Robert Garcia is Founder and Executive Director of The City Project, a Southern California based non-profit that "focuses on parks and recreation, playgrounds, schools, health, and transit" in order to "enhance human health and the environment, and promote economic vitality for all communities." Over the next few weeks, he'll be sharing his thoughts about the region's national, state and local parks..
KCET and PBS this week are showing the Ken Burns documentary The National Parks: America's Best Idea, while California struggles to keep state parks open during the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. This is a moment to reflect on the values at stake in national, state, and local parks and green space.
Parks provide the simple joy of playing in the park. The United Nations recognizes the child's right to play as a fundamental human right.
Transit to Trails takes inner city children on trips to the King Gillette Ranch and other places in the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
"[A]pplying public health criteria to land-use and urban design decisions could substantially improve the health and quality of life of the American people," according to UCLA Prof. Richard Jackson.
While many schools abandon physical education, studies show that students who participate in physical activity do better academically. Active recreation and team sports provide positive alternatives to reduce gangs, violence, crime, drugs, and teen pregnancies.
Parks provide places for physical activity to reduce obesity and diabetes. This is the first generation in the history of the country in which children could have a lower life expectancy than their parents if obesity is not reversed. Obesity costs the United States about $117 billion annually. According to the Los Angeles County Health Department, childhood obesity levels range from 4% in Manhattan Beach to 37% in Maywood, and is closely associated with economic hardship. Cities with less park space are more likely to have higher childhood obesity levels.
Obesity in the Los Angeles Unified School District increased from 20% in 1999 to 26% in 2006,
going from 1 in 5 children being obese to over 1 in 4.
Bruces' Beach Park commemorates the African-American resort condemned in the 1930s.
Rigoberta Menchu with Judy Baca and Robert García at the Anahuak Youth Sports Association's Tournament of Peace and Hope.
Red hot spots show communities that are park poor and income poor. Click on the map to see the full size image.
Parks help improve mental health by reducing stress and depression and improving focus, attention span, productivity, and recovery from illness.
Parks bring people together, promoting "social cohesion."
Parks become a source of community building, pride and inspiration for further community improvements and revitalization.
Parks promote conservation values including clean air, water, and ground, habitat protection, and climate justice.
Parks help reduce the urban carbon footprint and global warming. Transit to Trails can provide choices for people who have none, reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, and reduce dependency on cars and oil.
Parks provide important places to celebrate diverse culture, heritage and art. The Great Wall of Los Angeles by Judy Baca and SPARC, one of the nation's greatest monuments to inter-racial harmony, is a best practice example of public art in a public park celebrating diversity, democracy, and freedom.
The struggle to stop a proposed toll road to save the sacred Acjachemen site of Panhe and San Onofre State Beach highlights profound values of religious freedom, democracy, and equal justice. Native American sites must be preserved.
Social justice and stewardship of the earth and its people motivate spiritual leaders like Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchú to praise parks as a way of giving children hope and saying no to violence.
Parks are an economic stimulus. New Deal projects included 8,000 parks and the Civilian Conservation Corps. Part-time jobs kept students in school and out of regular markets. The New Deal created work for artists, musicians, actors, and writers. Painters taught high school and painted murals depicting ordinary life. 15,000 musicians gave 225,000 performances in orchestras, jazz groups, and free concerts in parks. Classics and contemporary works for 30 million viewers included mixed and black casts. Writers wrote popular guides to each state, major cities, and interstate routes. The difference New Deal programs made in people's lives is incalculable.
Fundamental principles of equal justice and democracy underlie each of these other values. Yet children of color living in poverty without cars have the worst access to parks, and schools with playing fields of five acres or more, and have the highest levels of child obesity. More on these disparities next week.
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