NY Times: Parks Get Their Robin Hood

The New York Times' Ginia Bellafante covered our successfull parks equity push as one of "10 events, phenomena and changes of tune that don’t necessarily conform to the dominant narrative of a city getting ever more predictable and unfair."

Some time ago State Senator Daniel Squadron, who represents parts of brownstone Brooklyn and Lower Manhattan, proposed a partial solution to the persistent problem of inequity in the parks system. Make well-off conservancies contribute a portion of their assets to a fund dedicated to helping parks in less affluent corners of the city, he suggested."

As compatible as that notion might seem with liberal sensibilities, the idea found criticism and controversy even among the left. Mayor Bill de Blasio notably failed to endorse it when he appointed Mitchell Silver as parks commissioner last year in a speech that addressed the equity issue."

But then, last month, the de Blasio administration announced that eight conservancies would give poorer parks money and resources, totaling $15 million through 2018. Friends of the High Line is one of the conservancies taking part — even though the mayor still hasn’t been to the High Line."