An Advisory Services panel made recommendations to the Kansas City, Missouri Parks and Recreation Department on the creation of an equitable park system.

The panel was conducted in conjunction with the 10-Minute Walk Campaign, a national movement striving to ensure that residents of urban neighborhoods throughout America have access to a high-quality park within a ten-minute walk from their homes.

Commerce City, CO is a Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) Elite Community and is working to continue to increase opportunities for safe and active living in the diverse community through the Colorado Health Foundation’s Healthy Places Initiative. A 2018 panel provided recommendations on enhancing connectivity, access, safety, and community health.

The City of Commerce City, Colorado is located in the rapidly growing Denver-metro area, northeast of Denver in Adams County. The need for equitable access to HEAL opportunities in the panel’s study area is pronounced, with higher than average rates of obesity and food insecurity (and accompanying health problems), and many barriers to accessing HEAL.

The Advisory Services panel focused on equitable economic development, innovative affordable housing development, transportation and mobility, creative community engagement, and resilience—the challenges and opportunities the panel believed are most critical to ensuring a resilient future for St. Croix.

The panel identified many small to large recommendations and laid out replicable strategies that can be implemented in the study area of Christiansted, across St. Croix, and throughout the Virgin Islands. These recommendations together constitute a plan for how to strengthen Christiansted by incorporating a modern and innovative approach to providing public housing, enhancing community vibrancy, and creating stronger connectivity to, from, and within the downtown.

All the panel’s recommendations kept in mind this guiding principle: focus on causing no harm through unintended consequences.