Why am I looking forward to the 2027 Park People & World Urban Parks Congress?

Why gather now?

If you have been in the parks sector for a while, you may remember telling people what you did ten years ago and being met with a ‘huh.’ 

Urban parks felt pretty niche to most people. Here in Canada, a country whose self-image is built on wilderness vistas, your listener may even have tuned out when you hit the word ‘urban.’ 

But there are no skeptical ‘huhs’ anymore. There are understanding nods, and stories, and hopes and dreams for the green spaces we all realized we needed so deeply during the darkest years of the COVID-19 pandemic.

That broader appreciation for our shared work has lasted – but the funding and political attention have not. Whether you are planning park capital projects, managing amenities and programming, or restoring urban nature, you know that the dollars in your budget are being asked to stretch further than ever before. As our cities get denser and more sprawling, hotter and more unequal, our parks and public spaces are being asked to do more and more. 

At the same time, opportunities to work in new ways – to foster new partnerships, to challenge the status quo – go unrealized for want of time and resources. This is particularly true in the context of accelerating extreme weather, which is forcing us to direct more of our resources to response and recovery at the expense of prevention. 

We are the people who understand that parks are central to a liveable urban future. We do good work every day against long odds. And we. are. tired. 

It’s time to recharge and reconnect. It’s time to share practical, creative ideas from around the world and down the street. Let’s seed new relationships and ways of working. And let’s do it together in Montreal on May 30-June 2, 2027. 

Why Montreal?

When it comes to sharing space and connecting across differences, there is nowhere better than Montreal.

Montreal is a meeting place between languages, worldviews, and ideas, where unlikely combinations yield results greater than the sum of their parts. Globally renowned and locally beloved, Montreal’s parks and public spaces are historic, contested, futuristic and just plain fun. One walk down the street will show you people lingering and enjoying public space in a way that is not typical in most North American cities. 

Take the unbridled joy of a Claude Cormier design and see it animated with the passion of the activists who march under its rainbow canopies. Recall the futurist visions of Expo ‘67 and the ‘76 Olympics while exploring those spaces today, evolved and transformed for the next century. 

Stand in the shade and quiet of Mont-Royal’s forest and look out at a dense, concrete city floating in the middle of Canada’s largest waterway, one that connects the Atlantic to the Great Lakes. 

Experience an entire neighbourhood designed for the music that brings it to life and managed via a unique partnership model. Spend time in public spaces as memorable and transporting as the music and art that fills them.

Trace the path of a red fox from the mountain to the train tracks, skipping along biodiverse stepping stones of habitat restored by neighbours. Everything connects here and nothing is off-limits for reimagining, from vacant lots to laneways to parks in the sky. The park in the sky is unbuilt, but we hope that one day it will cross a spaghetti tangle of freeways, linking a hidden wilderness to an industrial neighbourhood in transformation. 

Canada’s most ambitious blue-green infrastructure projects? Check. Our largest planned municipal park? Check. Urban stargazing in a park grown on a landfill, dotted by UFO-like pods? Check. Pedestrianized streets, parks designed to flood, public spaces that thrive at night or in the heart of winter? Check. A herd of charismatic sheep who love nothing more than to maintain the lawns of signature parks? Check.

It’s not easy or simple to make a city as great as Montreal – and Montreal is not great for everyone and everything that lives here. You will meet the Montrealers who are facing challenges of liveability, social cohesion, climate resilience and biodiversity loss head-on. Bring ideas from what works where you live, and your questions about what doesn’t. 

Let’s take a breath together, plan and share. You’ll emerge stronger, with new energy and ideas to bring back home – tucked into your suitcase with a dozen bagels.

Natalie Brown

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Park People and World Urban Parks Congress 2027 is Canada’s international event on urban parks and public space solutions for thriving and resilient cities. From May 30 to June 2, 2027, park leaders across Canada and beyond will come together in Montreal to explore practical and creative solutions, from around the world and right down the street, and seed new relationships, collaborations, and ways of working.

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