I had the honor of attending the ARC’s LINK trip to New York, where I was frequently enlightened and inspired, and took note of the city’s progress and investment in social infrastructure and hyper development. In addition to New York, my recent experience with LINK and LAI has led me to cities such as Barcelona and Montreal, where they share a common thread: they are leveraging climate initiatives to build better cities for everyone – even in dense, high value spaces. I’m excited to see more of this in Atlanta.
When it came time to choose which hyper development to tour, I chose none. I went for a tour of the local public elementary school 111 Adolph S. Ochs playground stands as an epic example of successful neighborhood-level innovation: New York City and Trust for Public Land are collaborating to convert 20+ city school playgrounds to serve the students and the neighborhood during after-school hours. While we have been fortunate to work on several high density districts, it’s always the children and the neighborhoods I ask about. Are we accommodating them and their development as well as the economic development of the city. Often we hear that it doesn’t make economic sense to put parks and schools on high asset land, yet they’re finding ways to accommodate schoolyards and schools that can serve the children because it is critical to the families that live there and the cultural fabric of our cities.
In Atlanta, we are seeing similar innovation and forward thinking, but we’ve got to take advantage of the opportunities to incorporate schools and playgrounds. The BeltLine serves as a great example of a project that got ahead of development and built parkspace into its master plan. We need to see the same investment and commitment to schools and playgrounds happen around Atlanta’s next big project – The Stitch.
But, there are still additional opportunities for smaller, meaningful contributions to community family space. When Sizemore Group conducted the Build Smart Study with Atlanta Public Schools in 2002 and determined there was a surplus of schools remaining from segregation days, our recommendation was to consolidate the schools to reunite communities and lower operating costs. Now, as cities across the region consolidate schools and find themselves with unused spaces, I’m hopeful that they will ask themselves – “what goes beyond the fiscal highest and best use of this land,” collaborate with the communities to understand their needs, and consider establishing some of these properties as parks, specialized schools and shared neighborhood playgrounds for the benefit of the greater community.
So the question remains: how do projects like this get funded? In New York, the $1M public schoolyard I toured was funded in part by climate infrastructure funds. This plan incorporates 18” of gravel retention underneath the greenspace that simultaneously offers a solution to an infrastructure problem by addressing the combined storm and sewage system issues – a problem shared with Atlanta’s system – a win for everyone! Even better – the schoolyards are “reimagined” with the input of local students in design charrettes whose input is incorporated into the final playground design, ensuring community input helped shape the vision of the parks. Not unlike the Historic Fourth Ward Park’s detention pond and our Smyrna town center in the 1990s, these parks and playgrounds can incorporate critical infrastructure solutions.
In a city where land is often worth way too much to turn into unprofitable space, the need and demand for greenspace and schools tailored to serve the family and children is greater than ever. It’s awesome that the city, Trust for Public Land, and others have partnered to address at hundreds of schools across the country by leveraging existing publicly owned space. The concept has spread its roots to other cities, including Atlanta: Trust for Public Land and the City of Atlanta Schools have partnered to transform 10+ schoolyards into parkspace, and I’m optimistic this model will be perpetuated further.
Every year, the Atlanta Regional Commission’s LINK™ program takes the region’s most influential leaders to another metropolitan area in North America to learn about new ideas and approaches for dealing with the issues and challenges facing metro Atlanta. There were so many incredible takeaways at this year’s event, but I’m excited to share this one with you and see how it continues to transform and bring equitable development to underserved communities.