By Chris Kelly
Richmond, CA January 18, 2022 — Few states have done more to conserve land than California. In the last 20 years alone, California voters have approved more than $20 billion to fund land conservation, which private and public partners have used to protect more than 1.5 million acres of land throughout the state. During that same period, The Conservation Fund, working with local, state and federal partners, has protected more than 200,000 acres in California. This important work continues with projects like Pogo Park’s Harbour-8 Park in Richmond, California.
At the same time, the 2015 “Conservation Horizons Report” prepared by the California Council of Land Trusts found that these protected lands are often not located where people live and that “inequities exist with respect to access to nearby park and open spaces.” In short, we needed to do more to bring parks, open space and safe places to play to where people live, particularly in urban and underserved communities.
But parks and park enhancements in underserved communities can have the unintended consequence of displacement—a process known as “green gentrication.” A recent report from the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability found that introducing or Privacy – Terms enhancing parks can result in “increases in housing prices and the inux of new, wealthier and often white residents in low-income communities of color” leading to “the displacement of longtime residents that many park equity efforts are designed to serve.”
