This article was originally published on SaportaReport.
By Vanessa Miot, Park Pride’s Friends of the Park Senior Manager
“I don’t think we should hold neighborhoods hostage because of the fear of gentrification,” said Anika Goss, CEO of Detroit Future City (DFC).
Anika is a 30-year veteran in community and economic development, spending her career working in the most vulnerable neighborhoods with families who are locked out of economic prosperity. She is also one of the keynote speakers at our upcoming Parks & Greenspace Conference in March.
DFC is a nonprofit think-and-do tank focused on land use and sustainability, community and economic development, and economic equity in Detroit. While Park Pride and DFC differ in home cities and scopes of work, there’s one major philosophy that ties the two nonprofits together — the community is paramount in guiding the work.
For example, Detroit has over 100,000 empty lots, and most are publicly owned, according to a 2025 report by DFC. Yet the Trust for Public Land’s 2025 ParkScore showed that only six percent of Detroit’s land is used for parks and recreation — less than half of the national median. That’s where the Detroit Greenspace Conservancy comes in. Detroit Greenspace Conservancy is a nonprofit that DFC is working to establish, which will serve as a long-term steward for land in Detroit that’s used for conservation and public benefit.
This is building upon a former program by DFC called the Working With Lots Program, an effort to revitalize vacant lots by helping community groups convert them into gardens and micro-greenspaces.
“The Working With Lots Program, in a lot of ways, served as a catalyst for resident-led green space development,” the DFC team told Park Pride. “In some neighborhoods, it was the first ‘development’ or land improvement project they had seen in decades. We sought to train and build up the capacity of community leaders to continue with this work in their neighborhoods.”
This is similar to Park Pride’s work in engaging communities to help their neighborhood parks thrive — just a different approach. Park Pride’s Friends of the Park Senior Manager Vanessa Miot sat down with Anika to discuss the role parks play within urban environments and leading greenspace initiatives that are equitable and contribute to inclusive growth.
VM: At Park Pride, we see our city’s parks as the center of our communities. What role do you see parks playing in Detroit’s communities?
AG: The way we even invest in parks and infrastructure is largely by the communities where the tax value is the highest or where new development is happening. Short of that, you are only fixing if it’s completely broken, and over time, that devalues the housing that’s there.
You can’t have a poverty conversation without talking about the physical conditions of the neighborhood in which they are living.
VM: Each year, Park Pride provides funding for park improvement projects, which are guided by our volunteer community groups. Similarly, from 2015-20, DFC awarded grants to support community greenspaces and green infrastructure on 86 formerly vacant parcels — creating close to 12 acres of new greenspaces. Can you tell me more about this initiative?
The program was a really tremendous effort. We got applications from block clubs, gardening clubs, church groups, and groups of moms that lived in the hood who wanted to create greenspace for their kids.
This one neighborhood group wanted annuals on the lot, but our staff wanted them to plant perennials because that’s better for the environment. So, I said that we should let them do it. That’s the point. This is their space. And it was beautiful! It only lasted one year, and the next year, we talked about adding perennials. But you start with what they want to do.
We have since decided to close the program and, instead, target adjacent neighborhoods where we could go deep by providing technical assistance and helping these neighborhoods raise money. We have raised about $1.5M for greenspace development in three neighborhoods.
VM: Like in many cities, Atlantans are facing an affordability crisis. How does DFC work to prevent displacement and ensure greenspace initiatives contribute to inclusive growth rather than gentrification?
One of the ways that we think about anti-gentrification is through the Urban Land Conservancy we are launching. It will hold the land as greenspace, and that would offer some naturally occurring affordability.
Because the Land Bank and the City of Detroit are part of this effort, they’re not going to sell a large tract of land in this area to developers, which would create a gentrifying component. The Land Conservancy will hold the land as greenspace, and the neighborhood has a contractual relationship with the Conservancy to decide how that land is going to be used.
There have been a number of gentrifying development projects that have happened in Detroit. It’s a real concern, and I know it can get out of control very quickly. It’s a really tough problem, but I also don’t think we should hold neighborhoods hostage because of the fear of gentrification. You have to keep working at it; You have to create the capital stack to fight gentrification and be intentional to make sure these communities remain affordable and accessible for everyone. But we certainly don’t want to avoid working in neighborhoods because we fear they might gentrify over time.
This chat between Anika and Vanessa provides a sneak peek into Anika’s keynote presentation at our 25th annual Parks & Greenspace Conference on Monday, March 23. We sold out last year, and tickets are going quickly, so you don’t want to wait! Click here for more information and to secure your spot today.