Infrastructure That Does More: Investing in Public Spaces for a Resilient America
Philadelphia’s Rail Park. Image credit: Albert Yee, 2018.
It’s a critical moment for our country and the stakes are high. The pandemic is a public health crisis accelerating social isolation and despair, the economic crisis is devastating communities, and civil unrest has forced a long overdue reckoning about race and institutional violence. This time of multiple crises has exposed a fundamental truth: America desperately needs to abandon the status quo and invest in new priorities.
We know that the next few months will bring a call for reinvestment in the country’s aging infrastructure as a key component of the nation’s recovery plan. When this call for investment comes, it’s time to make knitting our country back together again a top priority. It’s time to invest in infrastructure that supports our economy, our people and our democracy: the parks, trails, libraries, community centers and public spaces that make up the nation’s long-neglected civic infrastructure.
This set of assets, often seen as “nice to have” amenities, is just as important as highways and bridges. In fact, given our current circumstances they may be more important to our ultimate ability to recover, rebuild and prosper.
That’s because, while arguments for traditional infrastructure are usually made solely on the grounds of boosting GDP, investments in civic infrastructure help the economy while also delivering so much more. In fact, multiple studies demonstrate the beneficial impacts of our shared public spaces:
Improved physical and mental health. More than a hundred studies have proven that parks and greenspaces are associated with better mental health and lower mortality. People with lower incomes living in communities with greater access to green space have reduced income-related health inequities. Research shows that spending just 20 minutes in nature significantly reduces stress levels.
Memphis’ River Garden. Image courtesy of Memphis River Parks Partnership, 2020.
Increased social capital. Places like public libraries and recreation centers foster the connections that build social capital, the civic currency that improves lives and fosters a healthy community. These inclusive spaces provide more people with the opportunity to build trust with others, trust that ripples outward into job opportunities, less inequality, more civic participation and more effective communal problem-solving.
Reduced crime and improved safety. Greenspaces—access to trees and nature, when properly maintained—have been shown to reduce the incidence of violent crime, particularly gun violence. In cities across the country, parks and greenspaces have been shown to reduce felonies, contribute to a lower crime rate and make people feel safer.
Healthier local economies. More than three-quarters of Americans indicate that high-quality park and recreation assets are important factors in deciding where to live and numerous studies show that when a property is adjacent to a park or open space, its value is significantly increased by up to 55 percent. When communities use one of the many policy mechanisms for capturing the value of investment for the benefit of nearby and longtime residents, these investments can preserve neighborhood affordability and reduce the risk of displacement. And as cities around the world have reopened and resumed some activity, public spaces have become critical to safely supporting the local economy and local businesses.
A stronger democracy. Despite the digital world in which we live, democracy depends on physical public space. These are places for protest, and also for core civic functions, like the more than 9,000 libraries across the country assisting with the census, hosting ballot drop boxes and serving as polling places.
Robust civic infrastructure also provides a place where we can cross paths with people of different backgrounds. This role of public space is becoming increasingly important because Americans have been growing apart from one another in ways that are neither healthy nor sustainable for the world’s oldest democracy.
For the last half-century, Americans have become more segregated by income more than any time in modern history, as the number of families living in predominantly low-income or predominantly affluent neighborhoods has more than doubled. A third of Americans do not ever talk to their neighbors.
At a time of civil unrest, the most dangerous impact of this economic and social segregation is that too many Americans no longer encounter people of different races, incomes and beliefs, and as a result, distrust is on the rise. In fact, 64 percent of people believe trust among fellow Americans is declining, and that this lack of trust makes it difficult to solve problems that require broad-based cooperation. Problems like COVID-19. Problems like racial inequality. Problems like climate change.
To recover and rebuild our communities—and to restore Americans’ belief in civic institutions and democracy—we desperately need to create ways for people to forge connections across their differences.
Chicago’s Stony Island Arts Bank. Image credit: David C. Sampson, 2017.
In 2015, the sociologist Eric Klinenberg examined the deadly heat wave in Chicago in 1995 that killed almost 800 people, identifying the factors that led some low-income neighborhoods to suffer far more deaths than others with similar demographics. One common factor in the neighborhoods where more people died: a lack of social connections, exacerbated by a lack of shared places where people could build relationships. Places like small businesses, social support agencies and of course parks, community centers and libraries.
The reality is that the more connections people make in physical space, the more trust is built, and the better communities can weather the disasters and disruption to come. Investing in civic infrastructure that welcomes people of all backgrounds and gives rise to a shared sense of identity multiplies social capital and our empathy for others.
Leaders across the country have begun to see 2021 as the year we begin to recover, rebuild—and reconnect. In a recent bipartisan report called “Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for the 21st Century,” the American Academy of Arts and Sciences called for the creation of a National Trust for Civic Infrastructure as a way to rebuild our democracy through the “hyper-local world of libraries, playgrounds, public parks, community gardens, churches and cafes.” Americans, the Academy reported, are hungry for connection with each other despite the polarization that divides us. And massive investments in civic infrastructure is the way to satisfy that hunger.
In a recent white paper, the Siegel Family Foundation called out the vital connection between investments in an expanded definition of infrastructure and our ability to create an equitable, climate-resilient and democratic future.
Memphis’ River Garden. Image courtesy of Memphis River Parks Partnership, 2019.
The good news is that there are tens of thousands of opportunities to invest in civic infrastructure, likely sitting nearby you at this moment: the parks, trails, libraries and community centers right down the street. Investment should include not only the physical reimagination of public space, but also the long-term operations, maintenance and programming to keep it vital over time. Yet civic infrastructure is a relatively efficient investment, given the benefits. For just the cost of a few miles of urban freeway, cities can reinvest in multiple innovative, accessible and welcoming public spaces.
What we invest in coming out of this time of crisis will define our generation. Will we invest in the status quo of more highways and walls that divide us or in the civic infrastructure that can yield more equitable and resilient cities? What will be our legacy? The decision is up to us.
As the country begins the inevitable discussion of recovery, we all must be ready to make the case that our public spaces are the civic infrastructure necessary for the resiliency of our nation. Our very success in fighting for equality, preparing for future pandemics and related threats like climate change depends upon more trust, more empathy—not less.
We desperately need investments in civic infrastructure that rebuild trust, help our economic recovery and build a belief in a better future for every member of our communities and our nation.
And with the challenges we face today, I can’t think of anything more urgent.
About the Author
Bridget Marquis is the Director of the Reimagining the Civic Commons Learning Network, a national effort to transform shared civic assets to foster engagement, equity, environmental sustainability and economic development in cities across the country. To learn more, visit www.civiccommons.us. You can also connect with Reimagining the Civic Commons on Twitter and Facebook.