Recreation, the riots and a healthy LA.

Post-riot Los Angeles has been ablaze with analysis regarding causes and solutions to urban problems. Politicians, academics, journalists and community leaders have examined poverty, justice, race, class and joblessness. President Bush cited the conservative agenda, including "disintegration of the family, a breakdown of fundamental moral values, disrespect for institutions, increased drug use and widespread cynicism about the future." Peter Ueberroth, L.A.'s rebuild czar, and L.A.'s mayor, Tom Bradley, are involving business, political and foundation leaders in a "power partnership" to build a long-term economic base for South Los Angeles. Absent in these post-riot critiques is a reference to the importance of recreation in developing a "living community" in South Los Angeles.

Into this activity comes the rare and unsanctioned voice of the gang bangers. It seems that the Bloods and Crips have submitted a series of proposals to revitalize South Los Angeles. While some question the authenticity and propriety of these proposals, the contents are somewhat unique because they address questions of recreation, dignity and community. The proposals ask to build recreation centers on burned-out corner lots, plant street trees, freshen-up smelly toilets at schools and reconstruct city parks. These young gang members also want improved street lighting, clean alleys, repainted classrooms and improved school playgrounds.

It isn't often Los Angeles has heard their voice. One of the tactics of anti-terrorism forces in Belfast, Beruit and Los Angeles is to deny terrorism a public voice. Thus, the Los Angeles Police Department his vehemently opposed attempts by social workers and community organizers to allow gang members to tell their side of the story. One exception was in 1972. When Bloods and Crips were less violent, the city's Human Relations Commission, against the advice of the police, gave a public platform to 60 gang leaders. To the astonishment of officials present, the "mad dogs" outlined an eloquent and coherent set of demands: jobs, housing, better schools, community control of local institutions and improved recreation services and facilities. The absence of professional comment, the gang proposal and economic strategy raises issues. Are recreation and park agencies perceived as "players" and do they have programs which address the needs of the urban poor? Can neighborhood and gang leaders be part of a partnership that delivers recreation services? Has the dominance of economic thinking negatively affected recreation and park services for poor children and families? Let's start with economics.

Anarchy of the Market

It is the anarchy of the market which has denied basic recreation services to poor children in Los Angeles. Consider the following: 1. Little League, AYSO, Pony League, AAU swimming, gymnastic, and track clubs, which use public facilities, volunteers and fees and are a rite of birth in suburban America, do not exist in South Los Angeles. 2. Boys and girls clubs, YMCAs and YWCAs, scouts, and so forth, which rely on business and community support are under-represented and financed in poor communities. 3. A market equity policy (one can get all the recreation one can buy) and a staffing policy on park size have created a separate, unequal and regressive City of Los Angeles recreation system. Many city suburban parks raise from $50,000 to $250,000 annually from user fees and donations for state-of-the-art services, while recreation centers in South Los Angeles exist on small city subsidies and what money they can squeeze out of the parents of poor children. 4. In South Los Angeles, there is no commercial recreation, i.e., movie theaters, malls, video arcades, skating rinks or bowling alleys. 5. The city has provided few of the amenities such as cultural centers, art museums and theatres which often spur private development. 6. Public landscaping and trees are minimal, school playgrounds are heavily asphalted and, yes, the restrooms smell. 7. The primary source of capital funds comes from developer fees, but since little development takes place, parks in South Los Angeles receive minimal funds for needed improvements. 8. Foundations and the United Way have overlooked parks and community-based organizations in South Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is not the exception that many public executives might like to think. After the property tax rebellions of the late 70s and early 80s, recreation and park agencies, urged on by respected academics such as Chris Edginton at Oregon University and Iowa State and John Crompton at Texas A&M, responded aggressively by filling revenue gaps with marketing and enterprise strategies. Parks were encouraged to operate as businesses. Los Angeles, whose annual revenue is near 20 percent of operating costs ($18M in our $90M 1991-1992 budget), was very successful. Armed with user fee approaches, Los Angeles recycled revenue and "bought back" recreation specialists. Suburban parks in affluent and middle class communities prospered, but inner city parks, inundated with social problems and in spite of having a core of dedicated, even heroic recreation directors, became increasingly ineffective.

In the late 1980s, Los Angeles pumped in an estimated $6 million into poor parks in an attempt to correct some of the imbalance, but, unfortunately, the funding inequities still exist. The recession has slowed the reforms, but a new leadership team headed by recently appointed General Manager, Jackie Tatum, is cause for optimism. Los Angeles is the most prominent agency to buy into an industrial-economic model. Entrepreneuralism, enterprise, quality control, customer service and strategic planning - many of these management approaches were long overdue and part of a needed professionalization movement. The problem is a lack of balance. It is undeniable that economic viability is crucial to the survival and revitalization of our urban centers, but economic strategies must be accompanied by a humanistic central value system. Perhaps we should start talking about "living communities" where community, spirituality, cooperation, equity, self-esteem, dignity, justice and multi-culturalism become the language of our profession.

Living Community for

South Los Angeles

Perhaps out of the fires can come a new day for the children and families of South Los Angeles. If one takes Jesse Jackson's position that violence, looting and burning are eruptions of rage and hopelessness, then why not harness this energy into something positive and prideful. The young of South Los Angeles are black, brown, strong and combustible, and guns need to be replaced with balls, seeds and paint brushes. These children of the riots need involvement with caring adults, positive rites of passage and an opportunity to do something the community values. Recreation directors and gang counselors know that often there is only a fine line between gang banging, looting, tagging and surviving a ROPES course, performing in a play and painting a mural.

Recreation and parks is a frequently overlooked and underfunded public agency which can help weave the safety net through which we do not wish our urban youth to fall. Recreational experiences provide risk, fear, teamwork and shared challenges in a socially acceptable, life-affirming environment. Achievement, cooperation, self-motivation and pride can be outcomes of participation in outdoor activities, team sports and the arts. Unfortunately, these opportunities are often minimal or unaffordable in poor communities where centers are underfunded and understaffed. Recreation professionals can be catalysts and links between public and private interests in urban revitalization. Recreation centers can become gathering places for police, clergy, educators and business people to identify common goals while avoiding overlap and omission of needed services. They can identify and facilitate grassroots community based leadership in a "living community." These leaders can join park staff in a community based park management program to deliver needed leisure and human services.

Marcella Hammett, lead investigator from the Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, who investigated the L.A. riots as an extreme outbreak in the ongoing epidemic of urban violence and made a too common observation about recreation:

Reducing violence would entail

providing services to children at

risk, and not just the recreational

activities traditionally offered to

occupy otherwise idle young

hands. Instead, more broadbased

programs including tutoring

after school, mentoring by

successful adults in the community,

and a self-esteem-building

support system for both children

and parents are needed.

A "living community" would include holistic recreation programs to meet the social problems of the community. Certainly Chicago's midnight basketball league for at-risk youth, L.A.'s RBI (revitalized inner-city baseball, funded by organized baseball) Santa Ana's PRIDE (parks, recreation inspire self-esteem), Toronto's homeless softball league, Detroit's restitution recreation (young men released by courts are assigned work with selected male recreation directors) and San Jose's Neighborhood Revitalization programs, all managed by park agencies, are examples Hammett is talking about. The problem may be that too few politicians and allied professionals know what we're all capable of doing with recreation programs.

Finally, recreation facilities could be the sites of innovative employment programs for youth. This age group wants spending money and will obtain it through illegal means unless acceptable alternatives are provided. Recycling, tree planting, neighborhood clean-up/beautification, graffiti removal and services for the elderly could provide opportunities for youth to earn an honest "allowance," learn the value of work and develop social responsibility for their own communities.

Recreation programs tell youth and the community that someone cares; everyone matters. Through recreation a valuable community resource can be reclaimed as a central human service which provides a springboard to values to support the urban centers of the future.