Volunteers Fill A Green-Space Void In The International District

San Francisco’s chronically homeless population remains staggeringly high. Salt Lake City has managed to eradicate much of their chronically homeless by geographically placing supportive housing distant from the city’s center and receiving financial assistance from the Mormon Church. The housing is attractive, modern, and offers a good ratio between counselors and homeless clients—all of which helps make the homeless want to stay off the streets.

At the vanguard of initiatives to increase diversity among visitors to the National Parks are groups like Oakland, CA-based H.E.A.T.—Hiking Every Available Trail -- which uses social media and group park expeditions to increase minority groups' awareness, use, trust and enjoyment of the outdoors. Emerging alongside changes in policy—such as the Park Services' creation of a Diversity and Inclusion Office—, HEAT demonstrates how local organizers in minority and, often, urban regions around the U.S. are moving the presence of diversity at National Parks from rarity to normality, with studies and polls revealing the positive changes in attendance and interest.

Instead of relying on Flint’s municipal government for basic services that it does not have the money for, residents are “picking up the slack” by joining block clubs. These community groups maintain parks, mow lawns, and clean up garbage, saving the city $4.3 million from 2015 to 2017. Though it’s not a permanent fix, block clubs are nonetheless making a significant positive impact on the city.

Gathering Place is the name of a new park in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It is a large-scale creative park project that, rather than receiving funding from the local government, was funded entirely through a local philanthropic foundation. One goal of the park is to bring different areas of the city together--though it remains to be seen if this will work as well as if privately-funded public spaces are effective in the future.

Around the world, people are putting out Little Free Libraries—a small birdhouse like box for people to take, leave, or swap books. These libraries have helped create easy access to book ownership and reading as well as community among neighbors.

San Diego residents may be seeing more placemaking projects, like murals or pedestrian plazas, because of a more streamlined permitting process. The city, notorious for making such projects difficult and expense to install, passed legislation and will be reviewing it to assess whether it should be expanded. San Diego has also created a fund that can help offset the costs of permit fees and other expenses.

After falling behind in urban planning and innovation in the 1990s and early 2000s, Oklahoma City created a limited-time sales tax called MAPS to pay for capital projects, like the new Scissortail Park. The tax consisted of a series of one-cent sales taxes and has brought in over $1.5 billion and has helped fund convention centers, other urban green areas, and more.

To mark the 100th anniversary of the Tulsa Race Massacre, in which a white mob killed hundreds of Black residents and destroyed the thriving neighborhood of Greenwood, the Centennial Commission supported a number of initiatives to learn from the past and build a better future. At the base of an ancient elm tree that witnessed the massacre, Up With Trees distributed 100 elm seedlings to children to plant around Tulsa. The commission convinced state education officials to develop a new curriculum on the massacre for K-12 students.

The nonprofit Coombs Outdoors runs summer and winter camps for youth to experience and learn about the outdoors. The camps are in high demand because of the affordable price made possible by donor subsidies.

Residents of Cambridge, Massachusetts, are planting Miyawaki forests to help regenerate the local ecosystem, sequester carbon, and cool the air. Originally created in Japan, these forests consist entirely of native plants made to mimic a natural forest in a small area of urban land.