L.A. Spending Parks Funds Where Least Needed

Too much of the more than $25million that Los Angeles spends every year to increase and enhance parks goes to areas that need it least, according to a study released Thursday by researchers at USC.

The report, “Parks and Park Funding in Los Angeles,” tracked spending patterns for money earmarked to address the “inadequacies and decay of the city’s youth infrastructure.”

Generated by Proposition K, a 1996 bond measure, the money is often awarded to areas that already enjoy the greatest access to parks, perpetuating some of the very inequalities it is supposed to remedy, the report found.

“The disparities we found were dramatic,” said Jennifer Wolch, a professor of geography at USC and author of the study.

Census tracts where less than a fifth of the population was younger than 18 received twice as many Prop. K dollars on a per-youth basis as those areas where a third to half of the population was under 18, according to the report, which examined spending from 1998 through 2000.

The problem is exacerbated by differences rooted in history, according to the report. The city’s 1904 zoning code protected the mostly Anglo Westside from industrial uses and high-density housing that were allowed in the city’s minority-dominated eastern and southern areas.

That pattern has persisted, Wolch said, so that from Santa Monica to Griffith Park, white-dominated areas tend to be clustered around large open spaces.

“In areas that are more than 75% white, there are about 17 acres of parkland for every 1,000 residents,” Wolch said. “In areas that are more than 75% black, that number is about 1.6 acres and, for Latinos, it’s less than one acre.”

Wolch said the report demonstrates that more money should be spent creating parkland in those areas with less open space and fewer parks.

“We need to look at what kind of small spaces can be rescued from concrete and re-greened,” she said, by narrowing streets and creating “pocket parks” on vacant parcels of land and in place of paved-over alleys.

City Councilman Eric Garcetti of the 13th District said the report underscores the need for an urban land trust, an idea being studied by a committee he oversees.

“We need to democratize the park process,” he said. “If we could build between five and 10 small parks a year, we’d create 50 to 100 new parks by the time some of us newer [City Council] members leave office.”