Disparities in accessing Atlanta's green spaces

Piedmont Park in Atlanta, Georgia

By Tanaz Meghjani March 12, 2022

Atlanta’s 190 regional parks, neighborhood parks, community parks, playlots, nature preserves, plazas, and trails are unevenly distributed across its twelve City Council Districts.

Districts 10, 11, and 12 – where approximately 90 percent or more of residents are Black – have the fewest number of green spaces while majority-white Districts – such as District 6 – have the greatest number of green spaces.

Access to green spaces is linked to a myriad of physical and psychological benefits. One review of 143 studies concluded that access to green spaces is associated with reduced incidence of stroke, hypertension, asthma, and coronary heart disease. Other studies have linked exposure to green spaces with increased happiness and a reduction in perceived stress.

Green spaces also played a significant role during the pandemic. They afforded residents who lived nearby the ability to safely meet friends and stay active. And during a time of great hardship, they doubled as sites for meal distribution, COVID-19 testing, and vaccine administration.

But some of Atlanta’s Black residents are unable to reap these benefits.

Even though it’s a majority-Black city, Atlanta’s distribution of green spaces favors its white residents. Districts 10, 11, and 12 are home to only eleven parks each–despite being larger in acreage than the majority of City Council Districts. This means Black residents who live furthest from the limited number of parks in these Districts have to travel very far to access public green spaces.

District 6, on the other hand, is about half the size of Districts 10, 11, and 12 and has more than double the number of parks.

City officials recognize the significance of this disparity. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has said that everyone should have a park or open space within a 10-minute walk of home. She also committed the city to achieving this goal by 2050 by endorsing the 10-minute walk campaign.

But Atlanta will have to work hard if it wants to achieve this goal. According to the Trust for Public Land, 28 percent of Atlanta’s residents do not live within a 10-minute walk from a park.

And when the Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore index, which evaluates park systems across the 100 most populated cities in the United States, began factoring equity into its analysis in 2021, Atlanta dropped from 40th place to 49th.

To address these concerns, in December 2021, Atlanta adopted a new plan to advance parks and recreation in the city: “Activate ATL: Recreation and Parks for All.” And the first of the plan’s three goals is to address “inequities and geographic disparities within the parks and recreation system” and to prioritize investment “in historically underserved parks.”

Hopefully, in the near future, Atlanta’s parks will be more accessible to all its residents.

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