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officials accepted, and residents, who saw the dire need for a safe, gang-neutral place for kids to play, were elated. But arts advocates objected, arguing that a loud, active sports facility so close to a cultural landmark was a poor fit. They lobbied instead for a quieter park, a green space with trees and lawns and a playground. Eventually dis- cussions became so fraught that the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks asked TPL to help find out what the people of Watts really wanted.


LISTENING TO NEIGHBORHOODS Creating a park around an international arts icon like the Watts Towers is a first for The Trust for Public Land. But the participatory design process, in which local residents take an active part in the planning, is one the organiza- tion has used and honed over its 40-year history. Using this technique, which makes it more likely that a new park will become a beloved community destination, TPL has helped create hundreds of parks and playgrounds throughout the nation. “With participatory design, we’re going into the community and saying, ‘There’s a park going in here—


When the community helps create them, these parks end up being so much more interesting. When residents care about a park, they feel ownership, they feel a part of it, and it becomes an extension of their home.


what would you like?’” says Carolyn Ramsay, until recently TPL’s Los Angeles program director. “We do that over and over and over again, and then we take the feedback back to our office and see what was said.” The wish lists are then presented to residents at a series of community workshops, where groups discuss and de- bate the requests in the context of neighborhood needs. They look at budget and space constraints, and pare down the list to what is feasible. “These parks, when the community helps create


them, end up being so much more interesting,” Ramsay notes. “When residents care about a park, they feel own- ership, they feel a part of it, and it becomes an extension of their home.” The results of the participatory design process are


evident throughout Maywood, a largely Latino city south of Los Angeles. With 27,400 residents packed into 1.14 square miles, Maywood is the most densely populated city west of the Mississippi. Yet the city offers just 0.39 acres of park space per thousand residents, just a fraction of the green space available to Los Angeles residents. Here, guided by TPL experts, residents have helped design one park and are at work on a second. For its first Maywood project, TPL bought seven ad-


joining former industrial properties along the Los Angeles River—an EPA Superfund site—to create the five-acre Maywood Riverfront Park, which opened in 2008. But parcels this large are rare, says Tori Kjer, senior


project manager for TPL’s Los Angeles–Parks for People program. “When we work in a dense urban community like Maywood, which is already built out, the only avail- able spaces are often just the size of a city lot,” she says. “Doing the outreach for community-based design, we’ll fit as much as we can into the site.” Pine Avenue Park, which opened in 2011, sits on a


JONATHAN ALCORN


A young Watts resident enjoys the barbecue at a meeting to review plans for the new park.


40 LAND&PEOPLE Fall/Winter 2012


6,600-square-foot lot near the center of Maywood. Despite its diminutive size, it is packed with features, all suggested


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