Elme Communities’ Post

Our CEO, Martin Sampson, spoke with Global News about the importance of Recreation and Parks Month in June. In the interview, Martin highlights how recreation and parks contribute to creating vibrant, resilient, and healthy communities. He also discusses the critical role that recreation professionals play in maintaining these valuable community assets. Martin addresses some of the evolving challenges the sector faces, and emphasizes that the scope of recreation is expanding, and CPRA is actively working to adapt and meet these new demands. Watch the full interview to learn more about the significance of Recreation and Parks month:

Web-based interactive maps provide geographic information that you can use to help make more informed decisions and get answers to questions for a specific area or topic that involves a geographic dimension. Check out The County of Essex's maps!

Interesting! The Great Saunter event, a 32-mile grand loop walk around the edges Manhattan. Increasingly, with the completion of pathways encircling the island, this kind of trek can become more broadly enabled. (In her piece, "Great Saunter Tips from Decades of Walking Around Manhattan" Sarah Milstein mentions that more segments of established pathways around the edges are falling into place.) Terrific to see the proliferation of these kinds of events, and, in the process, communities building this kind of walking green infrastructure! https://lnkd.in/gpE-C9F5

Check out this great workshop by Catalyst Connection to help companies build a strong and sustainable building industry in Upper Appalachia!

What do you think of Santa Cruz? Let the City of Santa Cruz know your thoughts and share your feedback by taking the short survey.

Great discussion, Matt. I also noted with interest that the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Left Behind Neighbourhoods published a Report this week entitled A Neighbourhood Strategy for National Renewal, and their recommendations are remarkably similar to those policies embedded in the Strategy launched 25 years ago. Although society has moved on immensely, many of the drivers for neighbourhood renewal remain the same, and many of the recommended approaches still apply. However, it is with frustration that both the APPG Report and the session with Baroness Armstrong seem to understate a key benefit that was revealed from previous programmes of neighbourhood renewal - that of reducing the potential for these areas to be ‘sink-holes’ for the Exchequer and the UK taxpayer.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a big believer in neighbourhood renewal per se. If delivered and organised in the right way, it can certainly address the challenges of our ‘left behind’ areas, and it can deliver a range of social, economic, health, education, community safety and environmental outcomes, thereby improving quality of life conditions and the satisfaction of local people. Evidence from academia and the UK Government itself confirms that neighbourhood renewal over the last 20 years has ensured significant improvements to many disadvantaged areas. Indeed, Sheffield Hallam University’s Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research produced the main NDC evaluation which concluded that it was an overwhelming success. But, more importantly, the evaluation also compared NDC areas with similar non-NDC areas, and found that without the NDC investment and the neighbourhood renewal approach, many of these comparable areas became ‘left behind’. Moreover, the evaluation revealed that most non-NDC areas had a significantly higher net cost to the Exchequer than its comparable NDC area, with increased costs to the benefit system, lower tax revenues generated, and increased costs linked to higher crime rates and poor health. Although not identified as a key conclusion in the evaluation, it is my belief that even taking into consideration the significant NDC investment over its 10-year period, many NDC’s actually saved the Exchequer money. In effect, what I am saying is that neighbourhood renewal is not just an important way of improving people’s quality of life, it also makes financial sense for the UK Government. Turning around the downward spiral of decline can lead to less public funds being invested in those ‘left behind’ areas in the longer-term. Given this argument, I am perplexed as to why the All-Party Parliamentary Group has not stressed this point further. My previous of experience of the UK Government is that you may convince the relevant Secretary of State of a change in policy or funding, but at the end of the day the Treasury holds the purse strings.

A great read that challenges perceptions of working in the public service. I ran up against this narrative often when making my own jump from private to public ten years ago. As Lindsay Broadhead describes in her op-ed: “Woven into the fabric of private-sector culture are assumptions of bureaucratic sluggishness, slow action and a clocking-in-and-out pace. The notion is a relic of past economies.” Like my colleague in Toronto, what I discovered at Northumberland County was a workforce of experts from a diversity of fields, and a sense of “purpose and service” among fellow employees as we come together to tackle challenges facing the community. Over a decade in, the pull of this meaningful work has never diminished. #publicservice #localgov #employeeengagement #municipalities

Highlighting Metroparks Toledo new Glass City Metropark

Get your voice heard! 📣 The City of Sydney wants to hear YOUR thoughts on the their draft Walking Strategy + Action Plan. The 12 steps in the strategy position Sydney to be a leader in the walking space. Help make that come to fruition - view the strategy and then have your say: https://lnkd.in/g4G3YPA7 #sydney #cityofsydney #walkability

Your U:Ltimate guide to this year's action. 🎾