Healthy Parks, Schools, and Communities

The City Project supports a collective vision for a comprehensive and coherent web of parks, schools, beaches, forests, and transportation that promotes human health, a better environment, and economic vitality for all, and reflects the cultural diversity of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is park poor, and there are unfair disparities in access to places to play and schools and human health. Children of color disproportionately live in communities of concentrated poverty without places to play, with no cars or an adequate transit system to reach parks and school fields. The human health implications of the lack of physical activity are profound. These children disproportionately suffer from obesity, diabetes, and other diseases related to inactivity.

We have the opportunity today to restore a part of the lost beauty and health of Los Angeles. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has vowed to make Los Angeles the greenest big city in the country. Los Angeles is greening the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers. City Controller Laura Chick has published a blue print for reform of systemic management failures in parks and recreation. The Controller highlights the need for: a strategic plan to improve park services in every neighborhood, and eliminate unfair disparities; standards to measure equity and progress in achieving reform; a fair system of park financing and fees; a community needs assessment now and every five years; improved park safety; and shared use of parks and schools. The Mayor is committed to improved performance and accountability for the public school system.

To achieve these goals, Los Angeles can look to the classic Olmsted Report. The firm started by the sons of Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmsted proposed a network of parks, schools, beaches, rivers, forests, and transportation to promote the social, economic, and environmental vitality of the Los Angeles region and the health of its people. According to the Olmsted Report in words that remain true today:

Continued prosperity will depend on providing needed parks, because, with the growth of a great metropolis here, the absence of parks will make living conditions less and less attractive, less and less wholesome. . . . In so far, therefore, as the people fail to show the understanding, courage, and organizing ability necessary at this crisis, the growth of the Region will tend to strangle itself.1

Implementing the Olmsted plan would have made Los Angeles one of the most beautiful and livable regions in the world. Powerful private interests and civic leaders demonstrated a tragic lack of vision and judgment when they killed the Olmsted Report. Politics, bureaucracy, and greed overwhelmed the report in a triumph of private power over public space and social justice.

The City Project has published a digital edition of the Olmsted vision to inspire a policy framework for reform (maps 101) (3.28 MB, PDF) (map 104 2) (4.25 MB,PDF).  (All Maps and Charts are available at www.cityprojectca.org.)  The City Project is also publishing a comprehensive mapping and demographic analyses of parks, schools, health, and demographics for the Los Angeles region.

Children of color living in poverty with no access to cars have the worst access to parks and recreation (map 201) (1.97 MB, PDF).  Too many people live more than half a mile from the nearest park throughout the region (map 202) (1.58 MB, PDF).  Children of color disproportionately live in the state assembly districts with the highest levels of child obesity and the worst access to parks and recreation.  The levels of obesity are intolerably high for children throughout the region -- ranging from 23% to 40% (map 601) (1.39 MB, PDF). This is the first generation in the history of the country in which children will have a lower life expectancy than their parents if present trends in obesity and other diseases related to inactivity continue.

There are unfair disparities in access to parks and recreation by City Council District.  Thus, for example, in the inner city District 10 (Wesson) has only .35 net acres of urban parks per thousand residents, compared to 15.86 net acres in District 12.  The disparities are even more dramatic if total acres of parks including forests and other large natural open spaces are included, as illustrated by the City Council maps (map 216) (1.68 MB, PDF) (map 217) (1.58, PDF), chart (217C) (68 KB, PDF), and graph (217N) (68 KB, PDF).  For example, there are .43 acres of total parks per thousand residents in inner city District 10, and 57.68 in District 11.

According to a survey by the Public Policy Institute of California, 64% of Californians believe that poorer communities have less than their fair share of well-maintained parks and recreational facilities.  [Mark Baldasare, Public Policy Institute of California Statewide Survey: Special Survey on Californians and the Environment vi (June 2002)].

The urban park movement, and the greening of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers, offers the opportunity to build healthy urban communities with economic, environmental, and equitable development for all.  The shared use of parks and schools can alleviate the lack of places to play and recreate, while making optimal use of scarce land and public resources -- as called for in the Controller's audits, and in the Olmsted plan.  This is demonstrated by the map of parks and schools with five acres or more of playing fields (map 502) (1.43 MB, PDF).

The lack of places to play and recreate in parks and schools is not just an issue for low-income communities of color, but indeed for all of Los Angeles, from the San Fernando Valley to San Pedro, and from the Palisades to East L.A.  Los Angeles faces an historic opportunity to improve the quality of life enjoyed by all residents for generations to come by improving access to parks and recreation for all.

Urban parks, natural open space, and related human health issues are a critical component of any local, regional, and state infrastructure plan for livable, just communities.  The City must develop long term, sustainable funding to support parks and recreation.  One immediate step is for the Mayor and City Council to support significant and substantial funding for urban parks in any proposed state infrastructure bonds in 2006 and beyond (www.cityprojectca.org).

Urban parks are vital to create livable, just communities because they promote the core values at stake: providing children the simple joys of playing in the park; improving health through physical activity; character development and improved academics for youth through team sports and recreation; equal access to public resources; democratic participation in deciding the future of the community; economic vitality for all with increased property values, local jobs, small business contracts, and affordable housing; spiritual values in protecting people and the earth; the environmental benefits of clean air, water, and ground; and sustainable regional planning. 

The City Project is committed to systemic reform of Recreation and Parks through a democratic process that includes full and fair public information and public participation in deciding the future of the City for generations to come.  The City Project is focusing on several avenues: greening the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers; implementing the Controller's recommendations for reform of parks and recreation; shared use of parks and schools; keeping existing public lands open for all; promoting human health and physical activity in parks and schools; and providing access to forests, beaches, parks, and open space through Transit to Trails for Southern California.

1 Olmsted Brothers & Bartholomew and Associates, Parks, Playgrounds and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region 1 (1930) [hereinafter “Olmsted Report”], reprinted in Greg Hise & William Deverell, Eden by Design (2000).

2 The Heritage Parkscape (map 104), inspired by the Olmsted plan, would unite the rich cultural, historical, recreational, educational, and environmental resources in the heart of Los Angeles to link the Los Angeles River, Los Angeles State Historic Park at the Cornfield, El Río de Los Angeles State Park at Taylor Yard, and El Pueblo Historic District, along with 100 other resources.