A park conservancy is a type of private, non-profit organization in the United States, that can support the maintenance, capital development, and advocacy for parks or park systems. [1] These organizations raise money through a variety of means to care for urban parks, and while there is not a single model for how a park conservancy can or should be developed, they are created to meet the needs of local communities based on their resources and political situations. [2] [3] [4]
Park conservancies developed in relation to what some call a fifth model for parks, namely those that are sustainable in plantings, usage, and funding. [5] This arose in part due to a lack of public funding allocation for parks, along with structure that allowed the members of the community to directly support their own parks. The number of parks conservancies has grown in the past decades as city funding for parks has in many cases declined, playing an increasingly prominent role in urban parks. [6] One particular aspect of them involves their management, which is independent of local municipal elections. They generally take a long-term perspective on parks, and as a result are financially focused on long-term sustainability to meet their management needs. [7] While the Central Park Conservancy is often considered the first of its kind, they remain different than Friends of the Park groups, Business Improvement Districts (BIDs), and most conservancies in California (where conservancies are often names of state agencies). [6]
While park conservancies are increasingly relied upon to manage, fund, and care for urban parks, they are not without controversy. Some claim that their popularity encourages government to step back from their responsibilities to fund public spaces, and the more they give away their authority the less public oversight exists. Along these lines, funding decisions increasingly depend upon fund-raising, leading to potential conflicts with wealthy donors influencing decisions that affect the rights of those who are often poorest and in most need of the parks themselves. [8] [9]
While New York City has the most conservancies of any American city, [10] conservancy management and care of large and small urban parks can be found across the country. One size or approach to developing or using park conservancies will not be the same everywhere based on size or funding, [11] Some of these include:
Redevelopment is any new construction on a site that has pre-existing uses. It represents a process of land development uses to revitalize the physical, economic and social fabric of urban space.
Stephen Gaskin was an American counterculture Hippie icon best known for his presence in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in the 1960s and for co-founding "The Farm", a spiritual commune in 1970. He was a Green Party presidential primary candidate in 2000 on a platform which included campaign finance reform, universal health care, and decriminalization of marijuana. He was the author of over a dozen books, political activist, a philanthropic organizer and a self-proclaimed professional Hippie.
Crissy Field is a public recreation area on the northern shore of the San Francisco Peninsula in California, United States, located just east of the Golden Gate Bridge. It includes restored tidal marsh and beaches.
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The California State Coastal Conservancy is a non-regulatory state agency in California established in 1976 to enhance coastal resources and public access to the coast. The CSCC is a department of the California Natural Resources Agency. The agency's work is conducted along the entirety of the California coast, including the interior San Francisco Bay and is responsible for the planning and coordination of federal land sales to acquire into state land as well as award grant funding for improvement projects. The Board of Directors for the agency is made up of seven members who are appointed by the Governor of California and approved by the California Legislature, members of the California State Assembly and California State Senate engage and provide oversight within their legislative capacity.
HOPE VI is a program of the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. It is intended to revitalize the worst public housing projects in the United States into mixed-income developments. Its philosophy is largely based on New Urbanism and the concept of defensible space.
Roxy Paine is an American painter and sculptor widely known for his installations that often convey elements of conflict between the natural world and the artificial plains man creates. He was educated at both the College of Santa Fe in New Mexico and the Pratt Institute in New York.
The Central Park Conservancy is a private, nonprofit park conservancy that manages Central Park under a contract with the City of New York and NYC Parks. The conservancy employs most maintenance and operations staff in the park. It effectively oversees the work of both the private and public employees under the authority of the publicly appointed Central Park administrator, who reports to the parks commissioner and the conservancy's president.
Shelby Farms is a public park located in Shelby County, Tennessee, United States, just east of the city of Memphis. It is one of the largest urban parks in the US and the world, at a size of 4,500 acres (1,800 ha) and covers more than five times the area of Central Park in New York City with 843 acres (341 ha).
Founded in 1981, the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy is a nonprofit cooperating association that supports park stewardship and conservation in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area—the most visited national park in the U.S.
Save America's Treasures is a United States federal government initiative to preserve and protect historic buildings, arts, and published works. It is a public–private partnership between the U.S. National Park Service and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Institute of Museum and Library Services are also partners in the work. In the early years of the program, Heritage Preservation and the National Park Foundation were also involved.
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A terminal market is a central site, often in a metropolitan area, that serves as an assembly and trading place for commodities. Terminal markets for agricultural commodities are usually at or near major transportation hubs. One of the models of a Terminal Market is a Hub-and-Spoke model wherein the Terminal Market is the hub which is to be linked to a number of collection centers - the spokes.
Sharon Louden is an American artist known for her whimsical use of the line. Her paintings, drawings, animations, sculptures, and installations are often centered on lines or linear abstractions and their implied actual movement. Through her work, she creates what she calls "anthropomorphic individuals." Although abstract and formal, she feels they have human-like aspects within their minimal state, made of simple lines and gestures. In reference to her minimalist paintings, Louden has been called "the Robert Ryman of the 21st century."
Live From the Artists Den is a three-time New York Emmy-nominated music television series that features popular recording artists performing in non-traditional settings throughout North America. Live From the Artists Den broadcasts nationally on public television and internationally in the United Kingdom, Latin America, China, Japan, Germany, New Zealand, and Canada.
Kevin Larmee is an American painter, best known for his association with the East Village art movement in New York City in the 1980s.
Boeddeker Park, more formally known as Father Alfred E. Boeddeker Park, is an urban park in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. This 1-acre park was renovated and reopened in 2014, especially intended to serve the needs of people in the surrounding neighborhood who experience amongst the highest levels of poverty in the city. The park was completed with a large mural, Everyone Deserves a Home, on the building above the park in 2016.
The National Association of Artists' Organizations (NAAO) was, from 1982 through the early 2000s, a Washington, D.C.-based arts service organization which, at its height, had a constituency of over 700 artists' organizations, arts institutions, artists and arts professionals representing a cross-section of diverse aesthetics, geographic, economic, ethnic and gender-based communities especially inclusive of the creators of emerging and experimental work in the interdisciplinary, literary, media, performing and visual arts. At the apex of its activities, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, NAAO served as a catalyst and co-plaintiff on the Supreme Court case, National Endowment for the Arts v. Finley having spawned the National Campaign for Freedom of Expression. NAAO's dormancy in the early years of the 21st century led to the formation of Common Field.
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