Brownfield Redevelopment: Interweaving Urban Green Spaces:
Transforming a brownfield site into a neighborhood park will improve recreational opportunities in an underserved community while also increasing the area’s biodiversity.

Lynwood is a working-class community located south of Los Angeles. The city’s high population of families – with 20 schools in the vicinity – is home to only two parks of scale. This absence of parkland is exacerbated by numerous industrial sites: a living example of the remnants of environmental discrimination in this city, where nearly nine out of ten residents self-identify as Hispanic. Reclaiming one of these sites as a neighborhood park serves a variety of social and environmental goals: improving community health with playgrounds, exercise stations, and sports venues, and allowing greater social cohesion and economic growth – with a community center and plaza, a coffee shop, and picnic areas where residents and visitors can gather and socialize. From an environmental perspective, drought-tolerant plants will improve biodiversity, and over time phytotechnology will further improve the ecology of the site. Finally, the park and adjacencies encourage a better pedestrian atmosphere, with curb extensions, better street markings and aesthetically pleasing vegetation.