Help! We're Losing Our Parks! — Episode 030

On today’s episode, we’re talking about park conversions. In
recent history, we’ve seen some pretty remarkable conversions of
abandoned or unused commercial and industrial space — such as the
internationally acclaimed High Line in New York City and The 606,
a rails to trails conversion in Chicago — into vibrant public
spaces.


But the reverse is happening, too. Even though parks and open
space are vital to every community, parks are being converted to
non-park uses. In some cases, the conversions of these parks are
for other valuable public purposes, such as schools or roads, but
the net effect is the same — the parks are lost.


Joining us on the show today are two experts on the issue of park
conversions. Rich Dolesh, NRPA’s Vice President of Strategic
Initiatives, and Dr. James Kozlowski, an attorney and Associate
Professor in the School of Recreation, Health and Tourism at
George Mason University, share their experiences in cases where
park land has been threatened by being converted into other uses.
Fortunately, some of the cases that we discuss have a happy
ending — the parks were saved. However, this is not always the
case.


Tune in to learn what you can do to try to save your beloved park
if the threat of being developed for something else ever comes
its way. It’s not an easy feat by any means, but it’s not as
difficult as it may sound, either!