Atlanta has historically had one of the nation’s lowest percentages of park space per capita. Many of the city’s poorest neighborhoods are surrounded by urban development and suffer unforeseen problems due to lack of green space, such as flooding and sewage backup.

The Conservation Fund has been working in Atlanta for nearly two decades, employing our full suite of services — from land acquisition and green infrastructure planning to building parks and community development. To date, we’ve completed more than 40 projects and protected more than 300 acres in the metro region. These acquisitions allowed for the creation of four “Parks with Purpose” in Atlanta, which provide safe places to play, job training and easy access to green space in historically underserved communities. Whether the purpose is green infrastructure to reduce flooding or an edible forest in the midst of a food desert, these parks provide unique benefits to the communities around them.

Green Infrastructure Planning

In 2005, Atlanta was losing 500 acres a day to development. The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation hired TCF to perform an assessment of Atlanta’s green infrastructure and later supplied us with a grant that allowed us to help the city grow its green space.