Lessons from nineteenth-century advocacy in the USA for urban parks as antidotes for ill health Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • 2014 World Leisure Organization. One of the forces which led to parks becoming an integral part of cities' infrastructure in the mid- and late nineteenth century in the USA was a widespread perception that they contributed to alleviating disease contagion and epidemics. This paper identifies six strategies that were effective in this successful movement which appear to have relevance in the contemporary context. Four of these contribute to the central challenge of positioning parks so parks are recognized as a component to be included in the multifaceted effort to address the obesity epidemic: conceptual alignment, cost-effectiveness, associative positioning and psychological positioning. The other two pertain to the tactical use of science to support advocacy and the need to secure influential champions.

published proceedings

  • World Leisure Journal

altmetric score

  • 0.5

author list (cited authors)

  • Crompton, J. L.

citation count

  • 2

complete list of authors

  • Crompton, John L

publication date

  • October 2014