Halperin Park raises hopes and gentrification fears in Oak Cliff

In Michigan, the organization Friends of Grand Rapids Parks is working to increase shade in the city by planting trees. With permission from landowners, they will plant and care for trees on the property.

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a New Deal program to build outdoor recreation facilities, creating thousands of jobs during the Great Depression and building iconic state parks. Delaware programs, like the Senior Corps that enlists the help of people over 55, encourage civic engagement modeled after the CCC. Pennsylvania's Outdoor Corps hires young people to restore public lands over the summer. Congress introduced bills to revive CCC-like initiatives that could support rural economies hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, but environmental funding is not a priority of the current administration.

The former Fresh Kills Landfill in Staten Island is turning into a public park that will accept visitors in 2021. By capping the trash site with plastic, covering it with soil, and planting native grasses, city officials are restoring the area’s former tidal wetlands and scrublands; nearly 314 plant and animal species have already been sighted. While the successful closing of the dump nearly 20 years ago means that the trash is being sent to other neighborhoods in the United States where people dealing with economic hardship live, the project could be a model for sustainability and urban renewal.

As part of a collaboration between Zion National Park and the nearby town of Springdale, shuttle buses were introduced to limit the amount of noise in the canyon and deal with issues of over parking. However, those shuttles have now reached the end of their lifespan and threaten to disrupt the flow of tourists into the park. Efforts to replace the buses with an electric fleet, that could also reduce carbon emissions, have hit roadblocks as they’ve been denied federal funding.

Several projects across the U.S. are emerging as models for how parks and green spaces can be developed in low-income neighborhoods without spurring the displacement of current residents ("greening without gentrification"). Some successful tools include community land trusts, local construction and operations workforces, and affordable housing preservation provisions.

As the National Park Service celebrates its 100th Anniversary, employees and rangers are turning their attention towards maximizing diversity and increasing a culture of inclusiveness amongst park visitors and employees. From taking a concrete political stance to recruiting a diverse group of celebrity park ambassadors, the national parks hope to bridge the gaps between what America looks like and the story our parks tell of our history.

Resiliency parks in Hoboken, New Jersey, look like typical playgrounds and basketball courts. Unlike the average park, they have discrete drains and sit on top of underground tanks that prevent flooding by holding millions of gallons of rainwater.

After a badly needed road construction project was abandoned by officials and contractors, community members banded together to pool their resources and build wooden bridges that made the road passable again.

The East Coast Greenway is a car-free trail network under development along the East Coast of the United States. The project organizers work with cities along the planned path to build the infrastructure and find funding. The goal is to connect Calais, Maine, and Key West, Florida.

Together Baton Rouge connects different organizations and individuals to collaborate on important community issues, such as advocating for needed infrastructure work. The group helped bring about the restructuring of a corporate tax break program that brought in $282 million in revenue in 2021.