Community-Designed Park-Building and Maintenance With the Park in a Truck Initiative

Abstract

Parks and green spaces have been shown to improve human health. Yet, in cities such as Philadelphia, people with lower incomes and racially minoritized populations have less access to these health-promoting spaces. Furthermore, there are more than 42,000 lots and properties which sit vacant in Philadelphia neighborhoods. Park in a Truck (PiaT) is a green space development initiative in Philadelphia that helps communities transform available lots into neighborhood parks. PiaT works with communities to acquire neighborhood land, design and build parks, and train local youth to program and maintain the parks. In this article, we present lessons learned and best practices generated from years of working with communities to design, build, and maintain parks through the PiaT initiative. We have found that transforming lots into community parks needs to be driven by communities, and particularly, champions on the ground who work to gain access to lots and motivate resident engagement. We have also found success in training neighborhood teens to maintain the parks—to keep them clean and organize park events. Finally, PiaT works to transmit the message that open lots can be transformed into community assets that bring people together. Overall, PiaT empowers residents to design, build, and maintain parks within their neighborhoods. This process can reduce park inequities, and if scaled, improve the health of populations.