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Organizations collaborating closely on innovative initiatives, with the aim of helping to improve a range of quality of life indicators in urban cities

With common objectives that include exploring the effects on mental and physical wellbeing of equitable access to open spaces, the benefits to community cohesion derived from a strong sense of belonging, and how a closer unity between human life and its surrounding natural habitat and habitants can positively influence quality of life, World Urban Parks and Salzburg Global Seminar are continuing to develop their highly productive partnership.

Salzburg Global Seminar’s mission to “challenge current and future leaders to shape a better world” and World Urban Parks’ vision for a “world where people value and have easy access to quality urban parks, open space and recreation” have aligned perfectly through a series of collaborative initiatives.

The Emerging Urban Leaders program, launched in 2021, seamlessly bonded those ideals. Nurturing a network of individuals active in the urban and community  planning space, the program set out with the mission to “address the growing demand for access to nature in urban space.” Through the establishment of a mentoring relationship with selected leader in their field, Fellows worked on the development of innovative solutions to the pressing issues and needs around requirements for greener cities.

World Parks Week, a World Urban Parks initiative, is another area in which the organizations combined their expertise. Salzburg Global Seminar facilitated a workshop during the 2021 World Parks Week – Why Parks and Urban Green Spaces are Fundamental to Quality of Life in Cities Around the World – in which expert guest speakers and participants considered a range of evidence-based examples from the latest international research, policy and practice that support the idea that urban parks and green spaces are fundamental to addressing a wide variety of urban quality of life challenges.

World Urban Parks and Salzburg Global Seminar also work closely with the National Park City Foundation, which set out to “make our cities greener, healthier, wilder and fairer places to live.”The three organizations worked together to lead a campaign to develop a charter mapping out the key actions that cities can take to become part of the National Park Cities movement and improve the lives of citizens of urban areas around the world. The organizations co-lead a network of around 40 cities around the world on the journey to become National Park Cities and recently managed the review process that led to Adelaide becoming the world’s second National Park City. As part of this, National Park City Week saw the organizations work together to connect campaigners from across the globe and generate momentum, inspiration and shared knowledge to enable positive change in the quest for greener cities.

Salzburg Global Seminar’s own Parks for the Planet Forum, with a fulsome program schedule across October and November 2021, aimed to create dynamic partnerships between people, cities, and protected area systems, and was a substantial front for the progress of ideas around the joined-up missions of both organizations. World Urban Parks is a program contributor to the Forum, and members of the organization attended various programs which focused on themes of loneliness, community cohesion and belonging, safer cities, climate resilience and the correlational relationships they have with public spaces in urban environments.

Salzburg Global Seminar and World Urban Parks look forward to continuing these initiatives and working closely to make positive change in the world in 2022.