Catherine Ponte
Graduate Student
Landscape Architecture
State University of New York
College of Environmental Science and Forestry

Through five years of work for the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation (NYCDPR), I have repeatedly witnessed the potential for public parks to play a role in 21st Century strategies for sustainability. Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030 initiative highlights how parks contribute to improvements in public health and quality of life.(1) While I am excited to see increased discussion about how parks can impact urban health and resiliency, I would like to see more conversations about the role parks can play in addressing food security. (2) I believe there are many ways that parks can support public access to locally produced culturally appropriate foods. Drawing from my knowledge of NYCDPR and personal interest in food justice, I would like to explore a few examples of how parkland currently contributes to the food system. What are the benefits and challenges inherent to these examples? What are some possible directions for future innovations? As I prepare to transition from my position at NYCDPR into graduate studies in Landscape Architecture, I am eager to research how public parks can help build more sustainable cultural food landscapes.

An excellent example of NYCDPR’s contribution to food security is the GreenThumb program, which was established in 1978 as “a means for the City to manage and assist the growing number of gardening groups that had taken over abandoned city property.” (3) The program provides technical and material resources, leaving the design and maintenance of these gardens directly in the hands of community volunteers. As a result, GreenThumb gardens provide unique examples of the creative cultivation of both healthy foods and neighborhoods. Today, GreenThumb is “the largest community gardening program in the country, serving over 8,000 registered garden members in more than 500 gardens city wide.” (4) Gardens range from tiny gathering spaces to large urban farms. Recent changes in urban policy have also made it possible for community volunteers to raise chickens and bees, further expanding the types of food these gardens are able to supply for city residents. I intend to research how this program relates to other community garden programs administered by municipal parks departments. The role of community gardens as public park spaces deserves further study and attention by both city parks and food advocacy communities.

While GreenThumb explicitly contributes to the production of local food through parkland, parks are also sites of local food distribution through programs like farmer’s markets and licensed food vendors. A stellar example of the positive impact of a food distribution program on a park space is the popular farmers market at Union Square Park. Since the 1970s, the farmers market has been a source of positive programmatic and economic activity for Union Square Park. “Located in one of New York City’s great public spaces, the atmosphere at Union Square on a market day is electric: 60,000 market shoppers shop and chat with farmers; students of all ages tour the market and learn about seasonality; visitors watch and taste cooking demonstrations by some of New York’s hottest local chefs.” (5) By allowing nonprofit partners like GROW NYC to run programs like the Union Square Greenmarket on parkland, NYCDPR creates opportunities for beneficial community involvement with a park space. This public engagement with a space in turn can increase public safety, quality of life, and access to locally grown food for an entire neighborhood. The location of farmers markets and food vendors within parks is not without its challenges. Issues of economic equity, food appropriateness for a given location, commercialization of public space, and economic development all pepper the exploration of how these features contribute or detract from a park space. I believe they do, however, showcase an important way that parks contribute to the urban foodscape that warrants further study.

Even parkland that is not initially designed with the aim of food production and distribution in mind can contribute to food accessibility. Heritage sites managed by the NYCDPR like the Queens County Farm Museum are increasingly combining food production and distribution with their educational programs. The Queens County Farm Museum describes their programs as far beyond just the public interpretation of history. They state: “The development of our agriculture program is critical to our local, sustainable food system. The transmission of traditional farm knowledge and skills is important in preserving the history of farming for future generations. We find ourselves at the center of some very important issues for the city—poverty, nutrition, food security, climate change, biodiversity, humane animal treatment, and preserving local history. As farmers and educators, we hope to play a role in shaping the future while contributing daily to our community in a positive, measurable way.” (6) Furthermore, even traditional city parks and street tree beds are playing their part in food accessibility. While not always officially sanctioned by NYCDPR, public educational programs about foraging edible wild, ornamental, and weed plants are increasing public awareness about the potential for parks to provide supplementary sources of food. This coupled with recent trends in using traditional edibles in ornamental garden displays adds further dimensions to the role public parks can play within the food system. This facet of food access through parks deserves much more discussion both within the NYCDPR and among the broader park and food advocacy communities. While controversial and fraught with logistical challenges, incorporating a food security sensibility into conventional park design and management strategies can be a useful extension of the important role parks play in urban sustainability.

These examples highlight some of the ways parkland can and does contribute to addressing the challenges related to equitable food production and distribution. For these reasons, it is important for sustainable park and food system advocates to work more collaboratively. Parks can provide much sought after infrastructure space for food system innovations through community garden programs, food distribution ventures, and educational programs related to food access. In turn, park advocates can call attention to how parks help increase food security as yet one more way that parks benefit the public. While I am using the NYCDPR as a launch point for this discussion, this topic could perhaps best be explored through the comparison of a variety of municipal park systems. While each urban park system is unique, common challenges impact the intersection of parks with the food system. Parks must balance the often competing interests of different local stakeholders and are subject to public democratic processes. They are also regularly threatened by vandalism, pollution, poor soil quality, and pest infestations. Questions of access, cultural sensitivity, environmental sustainability, and capacity regularly influence the use of these public spaces. With these challenges in mind, there is ample room for further innovation and research on this topic. The New York City park system is just one example of how public parks can contribute to more sustainable food production and access in our communities. Hopefully, in the future, parks will be able to play as large a role in discussions of food justice as they play in discussions of environmental justice.

1 http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/theplan/public-spaces.shtml
2 http://www.who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en/
3 Lindsay Campbell and Anne Wiesen, ed. , Restorative Commons: Creating Health and Well-being
through Urban Landscapes (Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-P-39. Newtown, PA: USDA, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. pp.125)
4 Lindsay Campbell and Anne Wiesen, ed. , Restorative Commons: Creating Health and Well-being
through Urban Landscapes (Gen. Tech. Rep. NRS-P-39. Newtown, PA: USDA, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. pp.123)
5 http://www.grownyc.org/unionsquaregreenmarket
6 http://www.queensfarm.org/sustainable_agriculture.html