December 2018 - Parks & Recreation - 64

AC T I V E PA R K S , H E A LT H Y C I T I E S

Much of the U.S. population
lives within a half mile of a park
offering outdoor recreation and
a back-to-nature mental break.
about 30 minutes per day, five
times per week and children 60
minutes per day, which is especially important to strengthen muscles
and bones, setting a foundation for
lifelong health. But 80 percent of
us aren't meeting these goals.
Part of the solution is to get
moving, and a great place to do it
is nearby for most Americans -
in the neighborhood park. Much
of the U.S. population lives within a half mile of a park offering
outdoor recreation and a back-tonature mental break. But, most
neighborhood parks aren't designed or programmed to successfully meet today's demographic
and lifestyle needs and are therefore underutilized.
It is time to rethink neighborhood parks from top to bottom
- how they're designed, what
programming is offered and even
how America's great untapped rec-

reational resource is branded and
marketed. It won't be easy, and we
don't claim to have a cure-all, but
together we have identified some
ways that parks can get us to a
healthier future.
With creativity, new and stronger partnerships, and more than a
bit of innovation, we can make our
local parks places where all Americans - regardless of age, gender or
physical ability - can get the physical activity they need.
There's an easy-to-follow roadmap to get us there. City Parks
Alliance recently published Active Parks, Healthy Cities: Recommendations from the National Study
of Neighborhood Parks (https://ti
nyurl.com/yadkkbsl), which presents several low-cost examples of
how some cities are succeeding in
building better close-to-home parks.
The National Study of Neighborhood Parks was a two-year
examination of park use and design at 174 neighborhood parks in
25 cities across the country. City
Parks Alliance and the RAND
Corporation led the research with
help from The Trust for Public
Land and funding from the Na-

tional Institute of Health's National Heart, Lung and Blood
Institute. For this study, neighborhood parks were defined as
being between 2 and 20 acres and
intended to serve residents living within a 1-mile radius of the
parks. Researchers documented
the age, gender and relative level
of physical activity of park users,
and they matched those factors
against park characteristics, amenities and conditions. More importantly, the research team also
collected the perceptions of those
parks by those who used them.
All that data was then distilled
into key recommendations for
turning America's great neighborhood parks into part of the solution to America's ongoing health
crisis. The recommendations fall
in four major categories: programming, design, outreach and measurement. And Active Parks, Healthy
Cities includes multiple case studies
for each from cities large and small
and diverse geographies from desert to waterfront. It is a trove of
ideas and options for building better neighborhood parks.

Programming

NATE YOUNKER, PLAYTIME.COM

Nothing increases park use and
physical activity as much as
programming - providing supervised activities to help people make active use of available
space. Data show that with each
supervised activity added to the
program offering, there is a 48
percent increase in park use and
a 37 percent increase in physical
activity. In particular, two largely
underrepresented groups - se-

Parks & Recreation

This path with fitness equipment at
Ken Malloy Harbor Regional Park in Los
Angeles is part of the LA Parks Foundation's Wellness Walks Initiative.

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December 2018 - Parks & Recreation

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of December 2018 - Parks & Recreation