Racial and economic inequalities are well documented in American housing, education, and criminal justice. But little attention has been paid to disparities in access to the country’s public parks. In America, bike trails and baseball fields are luxurious perks of many affluent neighborhoods, boosting property values and creating a sense of community. Meanwhile, in many inner cities, public parks are magnets for crime and casualties of disinvestment. [...]
Then there’s the issue of park funding. The neighborhood parks that get the least money for certain types of recreational spending, such as lessons, supplies, and maintenance, are disproportionately in north Minneapolis, according to data provided to me by the parks board. Some of the city’s poorest communities are located there, with a large concentration of ethnic minorities. Four of the 12 neighborhood parks that received this stream of spending in north Minneapolis received less than $85,000 last year, and three got less than $25,000. Meanwhile, no neighborhood park listed in the city’s affluent southwest area received less than $150,000. To be fair, three of the northern parks did get some of the largest chunks of money from the board last year, but the variation in funding in north Minneapolis is quite stark, while it is consistently generous in southwest Minneapolis. On the other hand, the parks board does disproportionately spend more money on youth development programs, such as mentoring, at neighborhood parks in north Minneapolis. There were ten parks that received this stream of spending in north Minneapolis, compared with two in southwest Minneapolis. [...]
The state of Minnesota wants Minneapolis and other cities to spend more money on advertising and outreach to communities like Encalada’s. The Twin Cities area’s most picturesque regional parks, such as the Chain of Lakes, attract millions of visitors each year, though only about 3 percent of them are people of color. The Metropolitan Council, a local agency of state-appointed regional planners, which funds many of these parks with state money, created focus groups and discovered that lack of awareness about the parks was the biggest factor in keeping minority groups away. As a result, the council has proposed requiring cities like Minneapolis to spend more of their state funds on drawing new visitors to regional parks, such as by buying advertising in local ethnic-media outlets.
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