Urban Parks,Environmental Justice,and Voluntarism: The Distribution of Friends of the Parks Groups in Milwaukee County

Introduction

Environmental justice activism, policy, and scholarship have moved beyond their traditional focus on the disparate impacts of toxic pollution to encompass a wider range of issues, including proximity to environmental amenities such as safe, well-maintained parks. ¹ Parks and other public green spaces provide important benefits for urban residents, including opportunities for recreation, improved property values, and enhanced public health. ² However, these benefits are distributed unevenly. Although in some cities poorer, predominantly minority inner-city residents are more likely than suburbanites to live within walking distance of parks, suburban parks are often larger, with more amenities and less potential for overcrowding. ³ In addition, parks in inner-city areas more often suffer neglect and problems with crime or perceptions of crime. ⁴

Meanwhile, urban parks across the United States face declines in public funding. Local governments have trimmed expenditures for parks, frequently reducing paid staff. ⁵ With fewer employees available, many park systems have partnered with non-governmental organizations and increased reliance on volunteer labor. ⁶ This shift may have important implications for environmental justice. If important functions of park management and maintenance shift from paid government employees to neighborhood-based volunteers, then inequalities may increase between parks with volunteers and those without.

This article investigates inequities in volunteer support, through a case study of an urban park system that has been affected significantly by declining public funding: the Milwaukee County Park System in Wisconsin. In Milwaukee County, the recognized coordinator of volunteer activity—as well as the primary conduit for donations and corporate sponsorships—is the nonprofit Park People of Milwaukee County (TPP). Milwaukee County is distinctive in that projects for voluntary activity must, in accordance with a 1985 agreement with TPP, be approved by the park workers' union, AFCSME 48 Local 882. Although informal voluntarism outside the purview of this agreement takes place, it is regarded as “vigilante” voluntarism that potentially threatens the livelihood of park workers, and the County does not support it. ⁷ Among the voluntary programs coordinated by TPP, Friends of the Parks groups play particularly important roles in the maintenance of individual parks, both by coordinating sanctioned volunteer projects and by negotiating and advocating for park-specific resources. Where in the county are Friends groups active, and how does the distribution of this volunteer activity correspond to Milwaukee's acutely segregated demographics?

We find that the vast majority of Milwaukee County's parks lack currently active Friends groups, regardless of the demographics of surrounding neighborhoods. Although Friends groups are somewhat overrepresented in predominantly white, wealthier regions, this pattern appears to reflect the uneven distribution of the County's parks. On the other hand, our findings suggest that Friends groups are more likely to remain active at larger parks, more common in the predominantly white suburbs, than at the smaller parks more common in inner-city minority neighborhoods. We therefore argue that an important environmental justice challenge for Milwaukee County Parks—and indeed for urban park systems more generally—will be to keep groups active at smaller inner-city parks.

Milwaukee County Parks and Residential Segregation

The Milwaukee County Park System has received recognition as one of the country's best, including a 2009 National Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Park and Recreation Management. ⁸ The parks' present-day distribution—with smaller parks in the inner city and larger parks on the city's periphery—reflects the vision of early twentieth-century Parks Commissioner Charles Whitnall. Whitnall's design for the park system, including an “Emerald Necklace” of parkways along rivers and streams, was influenced both by socialist ideals and by the Garden City movement. ⁹ However, the distribution of Milwaukee County's parkland is also typical of industrial cities, which during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries generally had more land available for parks within the suburban periphery. ¹⁰

In recent years, Milwaukee County Parks has operated with a gradually declining budget and dramatically reduced staff positions. At the peak of funding in 1986, the park system spent just over $45 million, and in 2013, its budget was just over $42 million. Meanwhile, the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) funded positions dropped from 1,327 in 1980 to 391 in 2013. ¹¹ Moreover, the current 391 FTE positions include only 183 full-time staff; the remaining positions represent part-time and seasonal staff scheduled at peak use. ¹² Although volunteerism predates these cuts—the Park People, for example, was founded in 1977—the roles of volunteers and organizations like the Friends groups have become increasingly important. ¹³ The park system's website describes the purpose of Friends groups as “to complement the projects and programs of the County Park System—not to replace or duplicate services provided.” ¹⁴ However, one study argued that “nonprofit, voluntarist organizations…now shoulder considerable responsibility for environmental work” in Milwaukee, “relying heavily on unpaid volunteer labor.” ¹⁵ In a survey conducted by one of the co-authors in 2008, 14 out of 24 responding Friends groups reported active engagement in maintenance of the park, enhancement of park features, or both. They also reported working on projects to improve park safety, provide educational opportunities, and attract families to use the parks, along with raising money and organizing special events to raise the profile of individual parks. ¹⁶

Since Milwaukee remains one of the most racially and ethnically segregated metropolitan areas in the United States, ¹⁷ differential access to safe, well-maintained parks has emerged as an environmental justice issue. Using “impression scores” compiled through observation of conditions at a sample of Milwaukee's parks, one study found that parks with fewer amenities and lower-quality green spaces are disproportionately located in predominantly minority and lower-income inner-city communities. ¹⁸ Another found that children in Milwaukee's inner-city neighborhoods reported feeling safer playing in streets and vacant lots than in organized parks. ¹⁹ Other research on Milwaukee has found other inequities with respect to greenspace, including urban forest canopy cover. ²⁰ Past studies of Milwaukee's parks, however, have not investigated inequities in the distribution of organized volunteer activity, which we contend may help shape future patterns of environmental injustice.

Data and Analysis

Our approach to analyzing the spatial distribution of Friends groups in Milwaukee County reflects the county's stark patterns of residential segregation. We focus on its two largest and most segregated minority populations: African American/black (27.0% of the county's 2010 population) and Hispanic/Latino (13.6%). A recent analysis of segregation in U.S. metropolitan areas with more than 500,000 people found that the seven-county Milwaukee-Waukesha region has the nation's highest dissimilarity index for African American and white, and the ninth highest for Latino/Hispanic and non-Hispanic white. ²¹ As shown by Figures 1 and 2, Milwaukee County's African American population remains concentrated in an area that extends from the northwestern edge of Milwaukee's central business district to the northern county line. The county's Latino/Hispanic population is concentrated on the city's south side, in an area to the southwest of the central business district and to the south of the Menomonee Valley industrial district.

OPEN IN VIEWER

FIG. 1.

Milwaukee, 2010 Census demographics and parks “predominant”=exceeds county average. A color version of this figure is available in the online article at www.liebertpub.com/env.

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FIG. 2.

Milwaukee, 2010 Census demographics and parks “predominant”=exceeds simple majority. A color version of this figure is available in the online article at www.liebertpub.com/env.

To analyze the relationship between spatial distributions of demographics and county parks with Friends groups, we used ArcGIS software to generate maps dividing the county into a series of distinct zones: (1) predominantly African American, (2) predominantly Latino/Hispanic, (3) predominantly non-Latino white, and (4) “other/mixed” or “edge” districts with greater than typical diversity. Since “predominantly” can be defined in multiple ways, for comparison we used two different approaches to classification. For the first map (Figure 1), we defined a census category as “predominant” within a tract if the tract had a higher percentage of that group than the county as a whole. If more than one census category exceeds its county average, we classify the tract as “other/mixed.” For the second map (Figure 2), we defined “predominant” as having a simple majority (over 50%) of the population within the tract, and we classified tracts as “other/mixed” if no group has a simple majority. The two classification schemes produced somewhat different maps of Milwaukee's geography of race and ethnicity. ²²

For each map, we classified each county park or parkway by location within these demographic zones. We categorized parks that lie along the edges of tracts in different classifications as “edge” parks. This category includes, for instance, Washington Park, which lies on the boundary between an affluent predominantly white tract and a lower-income predominantly African American tract. Our database of parks includes 153 facilities, including parks, parkways, and recreational centers, with wide variation in amenities; we included all except the parks maintenance center. Because the Friends group program focuses on County-managed parks, we omitted city and village parks.

We used three sources to determine active and inactive Friends groups. We began with lists of groups from the Park People and Milwaukee County Parks websites. ²³ However, since the two lists were inconsistent at the time of our study, we contacted the Chief of Administration and External Affairs for Milwaukee County Parks and the Executive Director of the Park People, who indicated which groups on each list were active, inactive, or in the process of forming. A few exceptional parks have more than one active Friends group, so we defined parks as having “at least one active Friends group,” an inactive group, or no group.

Results

As of 2013, only 33 of the facilities in the database (about 22 percent) were served by at least one active Friends group. Although both classifications suggest that predominantly African American areas, Latino/Hispanic areas, and “other/mixed” areas are somewhat more underserved by Friends groups than predominantly non-Latino/Hispanic white areas, the percentages of parks served by groups in each “zone” fall within a narrow range of 17% to 24% (Table 1). A greater share of Milwaukee County's Friends groups operates in predominantly white areas than in predominantly African American or Latino areas. This difference shows up most clearly in the “MAJ” map: using this classification system, 70 percent of the County's active Friends groups are in predominantly white areas. However, this distribution largely reflects the distribution of parks; there are more in predominantly white areas, regardless of the classification.

Our findings suggest a complex relationship between the presence of Friends groups and park size (Table 2). ²⁴ Within the top quartile of the County's parks by land area, 38% have an active group. In contrast, within the bottom quartile, only 13% have one. In general, the smaller the park, the less likely it will have an active group. However, as Table 2 shows, most of the groups reported as inactive are associated with the County's smaller parks. Park size alone cannot explain the likelihood of groups forming; they form at smaller parks too. But groups at larger parks appear more likely to remain active, and keeping groups active at smaller, neighborhood-oriented parks appears challenging.

The apparent relationship between park size and Friends group activity has important implications for environmental justice in Milwaukee, because its demographic “zones” differ substantially in the distribution of larger and smaller parks (Table 3). Using either classification, predominantly white areas have the full range of park size quartiles represented almost equally. The pattern for predominantly Latino/Hispanic areas is similar, but they have far fewer parks. In contrast, although many of the County's largest parks are within the “edge” zone along the borders between predominantly African American and predominantly non-Latino white areas, within the African American north side smaller parks are more typical. In Milwaukee, the challenge of keeping Friends groups active at the smallest parks is thus of greatest potential concern in the African American community.

Conclusion

As urban park systems delegate important functions to non-profits and volunteer organizations associated with individual parks, new challenges for addressing environmental inequities are emerging. Our analysis of Milwaukee County shows that the park system is far from its goal of having an active Friends group for every park, and most parks in all regions of the County lack active groups, regardless of the predominant racial or ethnic composition. However, most of the County's active groups are at larger parks more common in predominantly white areas, and more of its inactive groups are at smaller neighborhood-oriented parks more typical in the inner city. If Friends groups continue taking on new responsibilities at individual parks, this pattern presents risks that environmental inequities between inner-city and suburban parks may also continue to increase.

Short of desegregating the County—obviously beyond the control of parks agencies and advocates—are other strategies available to address environmental disparities in park systems? In Milwaukee County, Friends groups are not the only mechanism through which volunteers participate in the maintenance and restoration of the County's parks. Other initiatives, ranging from service learning programs with local universities to partnerships with non-profits, may compensate for some of the disparities in sponsorship by active Friends groups. However, these initiatives often focus on larger, more visible parks, and other programs may be necessary to keep volunteer groups active at smaller inner-city parks. Although most U.S. cities are less acutely segregated than Milwaukee, many face similar conditions, and future environmental justice research in both Milwaukee County and other urban parks systems should investigate what makes volunteer organizations persist or disappear. Finally, it is important to note that voluntary labor will never suffice to maintain large and complex urban park systems; in the long term, preventing environmental inequalities in urban parks surely must involve the restoration of a paid workforce adequate to the task. ²⁵