March 25, 2025
Community Green is Planning's quarterly spotlight on innovative projects that are climate win-wins, meaning they benefit not only the environment but also the communities that use them. Cities across the country have integrated aesthetic style with sustainability goals and community needs — creating or reimagining art parks, splash pads, and interactive nature centers — to create unique places worth visiting. For Earth Day, celebrated annually on April 22, we've rounded up a few of our favorite planning successes to inspire your next big green idea.
The public art park in Detroit's East Canfield Village neighborhood features a rotating mix of artwork. The sculpture "New Forest, Ancient Thrones" takes the form of crowns worn by two African queens and includes devices that monitor air quality. Photo by Sylvia Jarrus/The New York Times.
East Canfield Art Park
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
A crown rises amid a pollution-banishing remediation forest: this park is both the heart and lungs of the East Canfield neighborhood. Sidewalk Detroit commissioned the tech-enabled sculpture by regenerative artist Jordan Weber. It's a nod to local matriarchs Kim and Rhonda Theus, who are leading the charge against air pollution produced by a neighboring auto assembly plant associated with high rates of asthma and other conditions. Visitors can use colored LED lights to read the day's air quality via an attached air monitoring system. Young scientists from the nearby Barack Obama Academy frequent the park during class to record readings and learn how science, technology, and advocacy can help their community breathe easier.
An illuminated splash pad lights up the eyes of youngsters and their caregivers. It's part of the ocean-themed playground at Clearwater's Coachman Park. Photo by Skanska.
Coachman Park
CLEARWATER, FLORIDA
A 10,000-square-foot playground with a splash pad, a performance venue, and space for locally created public art come together to make Clearwater's downtown Coachman Park a fun place to gather — and a beacon of sustainability. Located on a 24-acre stretch of redeveloped waterfront, the urban park was designed by Stantec with a green future top-of-mind. Features — including bioswales, electric vehicle charging stations, native plants, and solar panels — will make the park climate-positive, achieving net zero emissions after 20 years. After that, it will sequester more carbon than it produces. The park gives residents a new opportunity to appreciate the city's natural amenities, and because planners took sea level rise into account, this waterfront space will be enjoyed by generations to come.
A massive oak tree in the Larsen Meadow, formerly the "back nine" of the San Geronimo Golf Course. Photo by Jim Wilson/The New York Times.
San Geronimo Commons
MARIN COUNTY, CALIFORNIA
What happens to fairways after the golfers move on? At San Geronimo Commons, the once chemically green 18-hole course has been spared from redevelopment, restored, and rewilded. Managed by Marin County, after a period of stewardship by the Trust for Public Land, the 157-acre site now joins, rather than interrupts, 100,000 acres of contiguous public open space. Today, hikers and cyclists traverse golf cart paths. Floodplains and streams are being restored, and endangered Coho salmon can migrate to critical spawning habitat. Human well-being is prioritized, too. The Commons hosts public health clinics, food pantries, and youth programs. In the summer, it's home to a classical concert series celebrating the harmony of ecological restoration.
A two-story-high boardwalk allows visitors to take in sweeping views and learn more about the wetlands, coastal prairies, and animal species native to South Texas. Photo by Design Workshop/Brandon Huttenlocher.
South Texas Ecotourism Center
LAGUNA VISTA, TEXAS
This 10-acre ecotourism hub serves as a focal point for visitors to enjoy and learn about the beauty and cultural heritage of the 428-mile Caracara Trail in the coastal Rio Grande Valley. Funded through a half-penny hotel tax, the center was designed to catalyze local economic development. It educates the public about how the site's modified natural river cutoff captures and recycles stormwater and teaches about the valley's four ecosystems through interactive exhibits, signage, on-site educators, sculptures depicting native wildlife, and more than 48,000 native plantings. Popular with hikers and birdwatchers, the center is a starting place for traversing loma hills and lagoons, gazing upon migratory birds and viewing the wildlife of the adjacent Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge.
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