How public spaces can be powerful climate infrastructure

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Bird watching with the Audubon Society at the Discovery Center in Philadelphia. Image credit: Damien Ruffner.

The effects of climate change is a constant reality — rising temperatures, increasingly frequent severe weather events and worsening air and water quality show our environment is becoming less livable, and our communities less resilient.

Yet environmental decline need not be inevitable. There is an immense toolkit that cities can utilize to help mitigate the worst impacts of climate change and promote a more sustainable future for their ecosystems and their residents, ranging from green infrastructure to creative urban planning and policy solutions to strengthening civic assets and encouraging social connection.

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Guadalupe River Park Conservancy tree planting in San Jose. Image credit: Lanny Nguyen.

Our cities and communities can become places of adaptation and renewal. Public spaces are more than amenities — they are climate infrastructure. Civic assets such as parks, trails, libraries and community centers can play a vital role in reducing environmental harm, fostering health and connection and building resilience to the challenges ahead. If planned, designed and stewarded wisely, public spaces can be among our most powerful tools for a healthier, more resilient future.

Philadelphia’s multi-pronged approach

One of the most visible ways Philadelphia city officials are tackling climate change is through the Philly Tree Plan — the city’s strategy to expand and maintain tree canopy in historically disinvested neighborhoods in order to cool streets, clean air and reduce flooding. While some neighborhoods enjoy more than 45% tree canopy, others have less than 5% — disparities that often fall along the lines of class and race, further entrenching inequitable climate change consequences into marginalized communities.

Between 2008 and 2018, the city lost 6% of its canopy — an area roughly the size of a thousand football fields — due to improper maintenance, the removal of yard trees and the adverse effects of climate change. With a 30-year goal to reverse the city’s loss in tree coverage beginning with the neighborhoods that have historically lacked greenery, Philadelphia is promoting environmental equity and sustainability for this generation and those to come.

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The Water Walk at Philadelphia’s Discovery Center. Image credit: Albert Yee.

North Philadelphia’s Discovery Center, a collaboration of Audubon Mid-Atlantic, the Philadelphia Outward Bound School, the City of Philadelphia and the Strawberry Mansion community, is a striking example of connecting people to nature through a new type of civic asset.

As one of five projects supported through the original pilot of Reimagining the Civic Commons in the city — funded by Knight Foundation and William Penn Foundation — the Center restored access to a 50-acre natural site, including a pristine reservoir that had been fenced off from the neighborhood for five decades. But this is more than just a standard nature center, with walking trails, ropes courses, an indoor rock-climbing wall, ziplines and plenty of invitations to participate in bird watching, stargazing and nature journaling.

Located between the East Park reservoir and the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood, the center opens its doors for free for nearby communities to hold events, which also serves to introduce the residents to conservation principles at the same time. The Audubon Society hosts events that expand the possibilities of what environmental engagement can look like, such as the free Nature and Poetry series that invites the public into the Discovery Center.

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The Anna C. Verna playground in FDR Park in Philadelphia. Image credit: Albert Yee.

Resiliency work also happens on the community level in playgrounds and public spaces around the city, where rain gardens, bioswales, and permeable surfaces provide green stormwater infrastructure. In FDR Park, the city has launched a major plan to address chronic flooding while maintaining sustainability goals. The first stage is to convert a 209-acre section of the park into a natural system of meadows, wetlands and waterways designed to absorb stormwater, support wildlife and connect residents to nature. Initiatives such as a tidal wetlands restoration and expansion of the Shedbrook Creek will bring back native habitats replete with clean water, wildlife and nearly 7,000 new trees and 1,700 new shrubs.

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The rewilded fields in West Fairmount Park in Philadelphia. Image credit: Fairmount Park Conservancy.

Another move to restore native habitats is to put away the lawn mowers and let the grasses grow. Instead of routinely mowing all fields, Philadelphia is rewilding some of its public land. The Fairmount Park Conservancy is using native and adapted plantings to boost biodiversity, lower costs and create habitat for pollinators and wildlife in vibrant meadows. This quiet transformation is an acknowledgment that low-maintenance does not mean low-value, and that beauty can serve both people and the environment.

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Spirit McIntyre performed music on the Lafitte Greenway in New Orleans. Image credit: Bart Everson.

Public spaces as green infrastructure and social fabric

America’s abandoned rail trails have shown to be rich territory to reclaim for public space as sustainable infrastructure, and the Lafitte Greenway in New Orleans is a prime example of how a rail trail park can deliver even more for an urban center. Designed as a linear park, the greenway is a vibrant 2.6-mile artery through the city that manages stormwater, cools the city and promotes social engagement through farmers markets, festivals and community events planned along its path.

As a project in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, sustainability is a clear priority, with bioretention swales and rain gardens lining the greenway and carbon-capturing landscaping. And in light of the 20th anniversary of the hurricane, the importance of investing in social infrastructure like the greenway has become more critical as a path to community and economic recovery.

Research in New Orleans and other cities rebuilding after disasters have shown that when people in communities are more connected to each other, they are better able to recover and rebuild after extreme weather, climate shock and disasters. Public spaces like Lafitte Greenway support these connections by offering opportunities for gathering, volunteering and shared decision-making.

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Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park in Singapore. Image credit: Atelier Dreiseitl.

The power of transformative projects

In Singapore, Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park is the result of vision and community collaboration coming together to transform gray infrastructure into green. A formerly drab concrete canal was converted into a vibrant river system and lush public space, while improving on its original function to capture stormwater runoff.

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Waterways in the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park mimic natural streams to expand during storms and recede during dry weather. Image credit: Atelier Dreiseitl.

Designed using soil bioengineering and planted riverbanks, the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park waterway mimics the behavior of natural streams — expanding during storms and receding in dry weather. Rather than confining floodwater, the design embraces it, using open spaces to safely absorb and slow runoff — which drastically enhanced the park’s ability to manage stormwater by 40% compared to its prior capacity, and returns the park to recreational function within hours after a rain event. The redesign has led to a 30% increase in biodiversity by introducing a variety of native plant species and creating diverse habitats.

The park also knits together the community by bridging the neighborhoods that were disconnected by the canal and building public spaces where people can gather in fields, cafes and playgrounds.

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Town Branch Commons in Lexington. Image credit: Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.

With the right strategies, public spaces can serve not simply as amenities, but as tools to help communities become more connected and resilient in the face of climate change. The message must be that environmental decline can be averted, and that a resilient and just future is not only possible, it is already taking root — in parks and plazas, trails and libraries and the shared spaces we call home.

To learn more about the practical strategies for cities to promote a more sustainable future for their ecosystems and their residents, read our latest booklet here: Investing with Intention: Environmental Sustainability.