Community Greening Plans RFP Grant

The Community Greening Plans RFP aims to enhance urban green spaces, addressing inequitable access driven by historical discrimination. By involving communities in planning, the initiative seeks to improve physical and mental health while reducing crime and pollution. It emphasizes the importance of local engagement to prevent gentrification and displacement, ensuring that long-time residents benefit from green investments. This approach not only fosters a sense of belonging but also promotes sustainable urban development.

Background
Green spaces are assets in urban neighborhoods, providing a multitude of benefits such as reduced air and noise pollution, improved physical and mental health, and reductions in violent crime. While the body of evidence demonstrating the social, economic, and environmental value of green space in cities is substantial, there is also considerable evidence that all urban communities do not have equitable access to the benefits of nature, and that this inequity is driven by the history and legacy of discrimination.
Initiatives intended to expand and improve green space in neighborhoods that lack these important assets can address this inequity, especially when communities are meaningfully involved in planning and implementation. When investments in green space are made without meaningful community involvement, they can lead to a reduced sense of belonging among long-time residents and an increase in property values, which often results in gentrification and displacement of existing residents and businesses. Community-driven planning processes, which value the expertise of community members and center their needs and interests, can help to deliver green space to neighborhoods while avoiding these potential negative outcomes.