also improve cities through the tremendous environmental benefits they offer. They buoy cities’ ecosystems by absorbing groundwater runoff and sequestering carbon dioxide, foster resiliency as the first defense against sea level rise and extreme weather, and lower the urban heat island effect—the increased warming of cities as a result of human activity, especially during hot days.
Embedding Sustainability through a Circular Economy
In Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things, William McDonough and Michael Braungart lay out the pillars of sustainable design as material health, material reutilization, renewable energy, water stewardship, and social fairness.3 Core to sustainable design is that materials meet contemporary needs but can also be reused or repurposed to avoid waste. The authors write, “In a cradle-to-cradle conception, it may have many uses, and many users, over time and space.”4
The ability for materials to be reused and repurposed is a defining part of a circular economy, which uses resources for as long as possible (in contrast to a linear economy, which produces, uses, and disposes of resources more readily) and is embraced by sustainable cities. In a circular economy, a product has reached the end of its lifecycle only when it’s neither reusable on its own nor able to be incorporated into another product and repurposed. At this time, it is disassembled and breaks down through natural biodegradation or is returned to the Earth as a healthy supplement for nature. On a large scale, adopting a circular economy and a circular way of thinking can take a liability and turn it into a social good; for example, repurposing contaminated industrial land (like the brownfield site in Springfield), or reimagining abandoned manufacturing buildings and developing them so they benefit cities.
A circular economy requires civic and consumer demand, and a pervasive adoption by manufacturers who make a commitment to iterative improvements and the sharing of best practices. To install a circular economy, public officials and policy makers must set regulatory approaches to resource use, require that materials meet sustainability standards, and offer an industrialized rewards system to foster best practices in manufacturing. Consumers must demand and purchase sustainable products. Manufacturers, incentivized and ideally required to design products to be durable, reusable, environmentally friendly, and able to be repurposed, are the builders of the circular economy.
To effect deep impact across the board, behaviors need to change so that a circular economy is the norm. Rather than continually depleting our resources, a circular economy moves us closer to being a net positive contributor to nature’s health.
Spotlight: Palo Alto
Any mayor, city manager, or Outdoor Citizen could take a stroll through Palo Alto, California, and recognize the quality of this California gem. Palo Alto sits an hour’s drive south of San Francisco, and it shines from many vantage points—its proximity to Silicon Valley, its sunny and temperate weather, its wealth of arts and cultural attractions, its robust retail stores, its high-quality parks and outdoor infrastructure, and what bubbles from its renowned Stanford University. One of the city’s most ambitious recent efforts was the creation of its Parks, Trails, Natural Open Space and Recreation Master Plan. The 187-page plan was adopted in 2017 and is intended to serve the city for a twenty-year period.5 The process to develop the plan consisted of three phases:
Phase I: Community Engagement, Specific Site Analysis, and Program Analysis. This phase included development of a comprehensive inventory and analysis of all Palo Alto parks, trails, developed natural open space areas (picnic areas, parking lots), and recreational facilities and programs; analysis of current and forecasted demographic and recreation trends; and analysis of community recreation needs. It also included identification of community and stakeholder needs, interests, and preferences for system enhancements using a proactive community engagement process with a broad range of activities.
Phase II: Developing and Prioritizing Project and Program Opportunities. During this phase, Palo Alto developed goals, policies, and programs; identified capital projects, needed renovations, and other improvements; and prioritized actions into short, medium, and long-term implementation timelines using what was learned in Phase I The Palo Alto community provided feedback on priorities and programs through several activities.
Phase III: Master Plan Drafting, Review, and Adoption. In Phase III, the Parks and Recreation Commission (PRC), City Council, and Palo Alto community reviewed and refined the draft Master Plan, and Council adopted it. Community engagement opportunities were infused throughout the planning process. Engagement methods included a wide variety of tools and activities, offered within a range of formats, time frames, and levels of interaction, to engage with Palo Alto’s diverse community members in ways that were comfortable and convenient for them.6
Palo Alto and its outdoor-focused master plan should be an example to all cities looking to enhance their outdoor strategies; every city is unique, but the steps in the plan are universally doable. The first step is to understand what natural assets a city already has—for Palo Alto, this included thirty-two parks and four open space preserves covering approximately 4,165 acres of land—and to understand the outdoor needs of the community through both demographic data and community engagement. The second step is to decide what projects to pursue and set short, medium, and long-term goals. The third is to bring together community and public officials to finalize the plan.
Palo Alto’s method of community engagement included a project webpage, regular online and print communication and updates, face-to-face surveys at popular locations and community events, interactive workshops, online surveys, and more. The mayor and the city’s Community Services and Public Works Departments genuinely valued and pursued an understanding of what residents wanted. The plan also used extensive mapping to show areas where residents lacked access to parks and natural spaces within a quarter-mile of their homes, existing and planned bikeways and pedestrian routes that could be leveraged to improve park and recreation access, and more.
Spotlight: Will Rogers
I first met Will Rogers, the president emeritus of the Trust for Public Land (TPL), four years ago at a San Francisco Parks Alliance meeting. The San Francisco Parks Alliance champions and cares for parks and public spaces through support from community groups, local businesses, and city governments. Will was at the meeting as an advocate for what the Parks Alliance stands for; its values overlap those of the TPL, which creates parks, protects natural land—particularly in cities—and connects people with the outdoors. Will understands that conservation organizations can accomplish much more when they work together, and his team values kindness and collaboration. They have a core belief in the urgency of our collective conservation work and the importance of supporting one another. I liked him right away.
Will has big ideas and a guiding vision, and he’s incredibly effective. He’s approachable and accessible, and he connects people to the “why” of their work; its value, not just the steps necessary to get a project done. Under Will’s leadership, the Trust for Public Land developed its ParksScore index. The ParksScore index is “the most comprehensive evaluation of park access and quality in the 100 largest U.S. cities”7 and a tool for city leaders and their Outdoor Citizens to see where their city falls in comparison to others. Will told me that he believes city leaders are starting to see the awe-inspiring value of green spaces, from how they attract prospective residents to how they bring businesses looking to relocate. In Will’s words, “Cities are now thinking parks give them a competitive advantage and see the multiple benefits that parks provide—including addressing public health and climate change. From day one, we thought the connection with nature was vital and that people needed to be part of the solution or they would be part of the problem.”8
In 2017, TPL launched a “ten-minute walk” campaign aimed at making sure green spaces are within a ten-minute walk of all city dwellers in the United States. According to Will, “One hundred million people living in communities of need don’t have access to parks and green spaces. If we don’t get it right
