resource at their very doorsteps.
Then, in 1988, the late Dr. Ralph Jones, Baltimore's park director, challenged the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies to help create a new vision for Baltimore parks. Inspired by this work, the city soon forged a partnership with two organizations--the Trust for Public Land (TPL) and Parks and People, a local nonprofit--to link that vision to a revival of Baltimore's neighborhoods. Residents were polled on their open space needs, properties were studied, and a master plan was created. As part of that plan, more than 70 civic organizations joined the effort to revitalize the Gwynns Falls corridor. High school students helped haul 70 tons of refuse from the park. Other young people cleared paths and removed invasive plants while learning job skills and earning wages. Funding for the acquisition of 35 acres of new land and for the park's construction is coming from local philanthropies, state and municipal government, and the federal Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA). Soon the Gwynns Falls Trail will link Baltimore's neighborhoods to the city's redeveloped harbor district--and, just as important, to a new spirit of urban possibility.
This park project and others detailed in this book reveal a major shift in the way parks and open space are being created and revitalized in U.S. cities. Since the early 1980s, federal government support for local parks and open space--through the Land and Water Conservation Fund state grant program--has been slashed, even in the face of rising need. A 1994 study by the National Recreation and Park Association showed that $30.7 billion of state and local recreational investment would be needed between 1995 and 1999 in order to meet public demand. With the decline in federal support and the tendency of cities to cut park budgets when money is tight, many of our urban parks are in dire need of repair and rejuvenation, and money is simply not available. Recognizing that the need for parks doesn't go away, cash-strapped states and cities are scrambling to raise local money and take advantage of private funds. At the same time, there is a growing belief that the most successful parks emerge from broad community participation and contribute bankable value to nearby residential and commercial districts. This confluence of forces is leading to new public/private partnerships to create, rejuvenate, and sometimes manage urban parks and open space.
In 1994, TPL created the Green Cities Initiative to help cities meet the need for more parks by providing assistance in real estate acquisition, finance, and negotiations, and by exploring new ways of involving communities in public finance strategies and park management. While every park is different, successful park efforts share two or more of the following characteristics:
A formal planning and "visioning" process involving a broad spectrum of public and private stakeholders;
Catalytic leadership from the public and private sectors;
A strong connection between parks and open space and broader goals such as economic development, community identity, neighborhood renewal, and provision of needed services;
A mix of private and public funding, with public funds often coming from state or local sources;
The advice and assistance of nonprofit partners such as academics; urban planning groups; local civic, community gardening, and "friends-of-parks" organizations; and conservation real estate specialists such as the Trust for Public Land.
It is the premise of this chapter that such stakeholder-driven, public/private partnerships will be a primary force in America's future urban park efforts. The challenge of the modern urban parks movement is to ensure that these partnerships develop productively and equitably. We cannot know today what specific techniques will be used to create tomorrow's parks and open space. But we do know, from what has been accomplished so far, that successful parks will depend on visioning, team building, broad community support, and creative financing and real estate skills. Just as important, we will have to forge new public/private partnerships to maintain and manage parks, so that the great parks created today will remain great parks tomorrow.
If there is a single danger in the public/ private approach, it is the risk of sending the wrong message about the need for public sector funds and leadership. We must be clear that private money can no more bear the entire cost of park creation than public money can, and that in a time of rising need, governments need to appropriate more funds for parks, not less. Similarly, the public sector must take the lead in creating change. It is the public sector that must call for community investment in parks, create the visioning process, and invest in the master plans and documents that will get private partners involved. Healthy partnerships cannot be sustained without a substantial public commitment.
Successful Parks / Successful Partnerships
A successful park is more than an island of greenspace marooned in the concrete of the city. Its success emerges from its relationship to surrounding development and from the special features that attract users and make the park central to a city's image and personality. Its success is also related to the value it provides to the community--be it economic or qualitative value. Success depends not only on good planning and sound execution of park design, but also on continued public/ private support for and involvement in park programming and management. In most cities, the era when a simple purchase of land by the city would lead to the creation of a city-envisioned and -designed park is gone. Instead, park creation and redevelopment involve putting together a development team, assembling land (often from multiple and diverse owners and users), raising funds from sources outside the city budget, and ensuring participatory planning every step of the way.
As is evident from the case studies in this book, significant strides have been made toward building productive partnerships. In communities across the country, committed and visionary leaders are beginning to understand the power that parks have in knitting together the frayed urban fabric. Leadership may come from politicians, as in Bellevue, Washington; from neighbors and special-interest groups, as was the case with Minneapolis's Cedar Lake Park and Trail; or from businesses, such as those near Boston's Park at Post Office Square.
