Carrie Christensen has been doing work at the the Minneapolis Park & Recreation Board (MPRB) that would be considered bold and innovative under regular circumstances. Given the crises in 2020, it’s even more remarkable. At a time when policymakers and community members can barely think beyond the most urgent issues in front of them, Carrie and her team have engaged around 5,000 people to create Parks for All, the long-term vision for Minneapolis’ parks and recreation system.
I interviewed Carrie to understand how she she did it. Here are some excerpts from our conversation.
How long have you been at the MPRB and what have you been working on there?
In April, it will be my 4 year anniversary! My work there is focused on park master planning, community engagement, interagency coordination on transportation related projects, and have been the staff lead on our comprehensive plan. After working as a consultant around the country for several years, it has been satisfying and grounding to focus my work in my own community.
What is Parks for All, and why is it important?
Parks for All, the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board 2021 Comprehensive Plan, sets the agency policy priorities for the next decade of the Minneapolis park and recreation system. It is based on input from community, staff, organizational and agency partners, and elected officials.
How did you go about the process?
I like to think of it as a participatory policy making process. It involved many many voices and authors, with 1000s of people’s input. While it had its deep challenges working on a plan amidst a pandemic and social unrest, I think it also was an important backdrop that emphasized some of the historic inequities in our system that we want to dismantle in the future. This is a policy moment. MPRB’s comprehensive plan is an important container for policy change locally where we can apply things we learned, remembered, or saw amplified in the past year.
What else is different or new about this plan?
We also hired youth to staff the project. We call them the Youth Design Team. They were an amazing group of high schoolers from across Minneapolis that became experts on Minneapolis parks and rec and had a great impact on the plan. They made policy recommendations, facilitated community engagement, and generally provided critical thinking and creative style to the process and plan. We’ve also worked with some really talented local graphic designers, Keiko Takehashi and Background Stories, who have been amazing at helping us make the document welcoming and fun to read – which is really important when the audience is so broad!
What has been most challenging in developing the plan? What barriers did you encounter?
It’s been challenging to engage leadership throughout the process, especially in the past year with COVID, since their plates are so full and like so many other public agencies are focused on being reactive/responsive to the challenges locally and internationally. Comprehensive planning, on the other hand, is a very proactive and intentional mode of decision making. Our team has worked hard to foster a creative, inclusive, and data-driven plan for our future.
What about it has been positive?
We have deeply engaged with community, staff, leadership, and agency partners, centering equity in the process. I am a firm believer in the idea that the more diverse perspectives you have working on an issue, the more effective and innovative the solution will be. While thousands of people have engaged in the plan, over 120 people actually helped write the plan from a range of disciplines, ages, ethnic/racial identities, and roles.
Herocrats use their superpowers – connection, courage, and creativity – to lead change. Which of these did you draw on? Can you give an example?
Oh, all of them! I’m so grateful to have the Herocrats language to help me name the important ingredients in the recipe for navigating complex systems (and not burning out!)
What else would you like to add?
For information about the process and to check out the draft plan, visit bit.ly/MPRBCompPlan. The public comment period is open until July 18, 2021.
Carrie Christensen is a Senior Planner at the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board, where she works on park policy, design, and community engagement.With a Masters of Landscape Architecture from the University of Minnesota and a B.A. in Urban Studies from Stanford University, her cross-sector work combines facilitation, design thinking, community organizing, project management, data analysis, curation, planning and environmental design processes.
Carrie is a published author, an adjunct faculty at the University of Minnesota, a 2001 Fulbright Scholar, a 2010 Creative Community Leadership Institute Fellow, a 2019 Herberger Institute Practices for Change Fellow, and has consulted with communities across the country around strategic planning, creative community engagement, and resilient design.