Municipal Parks Decision Making In A (Neoliberal) Pluralistic Society (September 5, 2022)
“Parks Are Like Icebergs” Overview
My return to the academy after 32 years of parks practice uncovered many (practice) realities extensively studied by researchers. This dual lens gives me a unique inside (practice)/outside (research) perspective (and visa versa) to bridge the two worlds. Each blog will be 1600 words or less (I hope). I will use lots of “I” and “me” to personalize my experiences. I will also give lots of examples. I will share park development policy and practice decision-making using an academic lens (i.e., institutional theory) base in part on my experiences in a specific jurisdiction (i.e., Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). Oh, and by the way, I have opinions that may or may not be popular with others. So let’s get started!
Todays Blog Overview
As a parks practitioner, you will be involved in multiple processes over time to proposals to acquire, develop parks with a new or updated amenities (e.g., recreation centre, playground, trail, lighting, water spray deck, community gardens, etc.) It begs the question - on what basis do we make that decision? What gets approved, modified and/or rejected based on what information? Before we start, we need to establish some basic definitions and questions.
What is a municipal or strategic directive, and how are they defined or described, in print and otherwise?
What are the most granular form of directives that drives park planning and implementation?
How are park directives impacted by other municipal strategic directives (i.e., transportation master plans, protective services, utilities, etc.)?
How are conflicting, competing or overlapping needs mediated?
This blog will not be a directive by directive description listed in some sort of priority order, but rather a contextualization of parks decision-making realities.
Municipal Directives
For the purpose of this discussion, municipal directives are defined generically as written utterances (i.e., documents) provided to guide decision-making to achieve rational outcomes. Directives enable social actors (e.g., elected officials, administrators, developers, individuals, geographical communities or communities of interest) to be treated consistently, equitably and fairly. However, directives are not created equally, are not written in industry wide common formats, nor expressed in a clearly defined hierarchies. My advice is for you to think about your local directives described below as a proximate hierarchy consisting of the following: a) city-wide strategic directives; b) plans and policies; and c) practices. Each will discussed in turn.
Strategic Directives (Municipal Development Plans)
At the highest level in a policy system are strategic plans or strategies. In Alberta we call these Municipal Development Plans (MDPs), and are approved as “bylaws” complete with public engagement and public hearings. They provide high level policy directives for all areas of corporate responsibility (i.e., parks, protection services, transportation, utilities, social services, economic development, ecological protection, housing, libraries, finance, etc.).
MDPs are legally required by legislation, necessary and useful. Park directives in MDPs today and in the past include things like promotion of active living, health and wellness, safety, social capital development, ecological goods and services, economic development, active transportation, etc. The “rubber hits the road” in parks when high level policies are expressed physically on the ground in recreational landscapes and, how are those recreational services/activities are provided.
Edmonton’s most recent MDP is called City Plan. My bias - Edmontons City Plan is a good plan, and promotes a return to multi-use compact development and a move away from car orientated land use separated development (residential, parks, schools, commercial, industrial, etc.) low density development so popular since the 1960s. As an aside, Edmontons park planners had been moving towards multi-use concepts since the 1940s. Since 1960, park administrators through the Joint Use Agreement with school boards, consciously advocated for close to home multi-use, multi-purpose, and multi-benefit indoor and outdoor places through co-location and co-production of recreation, education and community spaces for the collective benefit of the public. But I digress…
Next I will discuss how well-meaning and well-crafted municipal directives move space creation in area plans towards place creation with and by the community.
Park Master Plans and Policies
Park specific direction (i.e., park amount, size, location, configuration, activities) are contained in a document called “park master plans.” There is no single industry-wide name attached to that type of document, although there are some commonalities (e.g., park plans, park master plans, park management plans, recreation plans and strategies, public spaces plans, open space plans, public realm plans). Some have adopted philosophical and/or marketing orientated names (e.g., Breathe). In your local jurisdiction, this is the single most important park document from an implementation perspective. Once you find this one, you can explore directives above, adjacent and below within the context of that single document. Park Master Plans puts meat on the bones of strategic directives articulated in MDPs.
Park master plans should include a description of the plan, the process to develop it, park system and site maps, high level vision/mission/principle type statements and specific actions or activities to plan, acquire, develop and maintain park lands. As part of that plan, it should include park typologies or classification systems. These latter inclusions are useful to understand two things; how parks are planned on a system wide basis in a new area plan, and what activities are appropriate on each type of park land within that park system.
A park system should not be thought of a collection of land parcels, but instead as a “system of systems” of active and passive, structured and unstructured activities located across an urban landscape. For example, there is not an indoor recreational facility operated by the municipality in every park. Each facility has its own program and associated geographically defined service area. The same is true in Edmonton for schools, sports fields, community gardens, playgrounds, trails, picnic shelters, etc. Natural areas, whose retention is resource based, can be retained as part of the park system but defined on an ecological basis. Inclusion or removal of park amenity or natural area can have both a site and system impact. This “system of systems” concept underlays all area plan planning processes that for the first time identify the program, size, location, and configuration of urban parks across an urban landscape when green fields are planned for future urban forms of development.
“Policies” are formerly approved by municipal councils with a specific nomenclature. These tend to be very narrow in scope and apply to all, some or individual municipal functions (parks, transportation, police, fire, etc. Some non-park policies that may impact park services include corporate land management, public access to information, universal design, indigenous people policies, asset management, financial management, etc.). My bias once again, is that most if not all of Edmonton policies are well intentioned and valid, but are difficult to locate and require significant context and interpretation. This is where the term administrative discretion that requires elucidation in processes, but is not inherently inappropriate.
Detailed Implementation Directives
The third basket of directives are administrative or management practices that implement individual or specific policies or actions. For example, in Edmonton there is a funding program for park development that cost shares park development with community actors (e.g., Neighbourhood Park Development Program), that includes a a program manual available to all to guide the administrative processes. Another example is construction standards. Construction of assets on municipal lands are based on a construction standards document that identifies construction standards (i.e., types of trees, planting depth, soil quality and depth, concrete depth, width, etc.). These types of directives are most often administratively generated and approved.
All three of these baskets of directives notionally support the other. In practice there are unavoidable discrepancies due to timing issues when each is approved and updated. My experience tells me formal dynamic rationalization of these documents cannot reasonably occur as policies change frequently, but can be addressed during implementation of activities. Yet such discussions can be messy as parks and park needs not infrequently compete with other community and corporate needs. That reality is discussed next.
Competing Municipal Policies/Directives
Clashes between municipal functions are common and unavoidable. In my opinion, these clashes are often unfairly termed “silos” in municipal governance discourse. In practical terms, these clashes occur where policy and strategy implementation crosses municipal functional area responsibilities. Clashes may occur also occur where municipal staff are not aware of other needs and policies, entrepreneurial administrators or politicians who purposely ignore the needs of one function over another. I have witnessed all three, but the underlying problem is the pluralistic nature of citizen needs and the inbred inertia of policy and strategy approval processes. My bias - parks tend to be perceived as junior partners in municipal settings compared to hard infrastructure entities, protective services, finance and urban planning. This occurs despite contrary public platitudes. I have more than one entity ask me…. are parks a “want” or a “need,” or what is the “highest and best use of park lands” as defined by economic measures only. Once again I digress… So how does institutional theory inform urban park planning?
Institutional “Think” and Parks…
Groups of like minded social actors to work together to create pathways to meet each other collectively defined needs that evolve over time. Institutional theory does not define institutions by government structures or boundaries; in fact civil society and government work together to meet multiple and competing outcomes. This approach to understand parks disavows the notion that administrative and elective officials unilaterally make planning and implementation decisions. Civil society impacts and influences those decisions and pathways in helping craft all three types of strategic directives. In the case of parks, communities of interest (i.e., minor sports, community leagues, developer organizations, ecological organizations, schools and school boards, geographical communities, individuals work) together to plan, create, program and maintain public spaces for the collective benefit of all.
In larger centres there is no other municipal operation that requires the kinetic engagement of community members (i.e., they have to get off their couches to participate in service delivery). There are few if any volunteer “clean a catch basin” programs, street sweepers, arborists, storm pond mangers, traffic police, transit operators, etc. There are no bake sales, cookie sales or sweat equity provision to provide the kind of volunteer services for park funding, amenity construction and program delivery (i.e., soccer, hockey, baseball, outdoor skating, festivals, etc.). The good news is that these activities create a sense of relational ownership of space normally referred to as place creation. The role of the community is important to respect in inclusive, timely and transparent park land change processes.
Parks Are Like Icebergs
Above the (physical) ground, what you see in a park are people of all ages using community gardens, recreation facilities, schools, trails, playgrounds, etc. While park lands are municipally owned, service delivery relies heavily on non-state actors. Hidden from view are a myriad of municipal directives, processes, legal agreements, community volunteer programming activities, etc., developed over years if not decades between state and non-state actors in the parks service delivery institution. These actors have unequal levels of knowledge, power and authority. Changes to park land (i.e., adding or deleting amenities, selling public lands, etc.) require timely, transparent engaged dialogues between state and non-state social actors to arrive at decisions where conflicting or competing priorities are present. As a practitioner, I used to say - “there are no park planning emergencies.” In hindsight, I was really saying we need to take the time to understand the institutional context of decision-making not limited to the four walls of state run organizations. Pro-tip: start your needs analysis for changer by locating and understanding your local parks master plan; look for superior, adjacent and supportive municipal directives to understand the internal and external social actor institutional context of the park land change you would like to explore.