The 4 Paths to Generate Abundance in City Parks

Abundance, the theme of Park People’s 2022 Conference, is an invitation to radically reimagine city parks. For three days, September 21-23, the virtual event will focus our collective attention on the transformational park work charting a new path forward in cities.

Community park groups, park non-profits and park professionals are recognizing parks as essential urban infrastructure and building new approaches to collaboration, community engagement and nature connections. The Park People Conference is an invitation to engage with the incredible people, places and projects that manifest abundance in our city parks.

We’ve identified 4 key pathways to generating abundance in parks: decolonizing practices and narratives, engaging in power sharing, recognizing parks as sites of healing and justice, and cultivating human/nature connections.

Decolonizing Parks

Indigenous leaders and allies are calling for settlers to reckon with colonialism and decentre settler approaches in park work. We’re hosting numerous sessions during the Park People Conference that feature people and organizations that are leading the movement to collectively decolonize Canada’s city parks.

Credit: Vancouver Strathcona Park. Mash Salehomoum. 

• To open the conference, Lewis Cardinal’s keynote features lessons learned from his 20-year journey to make kihciy askiy (Sacred Land), Canada’s first urban Indigenous ceremony grounds, a reality in Edmonton. Cardinal shares how Indigenous ways of knowing move collaborations forward and help us imagine and realize transformative results.
• Rena Soutar and Spencer Lindsay, two Reconciliation Planners from the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation, share practical ways to decolonize park practices, and what we fundamentally stand to gain when we support Indigenous sovereignty and access to parks.
• Catherine Tàmmaro and Jenny Davis host a workshop on how to centre Indigenous voices and ways of knowing in park programs that create connections with self, culture, and the Land.

Power Sharing and Collaboration

How can municipalities, community groups, non-profits and residents meaningfully work together to create spaces that address community needs in parks? The Park People Conference features several sessions that approach collaboration as an act of power-sharing where the process is just as important as the project itself.

Credit: Sparking Change 2021 – Friends of Thorncliffe Park

• Understand the practices that disempower communities and learn how to adopt approaches that recognize community members as experts in their own lives and public spaces. Join Annisha Stewart, Mercedes Sharpe Zayas, and Zahra Ebrahim for a deep dive into what collaboration really means when it comes to delivering community impact, particularly in equity-deserving communities.
• Collaboration and creating a ‘yes’ culture in municipalities is the explicit focus of a dynamic panel discussion featuring municipal park leaders from Toronto, Vancouver, and Gatineau as well as park leaders from Hamilton’s Parks and Placemaking & Animation departments. This honest conversation will address what we need to do to fundamentally shift how communities and parks work together and explore tools and approaches to put the community at the centre of park planning.
• Conflict is a common byproduct of power sharing. Niall Lobley and Emily Dunlop share first-hand insights into how to reframe and approach conflict when it happens in shared spaces. Conflict resolution expert Meaghan Marian will lead a workshop to guide community conflict and complex conversations that need to happen in parks.
• What are the right tools for community engagement when only 22% of city residents feel they have the ability to influence what goes on in their local park? Explore creative practices for community-led engagement with Sue Holdsworth, Sara Udow and Masheed Salehomoum, park leaders forging a new way forward. Finally, participate in an interactive game led by Jennifer Chan of the Department of Imaginary Affairs. The game’s purpose is to unearth what really happens when participatory planning happens in people’s communities and lives.

Healing and Justice

What would parks look like if we saw everyone as equally worthy of having their needs met in shared spaces? Inclusion and access look much different from the perspective of those who are too often viewed as outsiders. But, their experience in parks tells us much about our communities, our cities and ourselves.

Credit: Peoples Park Halifax.

• Betty Lepps, the recently appointed Director of Urban Relationships at the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation will be featured in a Keynote conversation with Zahra Ebrahim. The two will unpack what it truly means to take a humanitarian approach to meet the needs of unhoused people sheltering in parks.
• What is the opposite of defensive design? Adri Stark and Matthew Huxley share park design prototypes that create a sense of safety and belonging for unhoused park users. These models upend our notions of inclusive park design and invite us to consider who gets to feel a sense of safety and belonging in our parks.
• Join a panel featuring park leaders who activate parks as sites of healing and justice. Discover what’s gained when you centre love of community and deep compassion in the park and public space work.

The Human/Nature Connection

Several Park People Conference presenters demonstrate how centring nature builds both community and ecological resilience.

• Keynote presenter Kongjian Yu believes that “when we separate from water, we create downstream issues.” Yu will share how the revolutionary sponge city projects he’s led nourish the human spirit and the land. He’ll share his approach to making cities more resilient in a changing climate.
• Chúk Odenigbo’s keynote will invite us to look beyond conventional acts of conservation to challenge deep-rooted societal systems of oppression and their impact on both our relationship with the environment and each other.

Check out the whole agenda, and 100+ speakers bringing together the incredible people, places and projects that manifest abundance in city parks.

See you at the Park People Conference!