The Premiere International Urban Parks Conference
Greater & Greener, presented by City Parks Alliance, is the only conference dedicated to exploring the full potential of parks as city-building tools. It’s a conference for doers from government, nonprofits, and communities who are utilizing the power of parks to create more sustainable, vibrant, and equitable cities. It’s the premier event for innovators and decision-makers from across the global urban parks community.
Greater & Greener 2024 in Seattle is an exciting mix of indoor learning sessions and outdoor experiences. The highly curated agenda sets tables for honest, cross-sector dialogue with others doing hands-on work. You’ll take home strategies and tools for using parks to build more sustainable, vibrant, and equitable cities.
About City Parks Alliance
City Parks Alliance is the only independent, nationwide membership organization dedicated solely to urban parks. Our mission is to engage, educate and nurture a broad-based constituency to support the creation, revitalization, and sustainability of parks and green spaces.
Greater & Greener is a biennial conference, presented by City Parks Alliance, that celebrates and explores the many ways urban parks help cities meet the unique challenges of the 21st century.
City parks help ensure healthy communities that are equitable, economically competitive, and resilient. Join City Parks Alliance today to enjoy discounted rates for Greater & Greener, year-round membership benefits, and unparalleled networking opportunities.
2024 Conference Tracks
Addressing the Emerging Issues of Today’s Park and City-Building Professionals
Greater & Greener conference tracks have been carefully curated to foster an honest dialogue around social equity, cross-agency and cross-sector partnerships, funding models, and repeatable solutions for parks. Sessions are developed with input from all sectors of the park community: City Parks Alliance members, parks and recreation agency leaders, other government agencies, designers, researchers, advocates, and other leaders in the park and city-building fields.
Our Host City: Seattle, WA
A community enriched with beautiful sights and places to explore in the topmost corner of the Pacific Northwest, Seattle is perfectly positioned for its green surroundings. Its 6,441-acre park system of over 489 parks and extensive natural areas comprises about 12% of the city’s land area including 24 community centers, eight indoor swimming pools, two outdoor swimming pools, three environmental education centers, two small craft centers, four golf courses, an outdoor stadium, and much more. Join more than 1,000 park leaders from around the world as we explore the future of Seattle’s parks – driven by a vision grounded in equity, access, and sustainability – and the creative ways the city is evolving to meet the needs of its diverse communities.
City of Seattle Tribal Acknowledgement:
We acknowledge that the City of Seattle is situated on the ancestral lands of the dxʷdəwʔabš (Duwamish people), who were the original stewards of this land, and many of whom involuntarily relocated to be on or near the area’s federally established tribal reservations after being displaced from their homeland, while continuing to exercise their traditional fishing, hunting, and gathering activities off the reservations.
We acknowledge that the descendants of the dxʷdəwʔabš are enrolled members of the region’s federally recognized Tribes, including, bəqəlšuł (Muckleshoot), suq̀ʷabš (Suquamish people), sdukʷalbixʷ (Snoqualmie), dxʷlilap (Tulalip), spuyaləpbapš (Puyallup people), Lhaq’temish (Lummi people), and other Puget Sound Tribes. We further acknowledge that the descendants of these original inhabitants are the stewards of this land today.
Like their dxʷdəwʔabš ancestors, members of these and other Salish Sea Tribes are expert fishers, hunters, gatherers, canoe builders, and basket weavers, and live in harmony with the lands and waterways as they have for thousands of years. They have lived on this land since time immemorial. Here, they continue to live on, and protect, the land and waters of their ancestors for future generations. They work, raise their children, take care of their community, practice their traditional ways, and speak their traditional languages – just as their ancestors did.
This acknowledgement serves only as a first step in honoring the land that we occupy and the first peoples of this land. We recognize that this will be long and evolving work to build and repair relationships with Native communities, and we are committed to doing this work.
Learn more about the practice of land acknowledgements honoring original Indigenous inhabitants.
