Page 45 - Mapping the Nation: Taking Climate Action

Extreme Heat In the ensuing years, environmental justice—the equal treatment and involvement of all people in environmental decision-making—has become more mainstream. TPL's Climate-Smart Cities tool has been one way for cities to highlight environmental justice. In a recent collaboration, TPL staff helped Los Angeles planners identify areas of extreme heat within the city to prioritize heat reduction efforts. "We were able to show the city the census blocks and the data relating to the census blocks, overlaid with heat islands," Schottland said. "Low- income residents who live in hotter neighborhoods with less tree canopy are less likely to have the resources to pay for air conditioning—or they may be more likely to work outside instead of having an air-conditioned office job. So we want to direct city investments to these neighborhoods and protect those who are experiencing extreme heat." Maintaining Equity As our society has come to understand the need to tackle social inequity and the climate crisis, TPL staff have refined their approach. As TPL builds new GIS-based tools and creates new parks, the staff help cities guard against unintended consequences of neighborhood improvement. New green infrastructure such as parks, gardens, and playgrounds can make a neighborhood more desirable, a process researchers call environmental gentrification. "There are examples of green space being created in a neighborhood and people being displaced," Miller said. "During planning and project implementation, it is critical we engage community partners to understand gentrification or displacement concerns and bring those concerns into our park development process." The Climate-Smart Cities tool provides a way, in effect, to knit together TPL's three pillars of parkland value—health, equity, and climate—into a more expansive view of the modern city. "The program has always had an equity lens, but our thinking about what equity itself means has evolved and continues to evolve," Miller said. "When it began, we were thinking more in terms of physical access, like who is without air conditioning or those who can't walk to a park within 10 minutes of where they live. Now we can also examine other issues related to equity, like access to information and decision-making." This evolution continues in another national tool developed by TPL, the ParkScore index. This index quantifies how well the 100 largest US cities are providing communities with park resources. Cities are awarded points based on an analysis of four important characteristics of an effective park system: acreage, investment, amenities, and access. This year ParkScore will add a fifth characteristic, equity, to better assess how park systems are providing equitable access to the health, climate, and community-building benefits of parks and green space. TPL developers also designed ParkServe, another GIS tool that quantifies how well the cities are meeting community needs for green space. Using ParkServe, city leaders and park advocates can access TPL's comprehensive database of local parks in nearly 14,000 cities, towns, and communities to guide improvement efforts. This data underpins TPL's engagement with cities. 44