Placing Parks

Policy Recommendations for Municipalities and Funders

We encourage municipalities and funders to consider these key learnings from our work and create policy with these concepts in mind.

People need parks.  As our urban centers become denser and more developed, access to green space and community space is vital.   For too long, parks have been conceived of as extensions of white, middle-class family life; a place to walk the dog; or as fragile ecosystems to be protected from the people who live around them.  As municipal budgets shrink, one cost-saving strategy has been to frame urban parks as natural oases, without infrastructure – rather than, as park activist Jutta Mason has coined - “a community center without walls”.

As our cities become more diverse, it’s important to remember that different cultural groups use their parks in different ways. Multi-generational family picnics, outdoor cooking, ceremonial pow wows are all examples of ways cultural groups are using or longing to use urban parks.   These potential uses must become central to how we plan, design and care for urban parks.

Parks are fertile ground for cultural expression and connection.  In a time of dwindling attendance among our cultural institutions, parks can be places where artists and organizations connect with new audiences and where these audiences cultivate a life-long commitment to the arts.  

Funding opportunities like the Toronto Arts Council’s Animating Toronto Parks program are actively supporting the concept of parks as cultural venues by funding professional artists and organizations to produce performances, events and workshops in parks.  With Animating Parks, the TAC is helping solve what would otherwise be a multi-million dollar problem – addressing the striking lack of cultural spaces in the inner-suburbs and the resulting limited access to the arts experienced by low-income, racialized communities who call the inner suburbs home. In Vancouver, the artist fieldhouse residency program  gives professional artists studio space in parks provided they offer free artistic programming to local residents. Again, addressing an incredibly expensive problem – lack of affordable space for artists - for pennies on the dollar.

Canadians of all ages and backgrounds increasingly report experiencing loneliness and social isolation.  Knowing one’s neighbours is a significant indicator of social capital and health.  We know that the creation of social networks, trusting relationships, civic engagement and supportive neighbourhoods are critical to both individual and community health.  In this context, parks become vital connectors – bringing people together across real and perceived differences and helping build relationships that increase social capital.  

Municipalities can leverage parks as places of social connection by supporting park involvement at the local level.  In Canada, Park Friends Groups have helped connect residents to the day-to-day management and long-term planning for their parks.  Park People is a national advocacy group helping to support and foster Friends Groups across Canada.

Park People supports and mobilizes people to help them activate the power of parks to improve quality of life in cities across Canada.

Non-profits are another important partner in work of leveraging parks.  For the past eleven years, MABELLEarts has resided on Mabelle Avenue, working and playing with thousands of local residents to transform a neglected greenspace on Toronto Community Housing land into a vibrant art park and cultural hub.

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