Advocacy update: adopting an urban national agenda: a call to action for urban parks and recreation in America.

In just a few weeks, park and recreation citizens and professionals, city managers, mayors, elected officials and advocates for urban parks from across the country will gather in Chicago for an historic Urban Summit on Parks and Recreation. The summit is being hosted by NRPA, enabled by a grant from the National Recreation Foundation (NRF), in cooperation with the Trust for Public Land (TPL), the City Park Alliance (CPL), the Urban Park and Recreation Alliance (UPRA), the Roundtable Associates and NRPA's Ethnic Minority Society (EMS).

One of the most important outcomes of the summit will be the adoption of a National Agenda in support of revitalizing urban parks and recreation in America. This National Agenda has been distilled from four guiding principles that were developed during the past year by directors of park and recreation systems from the 25 largest cities and urban areas in the country. These guiding principles for urban parks and recreation in America can be summarized as follows:

* Urban promote health and wellness;

* Urban parks strengthen our diverse communities and stimulate economic development;

* Urban parks protect the environment;

* Urban parks and recreation educate, protect, and enrich America's youth.

This call to action for a National Agenda, built on these four pillars is prompted by a growing realization that the infrastructure of our nation's urban parks is in great need of revitalization and re-investment. More than 30 years ago, the U.S. Congress recognized that urban park and recreation systems were deteriorating at an unacceptable rate and the values, vitality and quality of life that urban parks brought to big cities was being lost.

For this reason, Congress passed the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery Act (UPARR), a competitive federal grant program in which the federal government provides matching funds to cities and urban counties for park rehabilitation projects. Since the program's inception, $250 million in matching grants have aided more than 1,500 urban park restoration projects by providing seed money for innovation grants, planning funds for Recovery Action Programs and capital funds for actual renovation and repair of close-to-home park and recreation facilities.

Despite the success of UPARR, no federal funds have been appropriated for any UPARR project in the past three years and no funds are proposed in the President's 2007 budget that is now moving through Congress.

The deterioration of urban park infrastructure is not all that prompts the call to action. There is also a growing awareness that our urban parks can serve as a catalyst for economic revitalization and environmental stewardship while providing places for America's citizens to fight obesity, become fit and prevent chronic disease conditions. The needs are especially great for children and teens in urban areas who are often most at risk from these life-threatening conditions.

A number of national advocacy organizations have taken up this call in addition to NRPA. Notable among them is the National League of Cities (NLC), the oldest and largest organization representing municipal governments throughout the U.S. With its work in Washington, D.C., and in partnership with state municipal leagues, NLC advocates for more than 18,000 cities and towns, with a mission of strengthening and promoting cities as centers of opportunity, leadership and governance.

NLC undertook a special process last year to develop an agenda outlining what municipalities of every size and composition can do on behalf of children, youth and their families. It will come as no surprise to NRPA members that parks and recreation assumed a prominent role in the resulting "City Platform for Strengthening Families and Improving Outcomes for Children and Youth" The platform highlights the mechanisms required for sustained progress, while recommending a series of concrete action steps, including:

* identifying and improving safe places for children to play in every neighborhood in order to promote physical activity, healthy development and positive interactions with peers;

* expanding opportunities for youth participation and leadership through programs offered by city recreation departments, libraries, museums and other organizations;

* establishing local coalitions that work to identify new funding sources and create quality standards for after-school programs; and

* holding media events, community forums and site visits to local programs as a way of keeping these needs in the spotlight.

NLC understands NRPA's issues, and also leads the charge in advocating for some of our other shared priorities, such as the Community Development Block Grant program--an extremely popular and successful program at the local level which finds itself under attack again at the federal level. These combined efforts at NLC demonstrate the shared interests that NRPA has with other national organizations. As we approach this summit, it reminds us of the potential of a National Agenda and the important role we play in tackling national issues.

You will be hearing more about the outcomes of the Urban Summit on Parks and Recreation in the coming months, including the National Agenda, which will call for all levels of government to reinvest in America's urban park and recreation programs. The call to action is only the beginning. The results are what matters in this fight to save the health and well-being of America's cities.

Richard J. Dolesh is director of NRPA'S Public Policy Division. Monica Hobbs Vinluan is the division's senior policy associate for health and wellness issues. Ken Rosenfeld is a senior policy analyst for policy and federal relations at the National League of Cities.

ACTION ALERT

NRPA asks you to support the National Agenda for Urban Parks and Recreation. Contact your members of Congress and urge them to support the agenda. Visit www.nrpa.orgladvocacy for more information.