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<br />school Above left Crofton Eletnentaq School playground. Above: GIS mapping by the Mecklenburg
<br />County Park and Recreation Department chows neighborhoods thatarea nine or lets fi-orrr city parks
<br />hard to meet, says Stuart Strong, planning,
<br />design, and construction manager for the De-
<br />partment of Parks and Recreation, "We just
<br />couldn't keep up with a one -mile standard "
<br />Austin has, in fact, acquired large tracts of
<br />open space in recent decades. But money has
<br />nor always been available to buy smaller par-
<br />cels for neighborhood parks, Strong says As
<br />an alternative, the city has provided greenways
<br />to link existing parks. It also encourages resi-
<br />dents to bike instead of drive to park facilities
<br />like the famous Barton Springs Pool.
<br />Oilier places have similar problems. "Were
<br />not even close to meeting the one -mile goal,"
<br />says Phil Bruce, the planning director of Jack-
<br />sonville. A planner in Indianapolis estimates
<br />that, even with the city's one -mile standard,
<br />Resources
<br />TPL. I flie Trust for Public Land is based in
<br />San' Francisco and has offices in 40 cities
<br />Since 1972, TPL has completed more than
<br />2,500 land-conservation projects on some 1 5
<br />million acres. Its urban program has acquired
<br />parldand in park -poor communities in more
<br />than 400 cities. TPL's most recent report, No
<br />Place to Play, compares park access in almost
<br />two dozen cities is scheduled for release early
<br />next year. For more information, go to
<br />www tp) org. A chart indicating standards for
<br />maximum allowable distance from a park in
<br />17 U.S. cities is included in the websire ver-
<br />sion of dais article, at www.planning org.
<br />30 percent of its residents do not have the
<br />mandated access to a park.
<br />Geographic information systems have made
<br />calculating distance from parks far easier than
<br />in the past. In North Carolina, officials of the
<br />merged Charlotte - Mecklenburg County park
<br />and recreation department use GIS to plot a
<br />one -mile service radius on maps marked with
<br />population figures and existing parks. The
<br />computer can then determine how many people
<br />live inside each service circle; the maps make
<br />it obvious where new parldand should be
<br />acquired. Currently, only 49 percent of
<br />Mecklenburg County's residents live within a
<br />mile of the closest park, according to park
<br />planner John DeKemper.
<br />Keephil- tqr
<br />But even with GIS and other tools, park
<br />planners often face an uphill battle when it
<br />comes to acquiring land, That's especially
<br />true in inner -city areas, according to DeKemper.
<br />"We're competing with developers who
<br />want to build housing, and we have a very
<br />limited budget," lie says. "A quarter mile or a
<br />half mile would be a nice goal, but I don't
<br />think it's something we would be able to
<br />achieve here "
<br />Michael Krosschell, principal planner for
<br />Indianapolis's Department of Parks and Rec-
<br />reation, faces the same problem "We're run-
<br />ning to try to keep up, but subdivisions are
<br />going up," he says, explaining the city's mod-
<br />est one -mile goal.
<br />David Fisher has another view, based on
<br />I�
<br />his long experience as the superintendent of
<br />Elie Minneapolis park system (He left in 1999
<br />to become executive director of the newly
<br />created Great Rivers Greenway in Sr Louis.)
<br />Fisher thinks city part officials are too
<br />timid in their outreach "We tell people,'You
<br />need a park in your neighborhood just like
<br />everyone else."' He adds, "Park systems suffer
<br />too quietly Fite departments don't do chat.
<br />You lose out when the money gets low be-
<br />cause people don't think parks are a priority."
<br />In Fisher's view, park officials must take a
<br />marketing- oriented approach if they are to
<br />overcome the resistance of mayors and city
<br />councils to buying land and developing parks
<br />in needy areas. That approach worked in
<br />greater St. Louis, where residents of six juris-
<br />dictions in two states voted to tax themselves
<br />to pay for parldand to create interconnecting
<br />greenways in the Mississippi River corridor,
<br />Kathy Dicklim, assistant commissioner of
<br />Chicago's Department of Planning and De-
<br />velopment, agrees that planners must tape
<br />aggressive steps to add parkland In rapidly
<br />developing areas, Dickhut recommends charg-
<br />ing developers an open space impact fee, "based
<br />on clear open space goals and objectives."
<br />(Chicago's impact fee ranges from $313 to
<br />$1,253 per unit, depending on location, and
<br />the money goes toward buying parkland )
<br />With more than 500 parks occupying
<br />7,000 acres, the Chicago Park District esti-
<br />mates that more than 90 percent of the city's
<br />2,9 million residents have a park or play lot
<br />within a half mile of their home. Nineteen
<br />different park districts operated separately be-
<br />fore being consolidated in 1934. "1 think that
<br />helped get this distribution across the whole
<br />city," says Dickhut. "You had separate focuses
<br />on different parts of the town and everyone
<br />wanted to make sure they had their own
<br />parks."
<br />Still, there were charges of discrimination in
<br />predominantlyAfrican American neighborhoods
<br />In the 1990s, the city undertook the highly
<br />detailed study that led to its "City Space" plan,
<br />which identified gaps in parldand. Based on
<br />those findings, the planning department and
<br />the park district now earmark impact fees paid
<br />by developers of new housing units. Since
<br />1998, says Dickhut, over $23 million in im-
<br />pact fees has been collected— enough to buy
<br />land for 21 parks, totaling 17 acres
<br />Peter Harnik is the author of Inside City Parks (Urban
<br />Land Institute, 2000) and the director of the Center
<br />for City Park Excellence, a division of the Trust for
<br />Public Land, located in Washington, D . Jeff
<br />Simms is an intern at the center
<br />
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