Magazine
Urban Historian
Ask An Urban Historian
Ben Welle is assistant director of The Trust for Public Land’s Center for City Park Excellence in Washington, D.C., where he researches and writes about cities and parks, including at the organization’s cityparksblog.org. He holds a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Minnesota.
Q: There are a number of organizations, such as Kaboom!, that partner with communities and corporations to build playgrounds in cities. Are there any such organizations that essentially bridge a public/private partnership to revitalize parks in cities? What are the best examples of public/private partnerships in terms of urban parks that you can think of?
–Juliette Chow, Oakland, Calif.
A bounty of organizations are partnering with cities to revitalize parks, from small “friends” groups to large conservancies. Most have appeared since 1980, when many parks suffered from crime, despair and decrepitude — with cities in their worst financial position to do much about it.
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