Can Parks Reduce Inequity?

People doing yoga at Bartram's Garden
hand planting a chard
Bartram's Garden Drum Line Parade
Bartram's Garden Historic House
Fishing at Bartram's Garden

Can Parks Reduce Inequity?

“The park was always my backyard. It was my front lawn, my backyard…we lived in the park. Summer, winter, it didn’t matter. We would be out there until lights came on and we went home.”

“As beautiful as that park is, it just does not feel good to be in that space knowing that it’s not really made for me.”

Penn State researchers gathered these statements while studying community attitudes about Philadelphia’s neighborhood parks and recent renovations to those parks. The quotations—which come from different residents—raise some interesting questions. Who are the parks for? Who are the park renovations for? Why do some people feel like neighborhood parks are for them while others do not? Most importantly, why does this matter to people?

Parks offer space for physical activity, enjoyment of nature, and connection with other people. They also provide wildlife habitat and clean the air. Additionally, they enhance property values and attract people to cities or neighborhoods. But who reaps these benefits?

While most people appreciate these investments, simply having a nice park nearby does not mean that people feel it’s for them or they belong there. 

– Andrew Mowen

Do local parks serve everyone?

For years, policy makers and researchers have been studying how local parks benefit society and how to share those benefits more equitably. Andrew Mowen, professor of recreation, park, and tourism management, and his collaborators are examining how parks can help address social and racial inequities.

The researchers are working with several parks and communities in the Philadelphia area to create opportunities for people to come together. Funded by the William Penn Foundation, the researchers are studying and evaluating improvements to park renovations, management practices, and community engagement.

“People might think that flashy new parks or capital improvements are the way to stimulate increased use and the quality of people’s experiences in parks, but that’s not necessarily the case,” Mowen explained. “While most people appreciate these investments, simply having a nice park nearby does not mean that people feel it’s for them or they belong there.”

Local parks are typically free to access and are purportedly available to everyone, yet people of color continue to experience racism that discourages them from visiting parks. Perceptions of parks as unsafe or unwelcoming can limit use, and in turn, limit access to the benefits derived from parks. Penn State researchers have found that those who are white, male, younger, and more educated, and those with higher incomes are all more likely to use parks and enjoy their many benefits than people who do not fit those descriptions (Powers, Lee, Pitas, Graefe, & Mowen, 2020).

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People looking through telescope  at Bartram's Garden

Creating a sense of welcome and belonging

“We have seen that by improving parks’ facilities, programming, and especially community engagement and representation, we can create parks where more people feel welcome and like the park is ‘their’ park,” said Mowen.

Stereotypes exist about who engages in what types of recreation, and for many people, previous experiences and unwelcoming messages are barriers to feeling like they belong in a park. For example, last year, there was a widely circulated news story about a white woman who called 9-1-1 on a Black man for bird watching in New York’s Central Park. Mowen says that racist experiences like this are not uncommon for members of minoritized groups, and those experiences can lead directly to people avoiding parks (Powell, 2021).

Equitable engagement and representation can help people feel welcome in parks. During her doctoral research, Samantha Powers, assistant professor of recreation, park and tourism management at Penn State Abington and Mowen’s former graduate student, studied the significance of welcome and belonging at parks across the nation.

“When minoritized people feel more welcome in parks, it creates opportunities for racially diverse park visitation,” Powers explained. “A more diverse group of park users leads to a greater number of positive interracial interactions. These positive interactions are associated with favorable social outcomes, including lower levels of prejudice, higher interracial trust, and stronger civic engagement to support social justice.”

Bartram's Garden Outdoor Swings

Progress at Bartram’s Garden

Bartram’s Garden, a public park and 50-acre National Historic Landmark in Southwest Philadelphia, was highlighted by Mowen as an example of a place that is creating a culture of welcome and belonging among local residents to address park-related inequities. The Bartram’s Garden organization and community leadership have been very intentional about facilitating engagement and soliciting input from local residents.

To that end, Bartram’s Garden adopted and honors their slogan, “Bartram’s Garden is Your Backyard” to signal their commitment and openness to the local community. This type of inclusive engagement is significant because the park is situated in a lower income, predominantly Black neighborhood. As a result of these efforts, local residents reported feeling a high level of trust, ownership, and belonging at Bartram’s Garden.

As one local woman said, “[Bartram’s Garden] is doing really intentional outreach to the immediate community to try to make sure that growth and funding don’t lead to an imbalance in who is able to access it.”

,

Before

A section of the abandoned rail line outside of the Rail Park shows what the propertly looked like before the park was created.

,

After

Inside the park, there are walking paths, green space, and spaces for community use. Here, a dance perfromance draws a large crowd.

The path forward

There are several ways to ensure that parks benefit wider audiences, according to Mowen. A park must be safe and attractive. Park leadership must also find ways to equitably engage local people in the park’s decision-making process. This engagement engenders a sense of psychological ownership of the park and can help make sure that local needs are driving decision-making.

“In parks, as in the rest of life, people need to feel welcome. Beyond that, they want to feel that they have a voice, that they have some agency,” Mowen said. “When people get to participate in the decisions about what happens in their park, that is when it really begins to feel like a place for them.”

Addressing the inequities that exist in American society is not a simple task. Still, parks can and should do more to deliver benefits to everyone regardless of race, ethnicity, age, income, or other demographic factors. By creating public spaces where all feel welcome and that they belong, and through authentic civic engagement, we can create more positive interactions to promote equity in parks and throughout our society.

Jake Benfield, Ben Hickerson, Birgitta Baker, Samantha Powers, Lauren Mullenbach, Jaehyun Kim, and Nick Pitas made significant contributions to this research.

Photo Credits

Outdoor Yoga: Jean-Jacques Gabriel leads outdoor yoga at the 56th Street Plaza on the Bartram’s Mile Trail at Bartram’s Garden. Photograph courtesy Bartram’s Garden.

Planting Chard: A youth leader plants chard at the Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden. Photograph courtesy Alan Brian Nilsen/GlaxoSmithKline.

Drum Line Parade: The West Powelton Steppers & Drum Line and Moko.Motion stilt walkers arrive at Bartram’s Garden. Photograph courtesy LJ Brubaker/Bartram’s
Garden.

Historic House: The 1728 John Bartram House, as seen from the Ann Bartram Carr Garden adjacent to the Bartram’s Mile Trail. Photograph courtesy Steve Weinik/Art@Bartram’s.

Fishing: Neighbors enjoying weekly free fishing sessions on the expanded Bartram’s Garden dock on the Tidal Schuylkill River. Rods, tackle, bait, and basic instruction are provided. Photograph courtesy KromahStudio/Bartram’s Garden.

Telescope use: Photograph courtesy Andrew Mowen.

Swings at Rail Park: Photograph courtesy Andrew Mowen.

Undeveloped section of the rail line: Photograph courtesy Andrew Mowen.​

Ballet performance at the Rail Park: Photograph courtesty Friends of the Rail Park.

Citations
Powers, Samantha L., Lee, KangJae J., Pitas, Nicholas A., Graefe, Alan R. and Mowen, Andrew J. “Understanding access and use of municipal parks and recreation through an intersectionality perspective.” Journal of Leisure Research 51, no. 4 (2020): 377-396.

Powell, Roslynn Arnesia. “Who Is Responsible for Normalizing Black Bodies in White Spaces?” Journal of Park and Recreation Administration 39, no. 1 (2021).

Aaron Wagner
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