Image credits: FortyTwo, Unsplash
Community-Driven Projects emphasize equitable engagement with communities that begins early in the process and provides benefits to the local residents at the project’s completion. Community engagement, or the voluntary participation of local residents in certain parts of the planning and design processes, is an important part of urban planning and design. Community-driven design is a key strategy for combating green gentrification.
Community involvement in ongoing stewardship has been shown to improve the success rate of greening projects (e.g., a higher survival rate of planted trees).
Greening efforts that meet the needs of the surrounding community may be more likely to be used by residents and improve health outcomes for underserved residents.
Productive engagement between community members and biodiversity advocates is often time consuming. If adequate time is not invested building a shared understanding of needs and constraints, opportunities may be missed for projects that meet multiple human health and biodiversity needs.
Different types of urban sites present their own opportunities to support health and biodiversity based on their spatial configuration, design, site programming (or intended uses), and management decisions. Typical contexts and documents in which these strategies may be relevant include: (1) Community-led visioning for urban greenspaces; (2) Project development and planning (ex. conceptual and schematic site plans); (3) Project design (ex. detailed construction drawings and site plans).
Public greenspaces 5+ acres, that serve either the entirety or significant portions of a city
Public greenspaces typically <5 acres designed to serve a particular neighborhood or community
Linear greenspaces that usually include multi-use pathways for active transportation and vegetation
Strips of land along a coast, river, or other water body that create opportunities for habitat
Often the largest contiguous public spaces, streets can include vegetated sidewalks, street trees, and planters
Green alternatives to pavement dominated schoolyards create park-like settings for children to play and learn in
