Greenspaces Foster Resilience and Combat Climate Change

Grounded Strategies is committed to the sustainable development of greenspaces in Pittsburgh neighborhoods. With the input and help of community partners and members, we work hard to ensure that our projects are community-led and foster neighborhood coalition. We believe that greenspaces foster community resilience by facilitating the strengthening of social connections, reducing stress, restoring cognition, and being physically active.

Not only do greenspaces benefit individuals and the community, they also benefit the environment and, according to writer Jared Green, act as a critical solution to climate change. Green explains that greenspaces mitigate the urban heat island effect, improve air quality, absorb carbon from the atmosphere, support local biodiversity, and act as buffer zones for storm water. At the recent Global Climate Action Summit that took place in San Francisco, speakers addressed the importance of both creating spaces that meet the needs of the community and that fight climate change. Joshua Alpert, director of special projects for C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, summarized the message of the summit with, “we need more parks if we want our cities to be more resilient to climate change.”

One initiative that was presented at the summit was the 10-Minute Walk Campaign. According to Diana Regas, president and CEO of the Trust for Public Land, explained that one-third of the population of the United States doesn’t have a park within a 10-minute walk. The 10-Minute Walk Campaign aims to undo that inequity and combat climate change by creating an easy-to-understand platform that people can support in which mayors from across the country are dedicating themselves to developing more parks in their districts.

Furthermore, Nancy Somerville, CEO of the American Society of Landscape Architects, presented at the summit and spoke about building environment systems that work in concert with natural systems, while also calling for data-driven models that optimize community-led design intervention in cities. Grounded Strategies aligns closely with this philosophy and works diligently with community partners to create greenspaces that both combat climate change and foster community resilience.

Source: Green, Jared. “Parks Are a Critical Solution to Climate Change.” The Dirt, The American Society of Landscape Architects, 11 Oct. 2018, dirt.asla.org/2018/10/11/parks-are-a-critical-solution-to-climate-change/.