Urban Parks, the Pandemic, and the Day After

World Urban Parks Week ran from April 25 to May 3, giving the public park and landscape community pause to reflect on just how vital the spaces and places they manage are to maintaining community health amid a global health crisis.

We saw through this pandemic action hardly imaginable two months ago. Public health requirements took away our ability to gather in houses of worship, in classrooms, at sport venues and events, in restaurants and bars, at performance art centers and museums, in libraries and classrooms, and at civic gatherings. Here in Kentucky and Southern Indiana USA, coronavirus had the audacity to take away the Kentucky Derby and Derby Festival. (Author’s Note –access to bourbon was declared essential. The politically astute decision.)

The crisis did not take away our need to recreate. Instead, the pandemic powerfully elevated the global awareness of public park and parkway systems as vital civic infrastructure. Visitation to open parks for passive, non-organized public use skyrocketed. This was acutely observed in urban centers where access to green space is frequently limited to public parks and pathways.

Increased park visitation during the pandemic is not a uniquely American phenomenon. Public parks with the capacity to host people practicing safe social distancing have seen their attendance surpass levels ever witnessed across the globe as public green space has never meant more, to more. It bears note that several high profile urban parks saw big spikes in use (High Line in NYC, Millennium Park in Chicago, and many single use sports facilities), but were forced to limit access as their designs could not be easily adapted to meet newly prescribed safe social distance standards.

As Trust for Public Land Vice President Adrian Benepe framed it in a recent webinar hosted by Leadership Louisville, Inc., this acute crisis elevated the value of urban parks in the public’s collective consciousness. Parks went from being nice green spaces to something more akin to sanctuaries and cathedrals for entire cities — places for millions to breath, relax, and take in the restorative benefits of simply being outdoors.

Frederick Law Olmsted — the creator of some of our nation’s most extraordinary park systems and landscapes, such as Central Park (NYC), Prospect Park (Brooklyn), the National Capital Grounds (DC), the Biltmore (North Carolina), the Fens (Boston), and park systems in hundreds of cities from shore to shore — said during the construction of Central Park that parks are “outlets for foul air and inlets for pure air.” For all our technological advancement since 1854, today’s crisis helps us realize just how brilliant was Olmsted’s vision for park and urban green space systems. So where does this leave us as city-shapers and builders?

There is a cycle for any crisis-induced trauma, which progresses from suffering to tragedy, and then finally to rebirth. We find ourselves in phase one, when parks are helping people cope with suffering. Park staff have found themselves delivering public services like field hospitals in New York and homeless housing in Los Angeles. Park staff are even now managing housing for quarantined first responders and

medical staff in the Kentucky State Parks system. This has been the shining moment for the public park profession. We thank these frontline leaders for their commitment and dedication. Yet this is merely the first chapter of a longer story to come. And make no mistake, the next phase is coming.

While use at our parks has surged, and the professionals that keep these parks safe, clean, and beautiful have been enormously busy, the financial capacity to sustain this work through park and asset generated revenue has been stripped away. Park operators have lost vital entrepreneurial revenue sources such as entry fees, leases, weddings, performing arts events, festivals, concessions, and fund-raising events that supplement and support the “free” services delivered in public spaces. The creative revenue sources underpinning many great park systems were the first to feel the pain of the virus.

Following these hits, massive budget cuts will come soon to parks that depend on general fund support. At the very moment when safe, clean, and beautiful free public green spaces will be needed most by families in economic distress, the capacity of the public sector to sustain these same “free” public spaces may face acute financial stress the likes of which has not been seen since the Great Depression. The very people and organizations that supplied needed respite and relief during this crisis for millions are about to have their operational budgets obliterated. This pain will become visibly evident in many municipal and state park systems this summer with closures to pools, infrequent or inconsistent grounds maintenance, and the elimination of summer programming. This will present a difficult and painful period of sharp budget and personal stress, but it too will end.

Then, recovery will come. This is where and when choices made by urban leaders will determine the winners and losers from this global tragedy. Some will seize this chance to build stronger, greener, and more resilient cities of the future. Some will not. The consequences of these actions will stretch far beyond the horizon of just about any elected official’s thinking.

Responding to trauma and tragedy by reframing our efforts at city-shaping work is not new on the planet. Unlike many other aspects of the pandemic, we know precisely what to do to enable economic recovery that will sustain livable communities going forward. The past is filled with examples of how to do this. History shows that cities able to emerge faster and stronger from past traumas were those that discovered in themselves the capacity to double down on intentional city-shaping public park and landscape systems.

For example, the wide boulevards, parks, and parkways that define the beauty and livability of Paris, London, and Washington DC were created to response to cholera outbreaks. More recently, creation of park systems like the East Bay Regional Park District in the Oakland, California area (initiated in 1934 — the heart of the Great Depression), the post-WW2 creation of the England and Wales National Park System, and the reinvention of urban Tokyo after the 1923 earthquake all provide models for us. Taking this a step further, perhaps the Marshall Plan’s longest legacy is how it reshaped cities across Europe

and Japan that in turn made those communities stronger and more resilient to traumas of the type we are experiencing today.

All of these cities and regions emerged stronger, healthier, and more resilient after crises in part because of their intentional focus on providing green public spaces in their urban landscapes. The resulting systems of green infrastructure then contributed to the sustained livability of these cities in the face of massive urban migration.

Similar work along these lines is beginning to be discussed for our post-coronavirus world in creative and ambitious urban centers like London, Sydney, Bogota, and Southern Indiana. Across the globe at this very moment, people instinctively recognize that we face a significant, “turn the page” moment for the urban landscape as we know intuitively that the cities of 2029 will be different from those of 2019.

This moment will be equally profound for cities in the United States where we anticipate being home to over 100 million new residents by 2050. That is 61 new Phoenixes, 11 new New York Cities, or 448 new Boises. How United States cities and regions shape their response to the pandemic in terms of built infrastructure will drive where these 100 million new residents (80 million of which are projected to live in cities) choose to live, work, and raise families. The public policy decisions made in the next 24 months regarding the green public realm in urban settings in response to this crisis (for maintaining existing amenities, or even creating new) will shape long-lasting trajectories for entire regions.

A giant opportunity is about to present itself to every city across the globe. The opportunity will be presented equally. Cities’ ability and capacity to respond this will be far from equal. Those who seize that opportunity will gain an economic and social advantage over those who do not. This is the point where the Melbourne’s of tomorrow will be created. Cities that study history will see this moment as the rare chance to boldly evaluate how we build, fund, sustain and deliver public green landscapes not on a “nice-to-have” model of citizen largesse or donor interest, but rather as “must-have” core requirement for economic growth, livability, social equity, and public health going forward.

If past is indeed prologue, cities that intentionally apply past lessons about the importance of thoughtfully tended and sustainably managed public spaces will emerge economically stronger, more resilient, and more livable after this crisis passes.

We know more today than anyone before us what works in terms of urban green infrastructure amenities that support life. We know what it takes to move social equity, public health, and environmental sustainability from campaign buzzwords, to deliverable and measurable parts of healthy and functional urban landscapes that millions call home. And we know that the cities that figure this out will become for millions of residents the next great centers for creativity, freedom, and opportunity. Our generation’s question and challenge has arrived — do we have the chops and moxie to coax unparalleled access to knowledge and data into city-shaping projects and initiatives where we live?