Op-ed: “The Action Plan for Franklin Park offers the best vision for Boston”
Date: December 25, 2023
Source: Boston Globe
Authors: Stephen F. Gray, Ethan Carr
“The disinvestment in Franklin Park is one of the great inequities in the history of Boston’s public landscape. Today, the park needs to be treated as a whole, not as a series of sites to exploit. Anything less takes us back to the attitudes of the last century, which devalued Franklin Park because of who lived around it. And without a commitment to increased annual maintenance funding, improved management (part of the Action Plan recommendations), and a deeper commitment to community-led decision-making (a source of long-standing frustration for local residents), individual construction projects will never successfully revitalize the park.
The Action Plan for Franklin Park is not perfect. Much work is still needed to engage and resolve the many competing interests it surfaces. Yet it offers the best example the city has of a holistic vision since the park’s original design.”