Clean Spaces, Community Building, and Urban Stage: the Coproduction of Health and Parks in Low-Income Neighborhoods

Green zones are potential contributors to health by mitigating disparities between low- and high-income neighborhoods. Against the background of different discourses about city parks—parks as restorative environments, parks as enabling places, and parks as sites for encounters between strangers—we ethnographically studied the coproduction of green spaces and health within low-income neighborhoods. We found three competing notions of urban green, each tied to different notions of neighborhood well-being. Parks as “clean spaces” create expectations of order and peace; parks as places of the community are related to play and activities; and parks as urban stage foster interactions between strangers. By generating experiences that encompass different conceptions of health, citizen-led events can contribute to a shift in the understanding of parks as sites of neighborhood decline to parks as places of hope and new beginnings.