Could Toronto be a National Park City? Learnings from London UK

Toronto calls itself “A City Within a Park,” but Daniel Raven-Ellison has taken the concept much, much further. For the past five years he’s actively campaigned to have London, UK declared a National Park City .

“The idea of a national park city is inspiring. It’s a vision that so many people can share and contribute to in their own way,” says Ellison.

On Tuesday, March 19 Park People and Parks Canada will host Daniel Raven-Ellison for a public talk at the YMCA Auditorium on Grosvenor. The talk will focus on his National Park City project and what he’s achieved through his campaign and what’s possible when people living in cities embrace their connection to the natural world.

In 2012 Raven-Ellison, a former geography teacher, walked 1,686 km across all of the UK’s national parks and cities. That’s when the idea for a national park city was born. The goal of the designation is to ultimately change how people think about parks that exist within urban environments, and to help London become 50% green space.

Forging a stronger relationship between people and nature, Daniel Raven-Ellison argues, will improve not only the health of 14,000 species that call London home, but also help build human resilience in the face of climate change.

Raven-Ellison believes that any city could be a National Park City, as long as it has a strong civic society and regional government that is actively doing everything it can to make the city greener, healthier, and wilder.

Could Toronto be a National Park City? We hope you’ll attend this inspiring event cohosted by Park People and Rouge National Urban Park (Parks Canada) and come away with a new view of what’s possible for a city like Toronto.

Learn More:

Learn more about Daniel

Learn more about London National Park City

Learn more about bringing the National Park City movement to more cities