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While American cities are growing in size and population, they are losing one important group of people: children. Young people are essential to the vitality and social fabric of cities, yet cities are becoming increasingly unfriendly to young people and their families. Housing in cities is expensive, streets are devoted more to vehicles than pedestrians or bikes, and recreational space is not frequently convenient or adequate for the needs of children. While working to address any one of these needs would create greater equality for children, this report examines the impact of green recreational space for children. Adding green space to a city not only provides children with opportunities to play, which is vital to social, physical, and emotional development, but it also creates healthier communities with lower levels of crime and higher levels of community engagement. Creating spaces that are child-friendly and cherished by the community is not difficult, and can be achieved through deliberate planning and engagement with children. Due to recent downtown development initiatives, Austin has a unique opportunity to create green places for the community where children can play freely downtown. / text

At a time when regulation impacting colleges and universities has steadily increased, institutional leaders have explored ways to maximize their educational effectiveness, impact, and public contribution to their surrounding communities. Public colleges and universities often use public-private partnerships to develop institutionally owned or managed spaces on and surrounding their campuses. As a result, institutional stakeholders are infused with existing community neighborhoods, cultures and structures, which often results in permanent change imposed on these neighbors and neighborhoods. Using a comparative case study approach, this exploratory research explored the relationship between campus stakeholders utilizing campus and private recreational spaces and their sense of belonging to the campus environment in the neighborhood areas in a newly developed area. The study involved the use of interviews and facilitated conversations determine: (a) how campus stakeholders' sense of belonging is impacted using newly developed recreational space in their neighborhood and (b) how new public recreational space demographically and socially influences the surrounding community. The case in this study is a newly developed community park dedicated to the community it resides in. It also is a recreational space in a downtown, urban city. The space is partially managed and funded by a private developer, two major institutions of higher education, and the local government.