Public Engagement in Urban Park Restoration Planning
Urban parks are a central part of city life and they can provide many different opportunities for citizens. Parks can provide natural spaces for people who are unable to travel to nature destinations outside of the city, as well as recreation spaces, gathering spaces, and more. Urban parks need to be maintained through ecological restoration to keep park ecosystems in their best shape. When cities choose to change a park or plan ecological restoration, they may or may not choose to seek feedback on their project from citizens. There may be both benefits and challenges when seeking out and implementing these opinions into a project. For my capstone, I attempted to identify the best practices for gathering community input in ecological restoration projects. During my capstone project, I interned with Friends of Discovery Park to complete a restoration analysis for the Historic District within Discovery Park. This work gave me firsthand experience with the considerations and research associated with an ecological restoration project. In my research, I reviewed relevant literature and conducted interviews with stakeholders to learn more about this topic. I found that to increase the diversity of communities giving feedback, city parks departments should offer outreach materials in multiple languages, offer a variety of mediums for input submission, and partner with community organizations when conducting outreach projects. This research allowed me to identify the best practices when gathering and incorporating public opinion from diverse communities into urban park ecological restoration project planning.
