There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, “What the hell is water?”
(A parable from David Foster Wallace, printed in New York Times in 2005)
Vlog Overview
David Foster Wallace was an educator who gave the above quote to a graduating class at Kenyon College. If there is one quote that captures my practice and my studies, it may be the one noted above. Much of what is happening in our public processes are hiding in plain site. Even those actively engaged in these processes may be unware, unable to act, or simply unwitting useful idiots for hegemonic social actors. At different times I fell into all three categories in my practice. I can’t solve that problem. Each “Ice Sculpture” in my vlog seeks to uncover the nether regions of processes…or what is water (as per David Foster Wallace).
Broadly speaking, what you see above the ground in the form of the park amenities (i.e., playgrounds, recreation facilities, sportsfields, etc.) belies the magnitude and scope of underlying processes and practices between multiple state and non-state actors that occur over multiple years. Both physical land use changes and the underlying processes undergirds positive community outcomes (i.e., health and wellness, connection to thier community and nature, etc.). Todays vlog will be a deep dive into that complexity in order to contextualize my perspectives gained from my lived experiences as both a parks planner and academician.
My Overall Bias/Lens
I do not offer agnostic, neutral and objective research and practice perspectives, free of bias. None of us do. We are products of our training, environments, education, culture, class, administrative settings, etc in a given jurisdictional setting. The approach to my practice, academic life, and to this vlog, is to provide my own personal take (lens) of my lived experiences on all of the above, while surfacing, and interrogating perspectives not aligned with mine.
My perspectives may not be shared by my former colleagues, have evolved since I left practice and my return to academia, but always using my past as a base for the future. As my late friend Murray Allen, a landscape architect and artist once told me … “life is a journey, not a destination.” And did I mention I like to have in my vlogs?
Overlays
The complexity of parks provision and service delivery is best conceptualized as a series of “overlays.” Photographers use overlays to add texture and elements that weren't in the image as it was shot. In the photography world, this means that an extra layer can be added in the editing or post-production process to add or enhance the look of the photo. Overlays described below can be used to bring color and texture to a position or decision.
The top box (below) provides a (high level) description of the benefits and outcomes of a park system and park services. Those services and outcomes are considered core municipal service provided with and for community social actors. The second box are examples of park infrastructure that provides those benefits. These are the things we see. The remaining elements are the overlays underlying the top two layers.
The graphic and supporting information below could be applied from the top down in a land use change process for an existing park or public realm (i.e., Old Strathcona Public Realm Strategy - upcoming vlog), or from the bottom up in the case of a new area plan development (i.e., “Pulling Back the Curtain - Area Plan Park System Planning - September 30, 2022).
… Co-Production of Place - Parks Institution
Municipal governments rely heavily on individual community members and community NGOs to fund raise for park amenities (i.e., playgrounds, plazas, picnic areas, etc), volunteer their time and resources in minor sports (i.e., baseball, softball, football, hockey, soccer, etc), festivals, special events and special programs (i.e., master naturalists, dog off leash ambassadors, and operate community halls, outdoor skating rinks, batting cages, tennis courts etc within leased areas. This is not unique to Edmonton, but it is unique to any other type of municipal public service delivery here and elsewhere.
Municipal professional and technical expertise who help the community design, build, and program and maintain our park spaces includes planners, landscape architects, ecologists, programmers, community developers and operations staff. Transportation and utility engineers help support the park land program. Collectively places are created by this group of state and non-state actors I call the Parks Institution.
Is this institution visible? Contrast this institution to a volunteer fire department. Fire fighters race to scenes in times of emergencies. They are announced by the fire itself, they race with sirens blaring in large recognizable vehicles at all times of the year, and rush in. They save people and property from harm. They draw media and other attention because there is a crisis that is being managed. They are heroic and are much loved people in the community.
Volunteers in our park system are there everyday, contributing to the health and wellness of the community, often focussed on the youngest of our community. Park institutional volunteers don’t arrive in trucks with sirens blaring, and not in times of extreme crisis like firemen. Their actions are preventative. These social actors stop the fire from starting, yet their visibility is limited.
(See “Social Actors in Parks - Linking Land Use Planning and Parks Service Operationalization” - November 1, 2022; “Dog Off Leash Area Planning and Implementation” - February 14, 2023).
… Evolving Social, Ecological, Health and Wellness Needs, Benefits and Outcomes
Recognizing the past, in the present to plan for the future grounds (pun intended) land use changes. It is important to understand the history of the site, the current demographic and social make up of the community, and how the current park land uses were crafted to address those needs.
Nevertheless, Edmonton has growing and culturally diverse population whose recreation and education needs have evolved over time. There are multiple examples. Since 1960, minor hockey has evolved from a primarily outdoor sport to an indoor sport in stand alone facilities (i.e., Tipton Arena) Soccer was a very small program and was entirely outdoors. Now it is a very popular and includes indoor facilities. Swimming pools were more outdoor than indoor (i.e., Fred Broadstock Pool) and operated largely in the summer with a standard pool tank. Now it is largely indoor, and include a pool tank, wave pools, lazy rivers and saunas. Edmonton combine pools and arenas on larger district park sites. City recreation centres now include fitness centres, that includes walking tracks, fitness equipment, program rooms, etc. In the mid 1900s were usually one level (Capilano School) with small footprints to serve a local neighbourhood. Now there are large two story facilities that sometimes also accommodate programs of choice that draw people from across the city. Contact with nature formerly largely occurred in the river valley, but that has now expanded to table lands as well. Todays facilities are built to leed standards. There are other examples as well.
(See “Urban Parks, Urban Properties” - October 20, 2022; “Why Parks? A Summary of Benefits Research” - November 14, 2022).
All of these changes have significant implications on park lands and park land services in terms of the amount, size, location, configuration and cost of development, but park land dedications have not increased to accommodate. The opposite has occurred where librarys and social housing are now permitted uses. In recent years the the City has been busy turning parks into housing lands to retrofit the low density residential development that will increase populations near the parks they are selling off. Improv theatre, or city building? I think the former driven by economic, not social metrics.
… The Social Settig
Alberta is a growing province with comparatively low housing costs and low rates of unemployment. However, the underlying economic system creates winners and losers. Wage disparity has grown dramatically since the early 80s concentrating wealth in the hands of the few, and importantly in the hands of national or international capital interests - including oil and gas, banks and residential investment trusts. That wealth has had growing influence over governance processes and outcomes (i.e., neoliberalism) in the form of expedited approval processes, disengagement of the community engagement, and alignment of public interests with business interests.
Housing affordability has declined starting in that same timer period caused by the financialization of the housing industry. Housing was long considered a social good, but has evolved since the 80s into a commodity owned by large companies (i.e., REITS) that use housing as a financial instrument for profit (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives). In recent years, Covid was a major disruptor to the economy, jobs and job security. Dramatic rises in interest rate due in part to Covid has made home ownership even more unaffordable. Access to housing is different than access to affordable housing. This growing precarity of housing is financially, mentally and socially disruptive due to a loss of perceived control.
City populations grow in numbers, and change in composition. Boomers are aging out. Younger generations are producing fewer children, in part due to costs and because both are required to work. Immigration as an economic strategy has allowed companies to expand and profits to increase. Alberta today is attracting new residents for people moving from even more obscenely priced housing centres. Opportunities for jobs and more affordable housing raises housing prices where they land in the Province.
A culturally and socially evolving community is an enriched community, but not all agree, fanned by far right conspiracies, political rhetoric and social media. New immigrants, and jewish and palestinian populations have been targeted by far right groups, fanned by ugly political discourse on social media. Illicit drug use has lead to increases in addictions and overdoses. LGBTQ2S+ including trans individuals and groups have been targeted by the Alberta Government and in social media and on the street. The picture below is not from MacKinnon Ravine Park, but speaks to social unrest.
Still others despair over the existential threat of climate change, fear of the “other,” or fear of “being the other.” Settler colonial practices visited upon our first nation peoples have created generational problems that will take generations to address. A 2021 report stated that Alberta rates of mental illness are the worse amongst all the provinces, with 5-12% of the population needing hospitalization. Alberta is finding it difficult to attract new general practitioners and specialists (i.e., oncologists). It is near impossible to find a new doctor today even in major cities, a chronic issue in the smaller towns and rural areas. Alberta has some of the highest rates of utility costs, insurance rates, and some long standing insurance companies are fleeing the province.
These factors result in exhausting social and mental uneasiness and safety concerns for far too many in the community. Negative outcomes of these social realities are evidenced on our streets, parks, transit stations, and in our neighbourhoods.
… Implementing the MDP - Policy, Processes, Practices, Legal Agreements and Standards
Civil servants and elected officials are provided enormous flexibility, hegemonic power and agency enabled by legislation to implement the MDP. There are numerous other processes, policies, and strategies to implement the Municipal Development Plan. Park lands and park services are the only municipal service that requires significant financial and sweat equity contributions of the community.
Area Plans, zoning, subdivision, engineering drawings create the spaces serviced by utilities. Sites are allocated across an area plan in various sizes and configurations based on the most recent parks master plan and its program directives. The sites at this point are fenced, roughly graded and grassed fields.
Parks planners plan for the parks infrastructure considering two types of types of communities - geographical communities and communities of interest. This has been discussed previously. (See “Pulling Back the Curtain - Area Plan Park System Planning - September 30, 2022; “Parks as Systems of Program Systems” - November 9, 2022).
Turning spaces into places is achieved through a composite of overlapping legal agreements (i.e., Tri-Partite Lease Agreement, Joint Use Agreement, Fort Edmonton and Zoo Foundations, River Valley Alliance), funding programs (i.e., great neighbourhoods), by the efforts of the parks institutional actors (noted above) and policies. Policies are listed on the city web site using a nomenclature organized by name and number, which is not intuitively obvious if you are looking for a specific issue or concern. Policies can also be out of date and unaligned with current strategic directives and the current administrative structure. Policies may not be specific to parks but apply nevertheless (i.e., public engagement).
How legible are planning land use change processes when decisions are considered on a site basis? The public is asked to provide input on the interpretation of state actors of this myriad of implementing bylaws, area plans, policies and practice documents. The public may not be aware of all the documents, if all documents are being cited, the relative priority of one document over another, or who decided what priorities. It is incumbent on elected officials and administrators to act as translators, knowledge creators and disseminators in timely, transparent processes where supportive and discordant voices are heard.
(See “Municipal Parks Decision-Making In a (Neoliberal) Pluralistic Society” - September 5, 2022: “William Hawrelak Park Closure - Are Trees the Canary in the Coal Mine” - February 3, 2022.)
… Municipal Development Plans - The Vision
Administrators and elected officials are hired or elected as representatives, policy makers and stewards of our cities with and for the public. Municipalities in Alberta are required to have a Municipal Development Plan (i.e., City Plan) that drives the future vision for the City. Typically these plans are developed over a year or two, with multiple inputs. MDPs provide excellent, broad and overlapping directives to provide flexibility to meet the needs of a pluralistic society. The suite of directives are hard to argue with, and today are steeped in sustainable city rhetoric. The rubber hits the road when one of the directives is prioritized and used as a rationale over another directive, using an economic rationale.
… Provincial Government Legislation and Policy Setting
Provinces have planning legislation that defines the roles and responsibilities between landowners, administrators, elected oficials and the general public. From a park land and other public realm perspective, the M GA in Alberta defines how much land (i.e., municipal reserves) is provided for school and park use (i.e., 10% of the gross developable area), and what types of activities can occur on them. The legislation also allows for unstable land to be taken as environmental reserve. Both types of reserves are provided at no cost to the municipality by landowners. Providing land for parks is simply the cost of doing business for developers in city building. There is other legislation (e.g., Waters Act, Historical Resources) and policy (e.g., Land Management Framework) that may be involved as well. The City has got the province to agree in recent years to allow park lands to be used for non-park services sometimes publicly and behind closed doors (i.e., orders in council of the provincial cabinet in 2006). Legislation is only as good as the political gatekeepers allow.
… Natural Landforms, Soils, Vegetation, Geology and Hydrology
All planning land use changes, from farmland to urban landscapes, are based on a geomorphological setting that predates development of any kind. Geomorphology is a critical component of physical geography, which is needed to understand natural landform changes and potential hazards for populations. In ASPs elements of geomorphology summarized typically includes soils, topography, natural areas. It should also discuss geologic and hydrologic conditions either explicitly or implicitly in their development strategy. This overlay is most applicable in reviews of area plans. (See “Pulling Back the Curtain - Area Plan Park System Planning - September 30, 2022; “Parks as Systems of Program Systems” - November 9, 2022)
Applying the Overlays
Application of overlays should not be taken in a literal sense. Multiple overlays applied simultaneously would simply turn the picture to black - which further demonstrates the complexity of parks and park service operationalization. In some cases, the overlays themselves overlap, and some are more important than others depending on the issue. But the value of the overlays is to think about these factors on the issues of the day in two types of scenarios.
If you are addressing an existing park site, you go from the top down. In other words, you start with dialogues with existing and future users, engaging them transparently, early, often and in ways that are legible to all community social stakeholders. You can then go down the overlays to inform that dialogue (i.e., needs, policies and policy interpretations in processes) within the context of both the individual park site and the park system.
If you are creating a new area plan, you go from the bottom up. You apply the MDP, policies and strategies to the ecological setting of the plan area, while researching and understanding community needs, as well as how the park sites and systems will be implemented (i.e., co-produced).
My vlogs either talk about a contemporary issue (i.e., a governance issue like Hawrelak Park ), provide deeper dives into the overlays themselves (i.e., Parks as Systems of Program Systems) or issues that cross both (e.g., Land Use Change Processes are From Mars, Place Telling Processes Are From Venus - January 5, 17 and February 1, 2023).
Finally, the David Wallace Foster quote at the start speaks to the need to ask more fundamental reflections in our processes of both state and non-state actors. State social actors may not be purposely misleading or misconstruing information and processes, may not realize what they are doing or may simply reflect a employer-employee reality. Non-state social actors may be reacting to what they have heard or not heard in arriving at their positions.