Mapping a Diverse Community's Engagement in Parks Planning

ABSTRACT

As park agencies become increasingly challenged to ensure not just visitation but also support for parks by a diversity of constituents, heterogeneous community engagement has come into greater focus as a research priority for the parks tourism field (Eagles, 2014). To date, however, most studies of immigrants' participation in outdoor recreation have researched “recreational patterns, motivations and constraints” (Kloek, Buijs, Boersema, & Schouten, 2015, p. 48). This article adopts a process approach to map and analyze Parks Canada's community engagement during its work to establish Canada's first national urban park, whereby residents and stakeholders of a highly diverse community were given a platform to express their opinions. Qualitative analysis of in-depth interviews reveals six themes capturing park planners' assumptions and actions to enhance community outreach and provides rich descriptions of stakeholder-agency relationships using stakeholder theory. Results suggest that to effect change, planning must shift from an equality-based process to an equity-based one.

KEYWORDS:

• community engagement
• immigrants
• mind mapping
• parks
• stakeholders

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Dr. Elizabeth C. Kurucz, Dr. Heather Mair, and Dr. Chris Choi for their valuable insights and contributions to this research; and, Parks Canada for its genuine support of this study through access to information, time, and open willingness to advance planning processes.