Photo Credit: Michael Emery
With the right focus, the right team and an ongoing commitment to the project and the partnership, the public and private sectors can join forces to tackle even the most vexing challenges facing large, urban municipalities. In San Francisco, the shared vision of three brothers became a $45-million citywide effort to improve athletic fields for youth sports.
For the past six years, the City Fields Foundation and the Recreation and Parks Department have worked together to address a chronic shortfall of public fields for local kids.
Now, after renovating a dozen athletic fields in six parks, reorganizing the sports-permit system, and negotiating a joint-use agreement with the local school district, this project has added 66,000 hours of new play time for city kids, and is close to eliminating the deficit of youth play spaces. As a result, 1,800 more kids are playing ball in the city’s parks.
