Alternative ways, locations, and partners to meet the recreational needs of underserved communities: The case of Florence-Firestone

Traditionally, park agencies address the shortage of urban parks by trying to increase the number and acreage of parks in underserved areas. Such an approach focuses exclusively on physical solutions, i.e. the development of new parks, requires substantial financial and land resources, and presumes that the parks department is the only supplier of recreational opportunities. Given the lack of public funding and land for new urban parks, this traditional approach is no longer typically feasible.;This paper presents an alternative approach that focuses on the provision of recreational services through multiple-use facilities and partnerships with a wide variety of public, nonprofit, and private organizations. This approach rightfully recognizes parks as a means to address recreational needs rather than an end itself, and shifts park agencies from being producers and guardians of parks to being facilitators of recreational services. Instead of focusing alone on developing new parks on its own and devoting significant resources on land acquisition and facility construction, park agencies should actively identify and pursue alternative ways, locations, and partners to offer recreational services. Alternative ways could include: the joint use of school facilities; the introduction of recreational uses on land owned by utilities; mobile gyms; transportation of residents to outside recreational facilities; and temporary use of parking and vacant lots, reuse of existing buildings, and temporary closure of streets for recreational purposes. The key component of this paper is a case study to demonstrate how this alternative approach of meeting recreational needs may be implemented in Florence-Firestone, an underserved area in South Los Angeles.