Portland Parks: Cultivating the City's Living Legacy
National studies increasingly show what communities know instinctively: open spaces and recreation opportunities are important to quality of life. Parks are an essential component of community life, producing measureable health, environmental, social and economic benefits.
Ten years ago, with overwhelming public support, Portland Parks & Recreation adopted the Parks 2020 Vision Plan with the goal of ensuring that all Portlanders enjoy the benefits of an equally distributed parks and recreation system as the city continues to develop. Yet, a decade later, progress has been slow. Competing demands on the City’s General Fund, and a continuous downward trend of funding for parks, likely make the plan unachievable by the year 2020.
On November 18, Zari Santner, recently retired director of Portland Parks & Recreation, will offer alternative approaches for sustainable management of the city’s parks system and will challenge us to reconsider how we invest in the system’s future.
Friday Forum
