History

The City Project is implementing a collective vision to achieve equal justice, democracy, and livability for all.  In the past six years, we have spearheaded efforts for equal access to great urban parks, schools as centers of their communities, and related health services, and influenced the investment of billions of dollars for public works projects in underserved communities.

We helped make the dreams come true to create the Los Angeles State Historic Park at the Cornfield, the Río de Los Angeles State Park at Taylor Yard, the two square mile Baldwin Hills Park in the historic African American heart of Los Angeles, and Ascot Hills Park in East L.A.  We are greening the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers through healthy parks, schools, and communities, working with the Alianza de los Pueblos del Rio and others.  We help create public green space.  We keep public space open for all along California's beaches and throughout the Santa Monica Mountains and the four forests of Southern California.

We are working with UCLA Prof. Judy Baca and SPARC (the Social and Public Art Resource Center) to restore and extend the Great Wall of Los Angeles, and to create pilot projects for the Heritage Parkscape along the Los Angeles River.

We promote shared places and policies for physical activity in schools and parks to help improve human health.

We are nationally recognized leaders in developing a new urban greening agenda that puts children and families first, and includes the needs of the Latino community in ways that no one else has.

Robert García served as the Chair of the Los Angeles Unified School District Citizens' School Bond Oversight Committee for five years from 2000 until 2005, to ensure schools serve as centers of their communities, with shared use of parks and schools after school and on weekends, and to provide local jobs for local workers and an even playing field for small business enterprises.  The Los Angeles Times called the largest school construction project in the nation's history "a near-ideal mixture of speed and efficiency," and the work has received awards from the Urban Land Institute and the Environmental Law Institute.  He signed the official voter pamphlet ballot arguments in favor of Measure K and Measure R, which together provide $7.22 billion for school construction and modernization in local bonds, plus billions more in matching state and federal funds.

The City Project's work has received the L.A. River Award from the City of Los Angeles, and awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Board, and the Cultural Landscape Foundation, for extensively publishing research and findings on urban parks and their benefits for the L.A. River, improving the quality of life in Southern California and beyond, and setting a national model for the Urban Park Movement.

Robert García started The City Project in 2000 and moved it to the Center for Law in the Public Interest that year.  The City Project spun off as a project of Community Partners when CLIPI closed in October 2006.  This web site includes the work of The City Project since 2000.

Learn More about Our Work.