Printed copies of the letter below — an unabridged version of my statement to Aiken City Council on October 10th — were provided to councilmembers before last night’s meeting.

This letter draws heavily from the earlier editorial, “A Northside Story” plus last week’s newsletter on Aiken’s disappearing neighborhood parks. This isn’t to offer up a recreational replowing of old ground, but to emphasize recurring patterns and themes in City offices that we can expect to see in the future.

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Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I would like to address the persistent refusal by City officials, in concert with the Aiken Standard, to hold themselves accountable for the secrecy and the many points of wrongdoing that culminated in Project Pascalis. But I am compelled instead to speak to Aiken’s disappearing neighborhood parks, which I see as coming from a similar place, where the interests of wealth and power take a front seat to the interests of the Aiken citizens you serve.

In August 2022, City Council adopted a “Strategic Plan” for the future of Aiken’s Parks and Recreation which includes divesting in 5 neighborhood parks in lower income communities, most of these being in the bounds of the Schofield Community Association — a historic neighborhood that is part of the original 1835 Dexter-Pascalis plan for the City of Aiken, whose residents are predominantly working class Black people.

Parks at risk of divestment and closure include the Charleston Street Park at Colleton Avenue plus four northside parks: Perry Memorial Park, Gyles Park, Sumter Street Park Courts, and Hammond Williams Park. Here, it bears mention that all of the parks serve the Census Tract 214 Opportunity Zone, where the poverty rate is currently at a staggering 41%.

I would like to pose the question: Whose future is served by this strategic plan?

The City has shown generous determination, will and money when it comes to redeveloping the Richland Avenue portion of the Opportunity Zone. It would be nice to see these same resources put to use fulfilling the stated mission of the Opportunity Zone, which is to promote economic vitality in low income communities. Demolishing houses, crippling infrastructure, and uprooting lower income residents in this areas to replace them with upper income property owners is not revitalization. It’s gentrification.

The City’s decision to divest, rather than invest, in our Northside parks comes despite study after study (1) (2) (3) showing positive correlations between child health and access to neighborhood parks.

A neighborhood park is defined as a park within a quarter to half mile radius to home — about a 5 to 10 minute walk. (4) These parks are not to be confused with our 3 larger community recreation facilities — Odell Weeks, Citizens Park, and Smith Hazel — which are the anchors in our city park system. Neighborhood parks are important, because not all children have the means for long-distance travel to larger facilities.

Children with access to these parks tend to visit the park more often and to have better mental and physical health outcomes.The health of the neighborhood, itself, is also positively affected by parks, as participation in neighborhood parks is associated with a closer-knit community, safer neighborhoods, and reduced crime. (5) (6) These correlations are true for any child and any neighborhood.

Children who lack access to neighborhood parks are at greater risk for childhood obesity, (7) (8) as well as a lifetime of obesity, opening them to comorbidities such as diabetes, heart disease, gall bladder disease, cancer, autoimmune disease, osteoarthritis, and a multitude of other health issues. (9) Obese children are also at greater risk for depression, poor academic performance and behavioral problems. (10)

The repercussions expand on a societal level, where the costs for ill health, unrealized human potential, lost productivity, disability and premature death grow incalculable. Obesity, alone, accounts for billions in health dollars per year. (11) (12)

Here, it bears mention that Aiken’s northside is also a food desert, which means limited access to healthy food, easy access to fast foods and convenience-store snacks, adding to the health burden for the people who live there and also pointing to an area in sore need of honest economic revitalization, something Opportunity Zone funding is intended to address.

So what would compel a city to close and divest of neighborhood parks in an area where the deck is already stacked against the health and the futures of the people who live there?

Perhaps it’s bad advice to blame. Few, if any of the Clemson study respondents lived in this neighborhood. The average income of respondents ($75k and up) stands in great contrast to the median income ($28K) of the people who live in the area targeted for divestment. Also, only 8% of the study respondents were Black. This doesn’t reflect the demographics of the city (which has 33% Black residents) nor this neighborhood, in which 60-70% of the residents are Black. Also, a large majority of the respondents — 68-75% — didn’t even have minor-aged children. Any of these points should have sent the researchers back to the drawing board.

The Clemson study also didn’t weigh the many millions of dollars invested in Aiken’s southside parks over the past 30 years, which dwarf the combined investments for the north, east and west-sides of town. But it did recommend yet more major investments over the next 5-7 years in the southside parks, including demolishing and rebuilding Odell Weeks. Smith Hazel is to get some more bandaids and another facelift.

Clemson researchers deemed these neighborhood parks as being “underutilized,” without providing criteria for that determination. If these parks are indeed under-used, this should serve as a challenge to Parks and Recreation to learn why and to fix it — not as a clarion call to close the parks.

The ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes famously said that the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Rather than investing in online surveys and focus groups who don’t live in the neighborhood, why not go and visit these parks after school and on weekends to see how they’re being used? Survey the people who are using them —- as well as the people who don’t — to learn their wishes and needs.

The public’s silence in these conversations should not be taken as complacency or agreement, but as a sign that the City and its hired researchers need to do a better job of making these conversations inclusive to all citizens.

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REFERENCES
(1) “Let’s Go to the Park Today: The Role of Parks in Obesity Prevention and Improving the Public’s Health” https://www.nrpa.org/uploadedFiles/nrpa.org/Publications_and_Research/Research/Papers/ Role-Parks-Obesity- Prevention.pdf

(2) National Recreation and Park Association publication: “Parks and Recreation in Underserved Areas: A Public Health Perspective” https://www.nrpa.org/uploadedFiles/nrpa.org/ Publications_and_Research/Research/Papers/Parks-Rec- Underserved-Areas.pdf

(3) “Parks and Healthy Kids” https://www.nrpa.org/contentassets/ e7416e8568da437085bcecbcdcbd2e3c/parks-healthy- kids.pdf

(4) NRPA Recreation Size and Occupancy Standards https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/css386/ Recreation_Size_and_Occupancy_Standards.pdf

(5) “How Neighborhoods Can Reduce the Risk of Obesity” https://www.rand.org/pubs/ research_briefs/RB9267.html

(6) The Relationship between Social Cohesion and Urban Green Space: An Avenue for Health Promotion” https:// http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6388234/#B27-ijerph-16-00452

(7) “Low-income communities more likely to face childhood obesity” https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/ low-income-communities- more-likely-face-childhood-obesity

(8) “Childhood obesity and proximity to urban parks and recreational resources: a longitudinal cohort study” https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21075670/

(9) “The Comorbidities of Childhood Obesity” https://www.researchgate.net/publication/ 351672036_The_Comorbidities_of_Childhood_Obesity

(10) Childhood obesity often affects academic performance: now we may know why” https:// news.siu.edu/2019/03/032619- research-studies-impact-of-obesity-on-academics.php

(11) Productivity loss due to overweight and obesity: a systematic review of indirect costs https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ articles/PMC5640019/

(12) Forbes “Obesity Epidemic Accounts For More Than $170 Billion In Surplus Medical Costs Per Year In The United States: Study” https://www.forbes.com/sites/anuradhavaranasi/ 2021/03/31/obesity-epidemic-accounts-for-more-than-170- billion-in-surplus-medical-costs-per- year-in-the-united-states-study/

(13) Spillover Benefits of Park Proximity” https://ced.sog.unc.edu/2021/03/spillover-benefits-of- park-proximity/