Great Public Space is Foundational to Equity
Why encouraging the coexistence of unlike-minded people in public space should be your mission
By Carol Coletta
Editor’s note: This article is drawn from a presentation initially intended for Philadelphia’s annual “Ideas We Can Steal” festival, an event designed to share powerful ways people can work together to create a city where all can thrive. Carol Coletta was invited to speak at the festival last year in her role as CEO and President of the Memphis River Parks Partnership, which is stewarding a series of elegant and connected investments along the Mississippi River in Memphis that, together, lead to outsize impact by fostering positive encounters and civic pride, restoring natural ecological conditions and connecting the riverfront to downtown and adjacent neighborhoods. Memphis is one of the five original Reimagining the Civic Commons cities featured in our new impact report, The Power of the Commons.
These past few years have hurled one challenge after another at cities. Everything we thought we knew about cities and how they succeed we are now reconsidering. No one really knows how this will all turn out. But I believe there are two bets we can make right now completely confident they will pay off no matter which way things go: One, we can invest in public space.
Two, we can invest in equity.
And if we do it right, an investment in public space will be an investment in equity.
For example, I love Philadelphia. I am a huge fan of the city (though not so much a fan of the 76ers). And I also love my hometown of Memphis (and the Grizzlies). Yet both cities share the unfortunate designation of being cities with some of the largest number of people living in distressed zip codes. The Distressed Communities Index is an attempt to “map and analyze the dimensions of basic community well-being across the United States.” It finds that for those living in distressed zip codes, years of overall U.S. economic recovery look much more like an ongoing downturn, and that large swathes of the country are left behind by economic growth and change.
Memphis has two-thirds of its population living in distressed zip codes, second only to Detroit, while Philadelphia ranks fourth on the list, with more than 40% of its people living in distressed zip codes.
We know that where you live matters. The American Dream rests on the idea that anyone from any place or any background can climb to the highest rungs of the economic ladder, but the evidence shows that the more time one spends living in a distressed community — especially during childhood — the worse one’s lifetime chances of achieving economic stability or success. When it comes to life outcomes, geography is too often destiny.
Places that leave no one behind
Those of us doing this work often ask ourselves: how do we overcome the geographic lock poverty has on so many people, in so many neighborhoods? How do we do that at any meaningful scale when more than 40% of Philadelphians (and 66% of Memphians) live in distressed neighborhoods? How do we do it when our neighborhoods and schools are more segregated by income than they were 50 years ago?
Some experts suggest that the solution is to “move people to opportunity,” in effect, moving some “lucky” people away from low-income neighborhoods and into high-income neighborhoods. But there are three problems with that: first, it’s not economically sustainable. Second, it’s not politically feasible. And third, we have not asked what will become of the people, the homes, the schools, the neighborhoods that are left behind.
I think we know the answer: overwhelmingly, circumstances for those left behind get worse, and decline becomes inevitable without herculean efforts. While current policies should favor mixed-income neighborhoods, mixed-income schools, and neighborhood revitalization, I’m not holding my breath. I fear I won’t live long enough to see it. So, while we continue to work on changing policy, I’m betting on public space.
Think about it: walking a trail regularly doesn’t require you to commit your life savings to a down payment in what may turn out to be the “wrong” neighborhood. Using the “wrong park” doesn’t risk your first born failing to get into college. That’s because public space has a low barrier to entry and exit. You can come, you can go. It doesn’t require the commitment of club membership. And even the best public space is cheap compared to the alternative of leaving people in distressed neighborhoods and accepting economic segregation as inevitable.
But there’s a catch. Public space is a worthy substitute for our income-segregated neighborhoods and schools only if they manage to attract people across a wide range of incomes to occupy the same space at the same time peacefully, even joyfully. Better still if they nudge people to spend time doing something together — singing, playing, learning.
Memphis: s’mores and firepits bring diverse people together
In our Memphis public spaces, one nudge has been making s’mores around a firepit. It’s a very simple act, making a s’more. It’s cheap, it doesn’t take much skill, and kids and adults can both do it. There’s an immediate pay-off, because s’mores are decadent. Best of all, strangers must crowd around a fire pit together to get the job done.
And when they do that, conversations begin.
Dancing together — especially if it is orchestrated as lessons and changing partners is made part of the ritual — is another nudge to get strangers talking to one another and seeing each other differently. Repeat that with some frequency, and you get new “neighbors” in this ephemeral “neighborhood” we call public space.
At minimum, good public space shared regularly with strangers — including those who don’t look like you — breeds empathy. Empathy is essential to community, and community is essential to democracy. In the best case scenario, familiar strangers form “loose tie networks” — the ones well-resourced people form in college and careers and use to get jobs, find a spouse, recommend a school, find a place to live.
Yes, it is a lot to ask of public space. But is it impossible? No, not at all.
However, getting public space to perform the social mixing task our neighborhoods and schools fail to do requires the right location with comfortable access by people across incomes; seductive design; getting the basics of safety and civility right without killing the fun; and inviting people to mix, participate and act neighborly. We can’t force rich people and poor people to live near each other or send their kids to the same schools, but we can encourage what I believe is the next best thing by seducing them into a shared, robust public life.
A gateway drug to community, democracy & equity
Nothing about this is easy. The design, maintenance and management of public space must be ambitious, sometimes clever, and always resolute. But public space that routinely attracts people across the income spectrum and across demographics feels to me like the “gateway drug” to a shared community, a healthy democracy, and more equitable opportunity.
We’re experimenting with this gateway drug across five connected riverfront park districts comprising 250 acres of parkland, as well as multiple rental and performance facilities, headlined by the building of Tom Lee Park. A new, 31-acre park opening Labor Day Weekend 2023, it is a spectacular addition to our 300-acre portfolio of parks along the Mississippi River at its widest — and wildest — point.
The new park is designed by architecture and urban design firm Studio Gang and landscape architecture firm SCAPE and is inspired by a piece of work Studio Gang did here in Philadelphia on the Civic Commons. We plan to operate this park and those nearby through a mission lens of shared community and more equitable access to opportunity.
We begin with a riverfront that is one of the most equitable spaces in Memphis — free, open to everyone, and one of the few public places in the region where you now find very poor people and very rich people sharing the same space. The reason? It feels like a vacation — special, elevated — because it is clean, beautifully landscaped, well-designed and well-managed, and fun. It is also located right next to North America’s most storied river, the Mississippi. We’ve learned that it turns out that when you create the right environment, people mostly enjoy being in the company of strangers.
Co-existence is the mission
Convincing people to “live life in public” is one of the greatest services we can perform for our cities. Because parks are not just places to unwind or recreate, (just like downtowns are not simply places to conduct business). They are also deeply necessary platforms for equity. The writer Adam Gopnik described the mixing we need in cities this way: “Cities shine by bringing like-minded people in from the hinterland, but they thrive by asking unlike-minded people to live together in the enveloping metropolis. While the clumping is fun, the coexistence is the greater social miracle.”
When you believe that the coexistence of unlike-minded (and unlike-looking) people is at the heart of your mission, that’s where the equity work begins. In today’s very divided, very fraught nation, it can, indeed, feel as daunting to achieve as a miracle. But let’s go for miracles! Equity doesn’t sit in opposition to a thriving, appealing city. It is central to it. Great public space is increasingly becoming the necessary foundation for equity.
If there is anything the past two years have taught us, it is this: public space and the pursuit of equity are more important than ever. This is the moment for us to make big bets on both, because they are the most certain bets we can make for our cities’ futures. Here’s to more equity, more fabulous public space, and a lot less distress in our cities.
Reimagining the Civic Commons is a collaboration of The JPB Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and local partners.
