Working together to 'green' Philadelphia

On June 10, hundreds of people came out for a ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate a new "greened" schoolyard at William Dick Elementary School.

The collective excitement around this transformed site was best embodied by the school's sixth, seventh, and eighth graders, who played on the new playground equipment, showed off their gymnastics and tumbling skills on a new turf field, marveled at one of the largest rain gardens in all of Philadelphia, and even got into a pick-up football game with Mayor Nutter, School District Superintendent William R. Hite Jr., and other public officials.

Where before there was only concrete, there is now a new greened schoolyard for play and learning.

On Tuesday, we get to celebrate again across the street from the William Dick School at the Hank Gathers Recreation Center, where construction is scheduled to begin to transform and green the play spaces there.

Neighborhood residents participated in a series of design workshops to select the features for an improved recreation center, including an enhanced baseball diamond, a new spray park, a picnic grove under a canopy of trees, and native grasses. These residents are expected to remain engaged throughout construction and are key partners in the stewardship and viability of such sites.

Both projects are part of Philadelphia's Green2015 initiative, the mayor's comprehensive plan to significantly increase outdoor recreational opportunities and green spaces in underserved neighborhoods throughout the city.

This is important work. Competitive cities are places that care about their recreational and natural resources. Smart cities develop and build high-quality public spaces, promote connection to those spaces by an accessible trail network, encourage energy efficiency, reclaim waterfronts, and plant more trees.

These are the essential components of a competitive city now and into the future. They are places that provide access and opportunities to such resources for all their citizens. They are places where people want to live, work, and play.

Green2015 is a collaboration among the city's Water and Parks and Recreation Departments, the School District, and the Trust for Public Land, a national conservation and land-use nonprofit. Support also comes from the William Penn Foundation and other philanthropic organizations.

The Trust for Public Lands has a proven track record of transformative urban greening projects made possible through its highly collaborative approach. By leveraging resources among public agencies and partners, they help create viable green spaces that complement existing quality programming, help manage stormwater, and connect communities to the outdoors. In Philadelphia, Green2015 is demonstrating that government works best when its various branches work together and with citizens.

William Dick Elementary School and Hank Gathers Recreation Center are among several targeted sites where the city plans to leverage public and private dollars to create green connections so that children, families, and communities can walk from a green recreation center, along a tree-lined street, to a green schoolyard providing an enhanced outdoor recreation experience.

Working collaboratively, we will kick off a series of greening initiatives at eight additional recreation centers and schoolyards across Philadelphia. We will engage with communities to transform these facilities, remove unused paved surfaces, enhance landscaping, provide public art and amenities, manage flooding and runoff, create community gardens, trim back invasive species, and plant more trees. The goal is to improve sight lines and make our centers safer and more inviting places to play and enjoy.

A similar initiative to leverage investments and connect communities at our neighborhood parks is also being facilitated by the Parks and Recreation Department.

Transforming paved surfaces into parks, gardens, and outdoor classrooms is a smart investment that will have an immediate positive return in the quality of life of our students and our communities. It will move us closer to our critically important goal of ensuring that every child in Philadelphia can walk to a park or green space within 10 minutes of home. Once this goal is achieved, we will have improved the Philadelphia of today and of tomorrow.