Join a team-based workshop series for municipal and county agencies advancing local policy change.
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Park Equity Communities of Practice
The Park Equity Communities of Practice is a capacity building and peer learning network that brings together cities throughout the U.S. to focus on improving park equity. Over 600 city stakeholders, including city officials, planners, and parks professionals, from over 180 communities across the nation have come together to generate policy recommendations, resources, and guidance that supports changing park equity practices on the ground. Participants focus on the highest value opportunities and significant questions of the day, such as tools and metrics to evaluate park equity, inclusive community engagement strategies and policies, and leveraging the multiple benefits of parks through partnerships across sectors like private developers, climate, affordable housing, among others.
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Are you a city employee who is passionate about how parks can address broader goals, such as community development, public health, climate resilience, economic vitality, and quality of life for residents? If so, check out our tracks below.
Crossing Sectors to Create Parks
Transform underutilized lands into vibrant parks and green spaces.
Programming with Purpose: Creating Welcoming Park Experiences
Discover practical strategies to design and deliver inclusive and accessible park programming.
Latest Sessions
Parks Plus, Economic Vitality: Parks Beyond Boundaries- Strategies for Inclusive Growth
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Park Stewardship: Making and Funding the Case for Community Activation
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Connectivity: Connecting People to Parks- Strategies to Increase Park Access
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Park Equity Policy Incubator: Apply - Roadmap for Policy Change
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Community Forests: Project Implementation
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Best Practices from Across the Country
As a venue for learning and open, honest exchange across diverse experiences and perspectives, the Park Equity Communities of Practice are a unique platform to gain insight on what challenges are most pressing, and what innovations are most promising in the eyes of parks practitioners working to serve local residents with a more accessible, high-quality, and equitable park system. These reports showcase learnings and best practices from cities across the country.
Explore Our Tracks
Check out resources from our past cohorts
Approaches to Park Equity
Survey tools, partnerships and policies that cities use to prioritize equity in their park systems.
Community Engagement for Lasting Impact
Learn about best practices for conducting meaningful, equitable community engagement that have been gathered and applied in cities across the U.S.
Community Power: Civic Engagement for a Healthy Democracy
Define the role that park organizations play in strengthening community power through civic education, trust building, investments in community capacity, and other steps towards a thriving democracy.
Connecting People to Parks: Strategies to Increase Park Access
Learn about park access from the perspective of enabling physical and social conditions, the integration of mobility planning, and strategies that ensure spaces are safe, inclusive, and welcoming to all.
Developer Parks Partnership Strategies
Identify opportunities for privately developed parks and best practices for public access criteria to address park access gaps and inequities.
Park Equity Policy Incubator
Engage and collaborate with cities to workshop local policy challenges from parks needs assessment and community engagement to public finance mechanisms and land use.
Parks Maintenance: Funding and Policies
Discover strategies to improve maintenance systems for parks, including policies, funding, assessments, and other approaches to capacity building.
Park Qualities Incubator: Mapping Park Experiences
Test new approaches to measuring park experience types, such as natural areas, recreational activities, and social gathering areas, as a step towards building park quality attributes for use in equity and impact analyses.
Parks Plus: Affordable Housing
Explore how planning for parks and green spaces with affordable housing development can enhance neighborhood livability, sustainability, and growth.
Parks Plus: Economic Vitality
Explore how parks and green spaces can boost economic vitality, with a focus on how cities leverage parks to promote small businesses, workforce recruitment and development, placemaking, tourism, and strategies for inclusive and equitable growth.
Park Stewardship
Learn from a network of practitioners that are committed to advancing stewardship programs to support local communities.
Reimagining Rural Land Conservation and Outdoor Recreation
Engage policies and strategies for land conservation that support recreational development, community power, economic growth, and improve ecological health.