I grew up in a working-class neighborhood in Boston, on a busy street of apartment buildings. Behind that block, however, was a city park of about 15 acres, where my friends and I spent much of our time beginning when we were about six or seven years old. It had an official name, but to us it was simply “the Park.” There was a baseball diamond, tennis and basketball courts, and skating in the winter, but we spent much of our time exploring the wooded area just behind our homes.
To us, the park became whatever our imaginations could create. Its hills, trees, and exposed rocks became mountains, forts, distant landscapes, and places for exploration. We rolled down the hills in summer and sledded on them when there was snow.
Several blocks away was a commercial district where our families did much of their shopping. For me, however, one of its main attractions was the local branch of the Boston Public Library. By the time I started school, I already had a library card, and the library became another important part of my life.
Before digital technology became part of everyday childhood, much of my free time revolved around these two community resources. They exercised my imagination and my body and helped develop a lasting love of the outdoors, literature, and learning.
Parks, libraries, recreation facilities, cultural spaces, transportation, health facilities, and other shared community resources can have a lasting influence on people's lives. They provide opportunities to learn, move, gather, create, receive services, connect with others, and participate in community life.
This section discusses what makes parks and other community facilities useful and welcoming, when communities may want to create or improve them, who should participate in those decisions, and how communities can plan for their long-term accessibility, use, maintenance, and sustainability.
This video highlights young people's involvement in improving parks in Atlanta's English Avenue and Vine City neighborhoods. Video courtesy of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
What do we mean by improving parks and other community facilities?
Community facilities can support health, learning, culture, recreation, mobility, social connection, public participation, and access to services. Parks provide green space and places for recreation and gathering. Libraries, museums, community centers, and performance spaces expand access to knowledge, creativity, culture, and community activities. Health facilities provide care, and public transportation helps connect people with employment, education, services, businesses, and other parts of the community.
Communities differ in what facilities they have and what improvements they need. Some may lack particular facilities entirely. Others may have facilities that no longer reflect the size, accessibility needs, interests, or priorities of the people they serve. A facility may need repairs, updated equipment, improved transportation connections, stronger programming, better accessibility, or changes that make it more welcoming and useful.
In other cases, a facility may be physically well maintained but underused. That can be a reason to ask whether its hours, programs, cost, location, communication, design, transportation access, or other features create barriers for potential users.
Improving community facilities therefore involves more than building or renovating something. It means understanding community strengths and priorities, identifying barriers, creating or improving facilities in response to those priorities, and planning for their continued operation and maintenance.
In this section, a community facility is a place, space, service environment, or physical resource that contributes to community life. It may be publicly owned, nonprofit, community-run, or privately operated. What matters is that it provides a meaningful community benefit and is reasonably accessible to the people it is intended to serve.
Parks
Parks vary greatly in size, design, ownership, and purpose. They may protect natural or historic resources, provide recreation, create gathering spaces, support environmental health, or serve several of these purposes at once.
Common types include:
- Urban parks. These may include lawns, trees, gardens, playgrounds, picnic areas, trails, courts, athletic fields, natural areas, cultural facilities, or other features within a city.
- Small-town parks. These may serve as central gathering places for recreation, community events, celebrations, performances, markets, or informal social activity.
- County or regional parks. These may contain trails, waterways, beaches, sports facilities, natural areas, historic resources, or larger landscapes that serve several communities.
- State parks. State parks may protect natural landscapes, cultural resources, historic sites, recreation areas, or a combination of these.
- National parks and monuments. These protect natural, cultural, historic, and recreational resources of national significance and may also be important community resources for people who live nearby.
Historic parks and sites can help communities understand and interpret the people, events, industries, cultures, landscapes, and experiences that shaped them. Historical interpretation should recognize that communities may contain multiple perspectives on the same history and should include people whose experiences have sometimes been excluded from traditional accounts.
Other community facilities
Parks are only one type of community resource. Other facilities may be publicly, privately, cooperatively, or nonprofit operated.
Access is an important consideration. A facility may serve a community purpose even when it charges a fee, but communities should consider whether cost, transportation, eligibility requirements, physical accessibility, language, scheduling, or other factors prevent some people from using it.
Examples of community facilities include:
- Libraries
- Community centers
- Theaters and cinemas
- Museums
- Auditoriums and concert venues
- Hospitals, clinics, and other health facilities
- Schools, colleges, and other educational facilities
- Faith-community facilities
- Local, state, Tribal, territorial, and federal government facilities that serve the public
- Sports and recreation facilities, including athletic fields, courts, recreation centers, pools, and stadiums
- Walking and bicycling trails. Organizations such as Rails-to-Trails Conservancy support the development of trails and active transportation connections.
- Recycling and resource-recovery facilities
- Community gardens
- Community arts centers
- Child care facilities
- Playgrounds
- Plazas, fountains, and public squares
- Public lakes, pools, rivers, canals, waterfronts, and other water-based recreation areas
- Boardwalks, beaches, boathouses, and other waterfront facilities
- Public transportation facilities and systems, including vehicles, stops, stations, shelters, and connections
Why improve parks and other community facilities?
- Good facilities can contribute to quality of life. Parks, libraries, cultural spaces, recreation, transportation, and other community resources can make communities more useful, enjoyable, connected, and supportive places to live.
- Good facilities expand access to intellectual, cultural, social, and physical activities. Affordable and accessible community resources can help people encounter books, art, music, recreation, technology, nature, educational opportunities, and other experiences that might otherwise be difficult to access.
- Good facilities can strengthen belonging and community stewardship. When people feel that public spaces reflect their needs and that they have meaningful roles in shaping them, they may be more likely to use, support, and care for those spaces.
- Good facilities provide useful community services. Public transportation can reduce the need for some automobile trips and improve access to employment and services. Libraries and museums can expand access to information, technology, history, culture, and different perspectives.
- Good facilities can support safe, positive, and connected community environments. Recreation, arts, education, youth programs, public spaces, and community activities can provide opportunities for relationships, learning, creativity, and participation.
- Good facilities can advance equity. When people across neighborhoods and income levels have access to useful, high-quality facilities, communities can reduce differences in access to recreation, information, transportation, culture, services, and public space.
- Good facilities can help communities retain and welcome residents. Parks, schools, libraries, transportation, cultural institutions, and other shared resources can contribute to people's decisions about where they want to live.
- Good facilities can support local economic activity. Community resources may support businesses, employment, tourism, workforce access, and nearby commercial activity. Economic benefits should be considered alongside affordability, displacement, public cost, and community priorities.
- Good facilities can improve the physical environment. Thoughtful design, maintenance, landscaping, public art, and preservation can contribute to comfortable, functional, and attractive surroundings.
- Good facilities can create places for social connection. Parks, plazas, libraries, community centers, transit stations, markets, cultural facilities, and other shared spaces can create opportunities for people to meet and participate in community life.
When should you try to improve parks and other community facilities?
Communities can review facilities at any time, but several circumstances may provide especially useful opportunities.
- When important facilities or opportunities are missing. A rural community may lack recreation opportunities, transportation, library services, health facilities, broadband access, or other resources. An urban neighborhood may lack green space, accessible recreation, or safe walking connections.
- When existing facilities need repair, modernization, or improved use. A park may have damaged equipment or safety concerns. A library may need additional space, accessible technology, or updated services. A recreation center may have hours or programming that no longer fit community needs.
- When community development or planning is underway. New housing, transportation, infrastructure, commercial development, and neighborhood plans can provide opportunities to incorporate parks, public spaces, recreation, cultural facilities, and other community resources.
- When funding or other resources become available. Grants, capital funds, charitable contributions, land, donated materials, technical assistance, or other resources may create opportunities for projects identified through community planning.
- When residents or community organizations identify a priority. Resident-led efforts may help restore a park, develop a community garden, improve a recreation area, reuse an underused building, or bring attention to a resource that needs investment.
- When land or buildings become available for community use. Vacant properties, former industrial sites, historic buildings, unused public land, or other properties may sometimes be adapted to serve new community purposes.
- When major development is being planned. Communities can consider how new development connects with public space, transportation, recreation, cultural facilities, accessibility, environmental quality, and other community priorities.
- When historic preservation or adaptive reuse is possible. Historic or older buildings may sometimes be restored and used for housing, libraries, arts, community services, transportation, or other purposes.
Who should be involved in improving parks and other community facilities?
Strong planning includes people who use the facility, people who may face barriers to using it, people responsible for maintaining or operating it, and people with relevant professional, community, or lived expertise.
Depending on the project, participants may include:
- Current and potential users. Residents who use or may use a facility can identify priorities, barriers, desired activities, accessibility needs, and features that would make the resource more useful.
- Young people, older adults, families, and other groups who use the facility in different ways. Their participation can help planners understand how needs vary across ages and life circumstances.
- People with disabilities and accessibility organizations. Accessibility should be considered from the beginning rather than added after major design decisions have already been made.
- Trusted community members and resident-led organizations. People with strong community relationships may help planners understand local history, priorities, networks, and concerns. Their role should be to contribute knowledge and participation, not simply to persuade others to support a predetermined plan.
- Public officials and public agencies. Government agencies may own property, manage facilities, provide funding, issue permits, maintain infrastructure, or have other responsibilities connected with the project.
- Architects, designers, engineers, developers, landscape architects, and planners. Technical professionals can help translate community priorities into safe, functional, accessible, durable, and feasible designs.
- Community-based organizations. These organizations may use the facility, provide services there, or contribute relationships and experience with people who are often underrepresented in formal planning processes, including people experiencing homelessness and multilingual communities.
- Community foundations and other funders. Funders may provide grants, loans, technical assistance, or other resources for planning, construction, programming, accessibility, or long-term maintenance.
- Community organizers and resident advocates. They may help bring residents into the process, identify concerns, organize participation, and communicate with organizations and public institutions responsible for decisions.
- Facility staff, maintenance employees, and frontline workers. People who operate and maintain a facility can identify practical issues involving staffing, safety, programming, maintenance, equipment, and long-term costs.
- Businesses and other local institutions. They may provide resources or be affected by transportation, foot traffic, public space, or other aspects of the project.
How do you improve parks and other community facilities?
Improving a facility usually involves assessment, community participation, planning, design, funding, implementation, management, maintenance, and evaluation.
The process does not always happen in a neat sequence. A community may need to respond quickly to a damaged facility, an urgent accessibility concern, a funding deadline, or an unexpected opportunity to acquire land. Use the steps below as a framework and adapt them to local circumstances.
Assess community assets and needs
Begin by understanding both what the community already has and what barriers or unmet needs people experience.
A library may need more space or accessible technology. A neighborhood park may be physically deteriorated, poorly lit, difficult to reach, or associated with safety concerns. A recreation center may have useful facilities but limited hours or programs. A community assessment can help distinguish among these issues and identify possible solutions.
A participatory assessment can involve community members as planners, interviewers, observers, participants, and sources of knowledge. Participation should help shape actual decisions rather than simply be used to build support for a project that has already been designed.
Questions to consider include:
- Where are facilities located? Are they reasonably accessible to the people they are intended to serve? Are some neighborhoods better served than others?
- Who currently uses them? Who does not, and why?
- Are they large enough and appropriately designed? Can they support current and anticipated use?
- What condition are they in? What repairs, maintenance, modernization, or accessibility improvements are needed?
- Are they physically and digitally accessible? Consider mobility, sensory, communication, cognitive, and other access needs where relevant.
- Are they affordable to use? Do fees, transportation costs, equipment requirements, or other expenses create barriers?
- Do hours and programming fit community needs?
- Do people feel welcome and respected there?
- What community strengths can support improvement? Consider resident organizations, staff expertise, public resources, cultural assets, partnerships, volunteers, funding, land, and existing infrastructure.
- What long-term support exists? Is there funding, staffing, maintenance capacity, and organizational responsibility after construction or renovation is complete?
Assemble a participatory planning group
A planning group may take many forms: a resident-led organization, a “Friends of” group, a public advisory committee, a coalition, a nonprofit partnership, or a municipal planning process.
Whatever the structure, include people who use the facility and people who experience barriers to using it. A park used by young people, older adults, families, athletes, people with disabilities, and others will benefit from hearing directly from those different groups.
Participants should have meaningful opportunities to influence priorities, design, programming, accessibility, maintenance, and evaluation.
Many parks, libraries, museums, and other facilities have “Friends of” organizations that help with fundraising, volunteer activities, community engagement, stewardship, or other forms of support.
Useful principles for these groups include:
- Inclusion. Seek participation from different neighborhoods, ages, abilities, cultures, languages, income levels, and types of facility users.
- Clear structure. Establish transparent decision-making, communication, responsibilities, and accountability.
- Planning. Use the group to develop a practical plan based on identified community priorities.
- Accessible participation. Consider meeting times, transportation, childcare, disability access, interpretation, virtual participation, and other supports that may affect who can participate.
Determine what is needed and design the facility around community priorities
Use assessment findings and community input to determine what the facility should accomplish.
Creating or renovating a facility is not enough by itself. It also needs to be usable, accessible, well managed, well maintained, adequately funded, and responsive to the people it is intended to serve.
Useful principles include:
- Facilities should respond to community priorities. Evaluate not simply how many facilities exist, but whether they provide the services, spaces, and opportunities people need.
- Community participation should continue throughout planning and development. Residents and users should be able to influence major decisions, not only comment on finished plans.
- Facilities should reflect community strengths, culture, and history. Cultural representation should be shaped with residents and community organizations rather than based on assumptions about what a particular racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural group should want.
- Facilities should combine function with thoughtful design. High-quality design does not necessarily require expensive materials. It means creating the best solution possible for the intended use, available resources, accessibility requirements, and community context.
- Facilities should be accessible and welcoming. Consider transportation, entrances, paths, restrooms, signage, communication, digital information, language access, seating, lighting, sensory conditions, and affordability.
- Facilities should support health and safety. Use appropriate materials, address environmental hazards, maintain equipment, provide suitable lighting and emergency planning, and respond to actual safety concerns identified through evidence and community experience.
Avoid defining particular young people or community members as “troublemakers.” When a facility experiences damage, conflict, or unsafe activity, include affected residents and young people in understanding why the problem is occurring and what would make the space safer and more useful. Programming, trusted relationships, environmental design, staffing, maintenance, outreach, and other strategies may all be relevant.
- Facilities should be clean and well maintained. Regular maintenance protects people's health and safety, preserves public investment, identifies problems early, and makes facilities more comfortable to use.
- People should know what facilities offer. Use accessible community communication to share information about programs, hours, transportation, costs, accessibility, and opportunities to participate.
- Facilities should be adaptable. Needs, technologies, programs, populations, and community priorities change. Flexible spaces and systems can make adaptation easier.
- Facilities should provide multiple forms of community benefit when practical. A theater may offer performances, youth arts programs, classes, rehearsal space, or community events. A library may provide books, technology, meeting space, workforce resources, classes, and cultural programming.
- Facilities should be monitored and evaluated. Evaluate use, accessibility, participant experience, maintenance, programming, safety, affordability, and community outcomes, and use the findings to make improvements.
- Facilities should be sustainable. Consider environmental performance, climate resilience, staffing, maintenance requirements, durability, operating costs, and long-term funding.
- Facilities should be well managed. Clear responsibility is needed for management, maintenance, communication, staffing, programming, accessibility, and financial management.
Long-term operating and maintenance needs should be considered before construction begins. Raising money for a highly visible project can sometimes be easier than securing the resources needed to operate and maintain it year after year.
A financial plan may draw on several sources:
- Public funding
- Community and individual contributions
- Foundation or other grants
- Endowments or major contributions
- Fundraising events
- Sale of appropriate items or services
- Revenue generated through appropriate use of the facility
- Memberships or recurring contributions
Sustainable financing often uses a combination of approaches and should account for staffing, accessibility, maintenance, repairs, programming, utilities, insurance, replacement of equipment, and future improvements.
Assess and work to obtain available resources
Resources include money, staff capacity, professional expertise, community knowledge, public land, equipment, materials, partnerships, and volunteer contributions.
Plan for what can be maintained over time. A smaller facility that can be staffed, maintained, and used successfully may serve the community better than a larger project without resources for long-term operation.
Possible resources include:
- Public funding and staff
- Grants and philanthropic funding
- Community organizations and partnerships
- Professional expertise
- Equipment or materials available through public agencies
- Donated or loaned materials and equipment
- Community volunteers
- Business and institutional partnerships
- Fundraising and recurring donations
Volunteers can contribute valuable knowledge, labor, and stewardship, but they should complement rather than automatically replace the paid staff and public investment needed to operate essential facilities safely and consistently.
When seeking donations or partnerships, be transparent about the project's goals, costs, responsibilities, and how resources will be used. Avoid relying only on personal relationships or informal influence; open and accessible fundraising can broaden participation and trust.
If resources are limited, begin with achievable improvements
Communities do not always have enough funding to complete every desired improvement at once.
A larger park renovation may begin with cleanup, repaired lighting, accessible seating, programming, shade, improved signs, or one renovated recreation area. A library may begin by expanding digital access, improving accessibility, updating selected equipment, or partnering with another institution to offer additional services.
Small projects can build experience and demonstrate what residents value, but short-term volunteer projects should be connected whenever possible to a realistic plan for ongoing maintenance and responsibility.
Collaborate with other groups and organizations
Partner with neighborhood groups, resident organizations, faith communities, schools, businesses, public agencies, cultural organizations, disability organizations, youth organizations, health organizations, and others that can contribute knowledge or resources.
Collaboration can help coordinate programming, identify changing needs, share facilities, expand participation, obtain resources, and avoid duplicating work.
Communicate with the community and media
Work with media and community communication channels to explain the project, share accurate information, invite participation, identify resources, and keep residents informed about decisions and progress.
Communication may include local news, community newsletters, websites, social media, public meetings, signs, libraries, schools, neighborhood organizations, email, text messaging, and other channels people already use.
Communication should be two-way. Provide opportunities for people to ask questions, identify concerns, suggest improvements, and understand how their input is being used.
Participate in public decision-making
Many community facilities involve public funding, land, permits, transportation, infrastructure, maintenance, or other government responsibilities. Learn which public agency or governing body has authority over the issue and what decision-making process applies.
Appropriate forms of participation may include:
- Attending public meetings
- Participating in planning or advisory groups
- Submitting public comments
- Providing community assessments or evaluation findings
- Meeting with relevant public staff or officials
- Participating in budget or capital-planning processes
- Using established administrative, civic, or legal processes when concerns remain unresolved
Focus communication on the community need, available evidence, resident experience, costs, alternatives, accessibility, maintenance, and expected outcomes rather than on personal influence over particular decision-makers.
Organizations participating in lobbying or election-related activity should review current legal requirements, organizational policies, and any restrictions associated with their funding before acting.
Continue maintaining, evaluating, and improving the facility
Completing construction or renovation is not the end of the work. Community needs, facilities, technologies, programming, environmental conditions, and available resources continue to change.
Continue asking:
- Is the facility being used?
- Who is using it, and who is not?
- Are there accessibility, cost, transportation, language, scheduling, or other barriers?
- Is the facility safe, clean, and well maintained?
- Do programs and spaces continue to reflect community priorities?
- Are staff and operating resources adequate?
- Are some neighborhoods receiving substantially less investment or access than others?
- Are environmental and climate conditions creating new needs?
- Are there opportunities to improve the facility or use it in new ways?
Long-term stewardship should not depend on one person or a small group continuing indefinitely without support. Build responsibility, funding, participation, and institutional capacity that can continue even as individual leaders and volunteers change.
In Summary
Parks and other community facilities can contribute to health, learning, recreation, culture, transportation, social connection, economic activity, public participation, and overall quality of life.
Improving these resources may mean building something new, restoring or modernizing an existing facility, improving accessibility, expanding programming, addressing safety or maintenance problems, reducing barriers to use, or finding new ways to use an existing space.
Strong improvement efforts begin by assessing both community assets and unmet needs. Current and potential users – including people who may have been underrepresented in previous planning – should have meaningful opportunities to participate in assessment, design, implementation, and evaluation.
Good facilities are accessible, welcoming, useful, safe, adaptable, well maintained, environmentally responsible, financially sustainable, and responsive to the people and communities they serve.
Collaboration among residents, community organizations, public agencies, facility staff, technical professionals, funders, businesses, and other partners can help bring projects to completion and sustain them over time.
The goal is not simply to create attractive buildings or public spaces. It is to develop and maintain community resources that people can use, shape, enjoy, and rely on over the long term.