Park Pride’s Annual Parks & Greenspace Conference

Park Pride’s Annual Parks & Greenspace Conference is March 22 at the Atlanta Botanical Garden from 8am-5pm.  The Conference features presenters from New York, Seattle, Chattanooga, Houston, Washington, Charlotte & Jacksonville to showcase best practices in parks and community engagement.  Each year the Conference attracts hundreds of attendees from Atlanta and surrounding cities. Conference  highlights include:
•    Morning plenary session “From Red Fields to Green Fields: the macro economics of transforming $3 billion of under-performing commercial real estate into parkland”
•    Luncheon keynote “From Brown to Green to Gold: Chattanooga’s Success, Atlanta BeltLine’s Promise,” and
•    4 distinct concurrent session tracks—Design, Build, Manage & Community.

Please visit the conference website for registration details.

CPA_Press_Release_05-04-09.pdf

CPA_Press_Release_10-26-09.pdf

CPA Hotline to Funding Call #6: Sustainable Communities Grants Program
City Parks Alliance members are invited to join a free conference call featuring guest speaker Shelley Poticha, Senior Advisor for Sustainable Housing and Communities, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Sustainable Communities Grants Program
The Department of Housing and Urban Development is working with Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) on legislation that seeks to create the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities at HUD, which will advance housing and communities that promote affordable, livable and sustainable living environments.  Ms. Poticha will direct the office if the bill becomes law.  Join us for an overview about the sustainable communities grants program and opportunities for urban parks funding connected to this initiative.

Call Details
Date: Monday, February 8, 2010
Time:  3:00 – 4:15 p.m. (EDT)

If you are a current CPA member and would like to RSVP, please send an email to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it no later than Friday, February 5th, 2010.

Join cpa members in Washington, DC

Our national, state and local parks have always been viewed as an enduring legacy of this nation, but it is time to have them recognized as a national priority.  Our parks should not be considered as an amenity but as models for economic development, community revitalization, public health, green jobs, and environmental mitigation.   They need to be integrated into any successful economic recovery program focused on America’s cities and communities.   We continue to encourage this Congress to support the Obama administration’s FY 2011 budget items that call for increased funding for our nation’s urban parks.

Join CPA members for visits with key Congressional members in spring 2010.  Watch for more details.

CPa meets with fdic officials

The City Parks Alliance, as part of the Red Fields to Green Field initiative, met with FDIC officials in December to urge them to share information on distressed properties and make federal financial rescue dollars available for creating urban parks. The initiative, which is launching a pilot program in Atlanta, seeks to convert vacant and financially distressed commercial property into green space for cities.