Poor Are Slighted on L.A. City Recreational Resources

The news that six city pools are too run-down to open, and more than 20 others are in bad shape, highlights the inequitable allocation of resources in Los Angeles. That many of the pools are in poorer neighborhoods shows how disenfranchised lower- income residents are.

These are the same communities with little access to parks, recreation facilities, community gardens and green space in close proximity. They are lacking in library facilities and access to healthcare and have overcrowded schools and housing. Not surprisingly, these neighborhoods have high crime and unemployment rates. It is widely talked about that many crimes take place in the hours after school, when youths have nothing productive to do or no place safe to be.

In these neighborhoods, there is no place to go for a respite from the difficulties of urban life and poverty. Children have little or no access to sandboxes and standard park equipment -- readily found throughout affluent areas of the city -- let alone to pools. The hot sidewalks are the only places to play.

Primarily Latino neighborhoods have 0.6 park acres per 1,000 inhabitants and heavily African American areas have 1.7 acres per 1,000, compared with 31.8 park acres per 1,000 residents in heavily white areas, according to a 2002 study by the University of Southern California.

If the city emphasized creation of opportunities for job training, language-skills development, employment and after-school activities, how much less money would it need to spend on police? By creating a decent quality of life in low-income neighborhoods, we could begin to alter the shape and form of this city in a more fundamental way.

Los Angeles has recognized that it cannot easily rectify the inequities in parks and green space distribution given the city’s difficult economic climate. To address one small piece of the problem, in 2003 the city created the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust as a public/private nonprofit to work with residents and community-based organizations to create and manage small pocket parks, community gardens and public green space in “park poor” lower-income areas. The purpose is to foster community ownership by funding and training community members to manage these properties and create needed activities.

The city was generous with start-up funding for this project. But the task is large in a city that has long neglected its older areas and is known for its dearth of large philanthropic giving, considering its size and wealth. Los Angeles also continues to suffer from lower revenue because of Proposition 13 and other tax-reduction measures.

For Los Angeles and other cities to make a significant turnaround, we will need greater public funding and changes in spending priorities, as well as a larger commitment from the philanthropic community. We must also be vigilant as we work with communities to improve their quality of life, to ensure that those living in these poorer communities are not displaced by gentrification.

As a society, we need to understand how improving the quality of life in the poorest areas of the city will improve the quality of life for all residents.

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Tsilah Burman is executive director of the L.A. Neighborhood Land Trust. Stephanie Pincetl is director of the Center for People and the Environment at the UCLA Institute of the Environment.