Health Parks, Schools and Communities Los Angeles City Council
The City Project's Executive Director and Counsel Robert García presented the Policy Report Healthy Parks, Schools, and Communities: Mapping Green Access and Equity for the Los Angeles Region to the full Los Angeles City Council on March 18, 2008. Council members respond in a conversation about a fair system of park finance and fees; regional grass roots support for parks and recreation; affordable housing; joint use of parks and schools; park, school, and health disparities based on race, ethnicity, and poverty; and improving the quality of life in every community. View YouTube videos of the City Council hearing.
Download the letter to the City Council summarizing our recommendations.
Policy Report Healthy Parks, Schools and Communities
The Policy Report Healthy Parks, Schools, and Communities: Mapping Green Access and Equity for the Los Angeles Region is a guide for creating healthy, livable communities for all. The Report provides a positive vision to:
Revitalize the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers
Create healthy parks and schools in every community
Improve health and reduce diabetes
Invest billions of dollars in infrastructure bonds
Promote economic vitality, local jobs, and affordable housing
Engage, educate, and empower communities.
Many parts of Los Angeles are park poor, and there are unfair park, school, and health disparities. Children of color disproportionately live in communities of concentrated poverty without places to play in parks and schools, with neither cars or transit to reach places for physical activity. These children disproportionately suffer from obesity and diabetes. Los Angeles has the chance to create healthy, livable communities for all.
The Policy Report provides GIS mapping, demographic and historical analyses, and policy and legal justifications for healthy parks, schools, and communities. The Report is a multimedia publication that is available in text only with no maps in a PDF file online, and with maps in hard copy and on compact disc below.
The Policy Report is available in hard copy in an abridged edition with the core maps and in unabridged edition with a complete set of maps, and on compact disc with a complete set of maps, for purchase online.
The following is a summary of some of the main concerns.
The City Project supports a collective vision for a web of parks, school fields, rivers, beaches, mountains, forests, and other natural public places to promote healthy, livable communities for all. We present ten principles for equal justice in planning healthy parks, schools, and communities.
The vision is inspired in part by the 1930 Olmsted plan for parks, playgrounds and beaches for the Los Angeles region. The Olmsted vision shows what should have been and what could be.
(Click on maps to enlarge. High quality maps are also available with the Report.)
In contrast to that vision is the reality of unfair park, school, and health disparities today. Children of color living in poverty with no access to a car have the worst access to parks, and to schools with five acres or more of playing fields. The shared use of parks and schools is the best use of land and tax dollars. But school fields tend to be located in disproportionately white and wealthy areas.
Obesity levels are intolerably high for children in every neighborhood--from 23 to 40%. Children of color suffer first and worst. Places and policies for physical activity can improve health and reduce obesity for all.
The revitalization of the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers should provide multiuse projects for parks, schools, clean water, and flood control, create jobs and affordable housing, and avoid gentrification.
The Heritage Parkscape will link the Los Angeles State Historic Park at the Cornfield, the Rio de Los Angeles State Park at Taylor Yard, El Pueblo de Los Angeles, the Los Angeles River, and over 100 other recreational, cultural, historical, and environmental sites. This is a best practice example for river revitalization.
