The town of Los Angeles is popping its again on parks and nature, even after investing in a yearlong, citywide, park wants evaluation. There’s no good time for a significant metropolis to do that, particularly in an period of local weather change, not to mention in L.A.
Inexperienced areas present important companies, equivalent to cooling, refuge and respite. Individuals who frequently go to parks and pure areas have better physical and mental health, and decrease charges of heart problems, weight problems, diabetes and low-birth-weight youngsters.
For the file:
9:52 a.m. Feb. 18, 2026An earlier model of this text incorrectly said that Los Angeles’ parks system fell from nineteenth to ninetieth among the many prime 100 U.S. cities. L.A. fell from forty ninth to ninetieth within the rating.
However park areas and biodiversity are on the ropes in our metropolis, regardless of huge help amongst residents and voters to enhance and keep inexperienced areas for individuals and different species.
LA Sanitation & Setting, a metropolis division that does rather more than simply choose up rubbish to maintain L.A. clear and wholesome, not too long ago ended its world-class initiative on biodiversity on the identical time that its director, Barbara Romero, one of many metropolis’s staunchest environmental leaders, left the division. LASAN’s biodiversity program was one in all a handful in main cities all over the world dedicated to enhancing habitat and resilience for species that share our city environments. The finances for this system was zeroed out although it largely trusted present LASAN workers to hold it out.
In the meantime, L.A.’s park system has fallen from forty ninth to ninetieth place among the many prime 100 cities within the U.S. in simply 5 years. Final 12 months, town spent nearly $4 million on a park needs assessment that recognized a highway map for enhancing this sorry state of affairs, together with $2.7 billion in deferred upkeep and $12.3 billion to convey our park system as much as the extent of service of peer cities, equivalent to San Diego, Dallas and Chicago. However Metropolis Corridor is doing little to help a grassroots marketing campaign to place a park funding measure on the November poll.
The measure contains sturdy oversight and accountability to make sure that funding can be used for parks and prioritize inexperienced areas in excessive want areas, equivalent to Koreatown, Boyle Heights, South L.A. and elements of the San Fernando Valley. However that effort has stalled as a result of potential funders of a signature gathering marketing campaign have but to listen to whether or not Mayor Karen Bass and the vast majority of the Metropolis Council will help the measure.
It’s not stunning to see this sort of undermining and neglect by the present federal administration of necessary protections for our surroundings and enhancements that profit the well being of our human and pure communities. However to see it occurring in Los Angeles is dismaying and disheartening.
When Bass was elected in 2022, she publicly pledged to help town’s environmental initiatives. As an alternative, it appears town has taken one or two steps again from many of those initiatives, together with tree planting and excessive warmth resilience, or is standing idly by whereas they stall and fall aside from lack of help.
This lack of help flies within the face of town’s personal park wants evaluation. A consultant survey of residents throughout town of L.A. performed as a part of the evaluation discovered widespread understanding of the fraught situation of our park system and the worth of parks for the well being and well-being of our communities, in addition to habitat for different species, local weather resilience and wildfire prevention and restoration. Greater than half of respondents had been supportive of a bond, tax or levy to fund parks and recreation services.
L.A. metropolis parks have been starved of funding within the metropolis finances for greater than a decade. We lag far behind our peer cities in what we spend per capita on parks, which is why Los Angeles has fallen steadily in nationwide rankings. Park funding has not even stored up with inflation, resulting in reductions in staffing and an incapacity to plan and full primary repairs and enhancements. On prime of that, a particular fund for parks permitted by voters 30 years in the past expires this 12 months.
However all isn’t misplaced but.
There’s a rising bloc on the Metropolis Council that helps a funding measure to revive our parks system. Grassroots organizers had deliberate to start a signature gathering marketing campaign early this 12 months, which might have meant the poll measure would have solely required approval from a easy majority of voters. If the council places a measure on the November poll, it could have to be permitted by two-thirds of voters. That could be a heavier elevate, but it surely may nonetheless be doable.
The Metropolis Council may additionally improve the proportion of town’s property tax revenues that’s devoted to parks by means of town constitution reform course of that’s now underway and slated to be put earlier than voters this fall. At the moment, nearly all the funding for town’s Division of Recreation and Parks comes from the constitution allocation beneath a method which has been frozen for almost a century whereas town’s parks system has grown considerably. Voters permitted an identical improve for L.A. public libraries in 2011 as a result of they understood libraries are important infrastructure, like parks.
However none of this can occur with out residents and voters in Los Angeles telling our elected officers that we’ll not tolerate continued neglect and deterioration of our parks and atmosphere. Meaning contacting Metropolis Council members and the mayor to ensure your voice is heard.
Inform them to help funding for parks by means of a funding measure and constitution reform, and to revive the finances for LASAN’s biodiversity program.
They won’t prioritize any of this with out listening to from their constituents.
Metropolis officers plan to make use of our park system as infrastructure for occasions throughout this summer season’s World Cup and the 2028 Olympics. They discuss so much about how the video games will probably be nice for Los Angeles residents, in addition to guests and athletes. However have they got plans to put money into our parks to go away them higher after the Video games? We have to know. In any other case, our metropolis parks will probably be left in even worse situation, with no plan to take care of — not to mention enhance — the system.
Metropolis Corridor ought to cease enjoying video games with our metropolis parks and pure atmosphere.
It’s tempting to say that if they can’t lead, they need to a minimum of get out of the way in which. However the actual politics of Los Angeles is that we’d like them to step up and help our parks and atmosphere — not simply stand by and do nothing.
Jon Christensen is director of the Laboratory for Environmental Narrative Methods at UCLA. He offered knowledge and evaluation to help the park wants evaluation for town of Los Angeles.
