Features
A Watershed Partnership
The South Platte River has been a focus of urban development in Colorado since the mid-1800s, as gold-prospecting camps and fur trading posts along the South Platte eventually grew and evolved into the city of Denver. Later, the river’s path served as a major transportation corridor. The South Platte’s story has entered a new chapter--as a major recreational resource for the area's 2.5 million residents. But first a few obstacles, ranging from rusting green school buses to missing trail connections, needed to be cleared away.
Ingredients of Parks Recreation and Open Space Master Plan
The Miami-Dade County Parks and Open Space System is a 50-year, unifying vision for a livable, sustainable community. It’s a public declaration of principles and goals for a seamless, sustainable system of great parks, public spaces, natural areas & cultural areas, greenways, water trails, and streets.
Masters of the Master Plan Miami Dade County
Fifty years ago, Miami-Dade County, Florida, sat on the verge of a tremendous growth spurt. In an attempt to look strategically to the future, the county’s parks and recreation department produced a 50-year master plan that concentrated on land acquisition, development, and the kinds of parks that would be built. Today, Miami-Dade Parks, Recreation and Open Space department has launched a follow-up 50-year master plan with the potential to radically improve the quality of life in the region. Their innovative approach to master planning can serve as a model for municipalities around the country.
Additional Articles
A Riverfront Transformed
Cumberland Park in Nashville, Tennessee, is the flagship for the city's 2010 New Riverfront revitalization plan.
Leveling the Playing Field
Most departments choose to invest in artificial turf fields to conserve water, to maximize field use, to simplify maintenance, and to prevent player injury. With more options than ever before for turf, drainage systems, infill, and even field graphics, the research, preparation of design specs, and evaluation of vendors can take months of staff time. And the pricetag on a single field can come in at about $1 million. Agencies share here how they maximized that investment.
National Recreation Foundation Spotlight
As part of an ongoing series on the National Recreation Foundation, Parks & Recreation highlights grant recipients for the foundation’s program benefitting at-risk youths. This month features programs from Pennsylvania, Texas, and California.
Municipal golf
In working as a consultant primarily serving municipal golf courses, I learned that preserving the economic health of these vital community assets has become a constant challenge. I find more and more that the very existence of municipal golf courses is being threatened due to government budget challenges. All too often I hear the refrain, “Why are we in the golf business at all?”
Tom Venniro
If you’ve read the Future Leaders column in this magazine, you’re familiar with some of the volunteer leadership of Tom Venniro. Venniro, chair-elect of the NRPA Young Professional Network and Young Professional Representative for the Mid-Atlantic Region and Administrators’ Networks, helped establish that monthly column—and he contributes regularly to it. He is the recreation supervisor for the Town of Chili (New York) Recreation Department and specializes in recreation programming at all levels—but with a special focus on keeping youth active and connected with nature.
Upgrade Your Membership
NRPA recently launched a new membership package, the Premiere Agency Membership, whereby a park and recreation agency/department joins and all of the agency’s full-time employees become members of NRPA. In many cases, the package price is not much different than what an agency is currently paying for NRPA membership. So now agency directors no longer have to choose among their staff as to who will be a member. Instead, they can make the Premiere choice and extend the NRPA membership benefits to all of their full-time employees.
Water Water Everywhere
Parks and facilities that provide users with access to water recreation are a major attraction to local parks. In general, the data show participation in water-related activities is increasing and the presence of water–related facilities is constant.
Wild About Parks
This July, NRPA is encouraging you and your community to GET WILD about parks and recreation and help raise the public’s awareness of the benefits and offerings of parks and recreation.
Members Matter
While recreation facilities always say they appreciate their members, they don’t always show it. It's important to plan how you will build relationships with members from initial signup onward. Developing a comprehensive member retention plan may seem overwhelming, but any facility it can do it in a few simple steps.
Walk this Way
Despite the different elements people value in the same community, all of want access to safe, friendly, and active environments. All too often, though, instead of coming together to create the best possible version of their community, citizens notice only what is specifically interesting to them. A fantastic way to allow people to see the potential their community has is by engaging residents in what's known as a "walking audit."
Playground Fall Liability
Generally, the legal duty of care owed by landowners to invitees is to inspect and repair or remove known or discoverable hazards within a reasonable time. When repair or removal is impossible or impractical, landowners are required to provide an adequate warning of hazards on the premises--unless the risk is open and obvious.
Urban Directors and Advocacy
NRPA formed the Urban Directors network to serve as a resource for urban agency leaders to share ideas and solutions to common problems. The public policy office recently spoke with five of these directors to get a picture of what advocacy means to them—and how federal advocacy helps them overcome their unique challenges.
Turning Quarries into Parks
Quarries are everywhere. The construction industry’s insatiable need for sand, gravel and stone for roads, buildings and landscaping keeps the extraction industry constantly digging holes in the ground and taking huge bites out of hillsides from coast to coast. In recent years, parks and recreation agencies and municipalities have been discovering these often hidden resources and turning them into popular--and economically vibrant--recreation facilities.
Public Support May Save Some California State Parks
The saga of California’s troubled state park system will reach a sad milestone on June 30, 2012, when the California Department of Parks and Recreation will close a significant proportion of the 70 state parks on its closure list.
Sprite Spark Parks
The mission of Sprite's "Spark Parks" program, in the words of Coca-Cola North America vice president Michael Matthews, is “to refresh neighborhood basketball courts.”
Stephen Fuller Interview
Economist Stephen Fuller discusses what this slow but steady climb out of economic recession means for parks and recreation professionals.
Plan on It
It’s a great but rare day when all goes according to plan. Dwight Eisenhower knew this well when he quipped that plans were useless for preparing for battle, while planning was indispensable. Polar explorer Roald Amundsen simplified it even more with his observation that adventure is just bad planning. But for our purposes in the field of parks and recreation, I like the advice tendered by the great civic architect Daniel Burnham: “Make no small plans.”
What Inspires You?
NRPA’s Young Professional Network inspires me. I’m impressed with their focus on getting things done and seeing results. I’m in awe of their willingness to work together—volunteering for a greater good, working collaboratively toward common goals, and respecting history and tradition, without allowing the past to limit their future. And now we have a great way to bring the Young Professionals into NRPA at no essentially no cost to them—through the new Premiere Agency membership package.