The Policy Report Healthy Parks, Schools, and Communities: Mapping Green Access and Equity for the Los Angeles Region is a guide for creating healthy, livable communities for all. The Report provides a positive vision to:

• Revitalize the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers
• Create healthy parks and schools in every community
• Improve health and reduce diabetes
• Invest billions of dollars in infrastructure bonds
• Promote economic vitality, local jobs, and affordable housing
• Engage, educate, and empower communities.

Many parts of Los Angeles are park poor, and there are unfair park, school, and health disparities. Children of color disproportionately live in communities of concentrated poverty without places to play in parks and schools, with neither cars or transit to reach places for physical activity. These children disproportionately suffer from obesity and diabetes. Los Angeles has the chance to create healthy, livable communities for all.

The Policy Report provides GIS mapping, demographic and historical analyses, and policy and legal justifications for healthy parks, schools, and communities. The Report is a multimedia publication that is available in text only with no maps in a PDF file online, and with maps in hard copy and on compact disc below.

See a complete set of maps analyzing green access and equity for the Los Angeles region on flickr.

The Policy Report is available in hard copy in an abridged edition with the core maps and in unabridged edition with a complete set of maps, and on compact disc with a complete set of maps, for purchase online.

Please contact Meagan Yellott, Program Director at The City Project with any questions.

Download Text only edition

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The Quest for Environmental Justice

The new book The Quest for Environmental Justice captures the voices of frontline warriors who are battling environmental injustice and human rights abuses at the grassroots level around the world, and challenging government and industry policies and globalization trends that place people of color and the poor at special risk. The City Project contributed the chapter “Anatomy of the Urban Park Movement: Equal Justice, Democracy and Livability in Los Angeles” in the book edited by Dr. Robert Bullard. The chapter analyzes our efforts to diversify democracy from the ground up through parks, schools, healthy communities, transit, and sustainable regional planning.

You can order the book on Amazon.com.

"Flow of History" Policy Report Celebrates the Culture and History of the Cornfield

The Policy Report "The Cornfield and the Flow of History: People, Place, and Culture" (2.2 MB [PDF]) has helped guide the general plan process for the new state park at the Cornfield. The Report amplifies the Cornfield State Park Advisory Committee recommendations that "a park at the Cornfield should be connected to the struggles, the histories, and the cultures of the rich and diverse communities that have surrounded it since the site was settled."

Read more about the Cornfield.

Public Art in the Public Park

Public art in the new Los Angeles State Historic Park at the Cornfield site should reflect the struggles, hopes, and triumphs of the generations who have entered Los Angeles through El Pueblo and the Cornfield to reflect the dreams of the community, the purpose of the park, and the vision of the Cornfield Advisory Committee. "Public Art in the Public Park: People, Place, Power in the Los Angeles State Historic Park" sets forth the vision for the park as expressed by the communities that struggled to create it.

"Dreams of Fields: Soccer, Community, and Equal Justice" Policy Report influences planning for State Parks in Los Angeles

Children and their families who dream of soccer fields are entitled to equal access to playing fields in the parks they struggled to create. This Policy Report (572 KB [PDF]) led State Parks and Recreation to create balanced parks in the Cornfield and Taylor Yard with opportunities for active and passive recreation.

Read more about the Cornfield.
Read more about Taylor Yard.

Heritage Parkscape Guides Vision for a Greener Los Angeles

The Heritage Parkscape guides the vision of a greener Los Angeles for all. The Heritage Parkscape works to unite rich cultural, historical, recreational, and environmental resources in the heart of Los Angeles. The Heritage Parkscape links Taylor Yard, the Cornfield, the Los Angeles River Parkway, the Zanja Madre, El Pueblo Historic Park and Olvera Street, old and new Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Elysian Park, Chavez Ravine, Confluence Park, the Arroyo Seco Parkway, Debs Park, and Biddy Mason Park, along with 100 other sites. Download the Heritage Parkscape Policy Brief, (436 KB [PDF]).

Stanford Law School's environmental newsletter "The Natural Resource" features an article highlighting The City Project's environmental justice work under the leadership of Stanford graduate and Center Executive Director Robert García. Read the article (84 KB [PDF]).

Los Angeles is a severely park-poor city, with fewer acres of parks per resident than any major city in the country. The city also has vast disparities in access to parks and recreation. In the inner city, which is dominated by low-income communities of color, there are .3 acres of parks per thousand residents, compared to 1.7 acres in disproportionately white and relatively wealthy parts of Los Angeles. Read more about Los Angeles' Urban Parks in Growth: The California Story (252 KB [WORD]).

National Park Service: Olmsted For a New Century

The summer issue of the National Park Service's magazine Common Ground (776KB PDF) focuses on the influence of landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted across the country.

Sliced, diced, and in one case censured, the handiwork of Frederick Law Olmsted and his firm has survived and thrived in different mixes of geography, climate, politics, and history. Here, directors of three groups discuss why: Susan Rademacher of the Louisville Olmsted Parks Conservancy, Deborah Trimble of the Buffalo Parks Conservancy, and Robert García of the Los Angeles Center for Law in the Public Interest, who takes inspiration from an Olmsted plan that never was, but might be one day. As budgets shrink for urban parks, these organizations have been critical to carrying on the Olmsted legacy.

Urban Parks in Infrastructure Bonds

Our Policy Paper, "Urban Parks in Infrastructure Bonds" (101 KB, PDF)details the need for significant funding for urban parks in any infrastructure bond this year as part of a comprehensive plan to promote economic, environmental, and equitable development for all, and making sure that underserved communities receive their fair share of those public benefits.

Download the Policy Brief in español.

1980 General Plan for El Pueblo de Los Angeles State Historic Park

The General Plan for El Pueblo was originally adopted in 1980 as a joint project by the California Department of Parks and Recreation, the City of Los Angeles, and the County of Los Angeles. The City Project presents this edition of the Plan to guide the collective vision for a comprehensive and coherent web of parks, playgrounds, schools, beaches, and transportation that serves the needs of diverse users and reflects the cultural urban landscape.

Download the General Plan in eight parts:
Part 1 - Plan Summary and Introduction, 11.5 MB [PDF]
Part 2 - Plan Resource Element, 8.2 MB [PDF]
Part 3 - Plan Land Use Element, 13.3 MB [PDF]
Part 4 - Plan Land Use Element 2, 16.2 MB [PDF]
Part 5 - Plan Operations and Enviro Impact, 9.8 MB [PDF]
Part 6 - Plan Appendices A and B, 3.5 MB [PDF]
Part 7 - Plan Appendix C, 10.5 MB [PDF]
Part 8 - Plan Appendix C2 and Credits, 3.8 MB [PDF]

Developing an Ethic for Environmental Quality and Justice

Professor Craig Arnold has published an article discussing the need for an environmental ethic that highlights the psychology and ecology of place, public education and participation, politics, and problem solving, as well as the utility and limits of litigation. "The creative and interdisciplinary work of The City Project of Los Angeles' Center for Law in the Public Interest and its lawyer director Robert García can serve as one such example of environmental lawyering that encompasses more than environmental law." Craig Arnold, Working Out an Environmental Ethic: Anniversary Lessons from Mono Lake, 4 Wyo. L. Rev. 1, 50-51 (2004).