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    Pavement into parks

    Pavement into parks: A park within a short walk of every home.

    About one in three Americans, 100 million people, have no park within a ten-minute walk of home. Opening schoolyards to the neighborhood after hours would put a park near nearly 20 million of them.

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    Ryan K. Hertel · heyitskenton

    The problem

    What we're up against.

    • No park nearby.

      100 million Americans, including 28 million children, have no park or green space within a ten-minute walk.

    • Smaller parks where people have less.

      Parks serving mostly low-income households are, on average, four times smaller than parks serving mostly high-income ones.

    • Used less, for want of programs.

      In a national study of neighborhood parks, parks in low-income areas were used less, mostly because they had fewer supervised activities and less outreach.

    What works

    Proven, and ready to grow.

    • Schoolyards for everyone.

      When two schoolyards in Tacoma were rebuilt as green community spaces, use by groups of children outside school hours grew 5.8 times more than at a comparison school.

    • Green schoolyards help children.

      A review of experimental studies found schoolyard greening helps both children's activity and their emotional health.

    • Programs make parks work.

      Park projects that paired new spaces with programs worked in every study reviewed, and parks with programs and outreach saw 37% and 63% more hours of real exercise.

    • Small parks, good value.

      New pocket parks in Los Angeles cost about $0.73 for each hour of moderate activity they added.

    What a family could fund

    Where the money goes furthest.

    • A schoolyard, rebuilt.

      Chicago's Space to Grow put about $1.5 million of capital into each schoolyard it rebuilt.

    • Parks that also stop floods.

      Its 41 schoolyards each hold more than 200,000 gallons of stormwater every time it rains, and the water district has committed up to $15.9 million, so a family's money stacks on public money.

    • Room to grow.

      Of America's 90,000 public schools, only a tiny fraction have schoolyards that are green and open to the public.

    Honest limits

    What money can't promise.

    • Green can price people out.

      In 17 of 28 cities studied, new green space was followed by gentrification, and longtime residents can lose their sense of community.

    • Upkeep needs its own money.

      Keeping schoolyards working takes clear roles and dedicated funding, and maintenance has been a struggle.

    • The health evidence is mixed.

      New York's park renovations didn't lower people's stress overall, and most studies of green space aren't randomized.

    • Open campuses matter.

      Children used the new schoolyards after hours only where the campus was open to the community.

    Hard questions

    Asked and answered.

    1. You might ask

      Won't a new park push out the neighbors it's for?

      Ryan

      It can, which is why reviewers urge every project to plan from the start to keep the downsides of gentrification small.

    2. You might ask

      Why not fix existing parks first?

      Ryan

      Fixing parks helps and belongs in the plan, but it can't reach the 100 million people with no park nearby.

    3. You might ask

      Do people actually use new parks?

      Ryan

      Yes. Renovated parks in New York's low-income neighborhoods drew more people than matched parks, though more exercise likely takes programs too.

    In the slider

    See what your fortune could do here.

    Pavement into parks

    The slider prices this cause with these numbers:

    • Chicago's Space to Grow put about $1.5 million into each schoolyard it turned into a green community space.
    • The whole need is America's 90,000 public schools, only a tiny fraction of which have green yards open to the public.
    • Some schoolyards need only an agreement to open their gates, and upkeep needs its own money.
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    More of the Blueprint

    Keep reading.

    5 more chapters on the way

    Back to Keep 100

    Sources

    Every number in this chapter, and where it came from.

    1. Source 1: 10-Minute Walk: Closing the park equity divide (opens in a new tab)

      Trust for Public Land. Checked 16 October 2026.

      The organization's own analysis.

    2. Source 2: Trust for Public Land, Macy's Partner to Support Local Community Schoolyard Initiative (opens in a new tab)

      Recreation Management, 4 April 2023. Checked 16 October 2026.

      Repeating the Trust for Public Land's figures.

    3. Source 3: The First National Study of Neighborhood Parks: Implications for Physical Activity (Cohen and others) (opens in a new tab)

      American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 18 May 2016. Checked 16 October 2026.

      174 parks in 25 cities.

    4. Source 4: Recess and after-hours behavior patterns associated with community schoolyard transformations (Hazlehurst and others) (opens in a new tab)

      International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 13 March 2026. Checked 16 October 2026.

      Tacoma, Washington, compared with a school that wasn't changed.

    5. Source 5: The Impact of Schoolyard Greening on Children's Physical Activity and Socioemotional Health: A Systematic Review of Experimental Studies (Bikomeye, Balza and Beyer) (opens in a new tab)

      International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 11 January 2021. Checked 16 October 2026.

      Only six studies qualified.

    6. Source 6: Environmental, health, wellbeing, social and equity effects of urban green space interventions: A meta-narrative evidence synthesis (Hunter and others) (opens in a new tab)

      Environment International, 19 June 2019. Checked 16 October 2026.

    7. Source 7: The potential for pocket parks to increase physical activity (Cohen and others) (opens in a new tab)

      American Journal of Health Promotion, 1 January 2014. Checked 16 October 2026.

    8. Source 8: Schoolyards that Both Students and Communities Enjoy (opens in a new tab)

      Spaces4Learning, 1 January 2017. Checked 16 October 2026.

      On Chicago's Space to Grow program, in that year's dollars.

    9. Source 9: Space to Grow (opens in a new tab)

      Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago. Checked 16 October 2026.

    10. Source 10: Green gentrification in European and North American cities (Anguelovski and others) (opens in a new tab)

      Nature Communications, 2 July 2022. Checked 16 October 2026.

    11. Source 11: Green Gentrification and Health: A Scoping Review (Jelks, Jennings and Rigolon) (opens in a new tab)

      International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 21 January 2021. Checked 16 October 2026.

    12. Source 12: Greening Underserved Schools while Preventing Floods in Chicago (opens in a new tab)

      Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago, 10 September 2025. Checked 16 October 2026.

    13. Source 13: Citywide park renovations and changes in perceived stress (Thompson and others) (opens in a new tab)

      BMC Public Health, 19 July 2025. Checked 16 October 2026.

    14. Source 14: Association of Park Renovation With Park Use in New York City (Kodali and others) (opens in a new tab)

      JAMA Network Open, 1 April 2024. Checked 16 October 2026.