Design
Tackling Philly's Segregation Problem With Park Designs
Five projects are trying to transform public spaces and bring city residents together.
Philadelphia is up there with the most segregated cities in America, but one organization is going to test whether redesigning some of the city's public spaces can change that.
The Philadelphia-based Fairmount Park Conservancy has just received an $11 million grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the William Penn Foundation to repurpose urban spaces and redevelop civic assets, such as libraries. The conservancy's goal with the projects is to engage community members and answer the broader social question posed by its executive director, Kathryn Ott Lovell, in a blog post on the initiative: