Park in a Truck

Simply living near a park makes you healthier. Exposure to green spaces boosts mental health and psychological well-being beyond the benefits of physical activity alone. Parks help reduce blood pressure, decrease cardiovascular disease mortality, increase social well-being, and promote positive health behaviors. Unfortunately, for many under-resourced communities, limited access to safe and convenient green places is a special kind of poverty..

Park in a Truck (PiaT) harnesses the hidden asset sitting on the blocks of many low-income neighborhoods: vacant lots. PiaT supports local residents as they learn how to turn neglected open spaces filled with weeds, trash and danger into green assets that bring neighbors together.

Park in a Truck (PiaT) brings nature back into everyday life by knitting adjacent available lots into block-by-block green networks–corridors of high quality outdoor spaces.

In Philadelphia, underserved neighborhoods have historically suffered disproportionately when it comes to environmental, social and economic justice. 2018 data indicates that Philadelphia has the highestof deep poverty among the top 10 most populous cities in the U.S. One in four children in Philadelphia lives in poverty, while nationally its one in five children. These children often have issues with learning in school, higher drop-out rates, higher rates of incarceration, lower lifetime earning capacity, food and housing insecurity, higher divorce rates and lower lifetime expectancy.

We believe much of the trauma experienced by children living in impoverished environments can be mitigated by access to nature. Over 100 studies of outdoor experiences in wild areas and show that natural environments reduced stress and produced a general feeling of well-being. Nature also encourages social interaction that can increase social trust, decrease crime and increase a perception of public safety.  Studies also show that young children prefer natural landscapes to built environments and access to these types of environments are linked to the development of imagination, independence, autonomy and creativity. Nature also encourages social interaction that can increase social trust, decrease crime and improve  perception of public safety.

Our Lab for Urban and Social Innovation supports community outreach and collaborates with other disciplines, such as public health and medicine, in the university to provide comprehensive design services to communities. Through collective action, the center coordinates collaborations to create a vision of the built environment using rigorous, participatory design.  This type of engagement with underserved communities in our city and beyond offers an inclusive, participatory design process.

We are currently working in the neighborhoods of Kingsessing and Mantua.  In Mantua our community outreach and design process for Park in a Truck includes a research site assessment and analysis phase, design charrettes and physical scaled models of different design options that allowshelp the community to design their park. We are also developing a step by step toolkit that communities can use to design and maintain their park themselves.

Park in a Truck (PiaT) will bring nature back into everyday life by linking adjacent available lots to create block-by-block green networks–corridors of high quality outdoor spaces. This open space initiative will build upon the ongoing community development work of many great organizations by repurposing underutilized spaces to fill in the gaps. No one should ever be far from a safe, high quality green space.

Building parks is an expensive and complicated undertaking often conducted without local engagement and support. PiaT takes a different approach.

• To ensure real community buy-in, local residents are engaged at all phases of the planning, implementation and ongoing maintenance process.
• Local residents are taught the skills necessary to assess, plan, design, build and maintain their neighborhood parks.
• PiaT will engage young people craving challenges to overcome and an opportunity to direct their energies in a more positive direction.
• To keep costs down, communities select their desired off-the-shelf components — chess tables, grilling areas, picnic tables, trees, flower beds, pathways for walking, tree houses, a covered pavilion, car washing, logs to climb on, etc. — for simple installation. No expensive or specialized in-ground features or construction is used.
• Once selected, all of the essentials are loaded on a truck and delivered to the site where community volunteers build their park — barn-raising style.

We are in the process of developing a toolkit that outlines, step-by-step, how to design, implement and maintain the park. It will also include fundraising, participatory research and links to other partners and resources.  The toolkit will be accessed via the web and downloadable as a PDF.  Our intent is to develop an interactive website platform where communities might engage in a design process where the different park components are available to 'drag and drop' onto their park site.  We use GIS for mapping, including a number of ESRI tools for collecting data in the field. The website will also support the creation of a community of community park designers—neighbors helping neighbors as they take on the challenges and rewards of park creation.

Three instructors- landscape architect, construction management and public health

3 University students- 2 landscape architecture students,  interactive media student, 

2 high school students

Advisory group- 7 professionals advising pro-bono

Non-profit organizations: John Heinz Wildlife Refuge, Empowered CDC, Audubon PA., Pennsylvania  Horticultural Society

Government - Philadelphia Water Department, Councilpeople

The  team is unique as it includes all voices: professional, academic, high school, non-profit etc. 

Our academic team is part of a larger organization ( Thomas Jefferson University and the Lab for Urban and Social Equity) who has recently launched the Philadelphia Collaborative for Health Equity  (P_CHE) which aims to reduce the health inequalities in Philadelphia. The public health aspect of the project has the full backing of P-CHE.  We recently applied for a grant offered by P-CHE. We are alsoactively involved in fundraising to create as many Park in a Truck parks as possible.

The team leader is a registered landscape architect with 40 years of experience as a designer and activist and is leading the design portion of the initiative. One important goal of PiaT is to train young people to be park ambassadors to manage, maintain and program the park. This is a paid position and an important part of maintaining the park to ensure is sustainability. Its also important as it exposes the students to the many disciplines involved in the project.

One main goal for the project is to create a toolkit based on the collective knowledge of the team so communities may create their own park without our help. We envision a step by step manual that schools communities in fundraising, park maintenance, building the park components, ecology, etc. The park will be an educational, social, economic and ecological addition to the community.

We are working with Phila Water Department on stormwater management systems for the parks, Pennsylvania Horticulture Society on training of students and use of Landcare lots that they maintain for the city as possible park locations.  

We are working with Mural Arts on a mural for walls in the parks.

We are using local suppliers (when possible) for all materials. We are recycling everything found on the lots ( chain link fencing, logs, bricks, stone, concrete etc.) in  creative and inspiring designs

We are also working with Empowered CDC, John Heinz and Audubon on a lot for a park in Kingsessing. One of the mandates of Heinz and Audubon is community outreach and the parks serve as a vehicle for that outreach and education of the environment.