Soon, I will submit Chattanooga’s formal application to become the first National Park City in North America. We feel good about our chances.
When I tell people that we plan on becoming North America’s first National Park City, they usually tell me, “that’s great!” But then they usually ask, “what does it mean to be a National Park City?”
A National Park City is a city working to become a place where people, places, and nature are better connected. It’s a long-term, grassroots movement that involves everyone in the city working together to make it greener, healthier, and wilder.
Here in Chattanooga, we’ve used the National Park City movement to encourage folks to think about Chattanooga as a city in a park, rather than a city with some parks in it.
Your work may never actually intersect with an official park, but if you’re in the business of making Chattanooga a better place, then you’re part of the National Park City mission.
So, being a National Park City means everything from supporting The Lookout Mountain Conservancy to the Highland Park futsal fields where dozens of languages are spoken.
Being a National Park City means preserving the forests where hunters are harvesting deer and the lakes where fishermen and women are catching tournament-heavy bass.
National Park City means having a thriving Catalyst Sports and White Oak Mountain Bicycle Co-Op, Water Ways and Walden’s Ridge Park, the Chattery, Main Street Farmers’ Market, Soundcorps, and Shawanna Kendrick’s H2O.
National Park City means educating Chattanoogans about native plant species they can plant in their yard to help our ecosystem — one of the most biodiverse on our planet — and helping them get access to those native plants.
I could go on and on. But everyone who gets what makes this place so special already knows what I’m talking about.
At the same time, I realize that far too many Chattanoogans do not have access to a well-funded, pleasing green space or park. We must admit our parks system has been layered with generational suffering and complications, often creating and promoting safe, healthy spaces for some, but not all. And we must do better.
We face tremendous challenges: preservation of land with increasing development. Entrenched health disparities. A rural versus urban divide. And the specter of climate change.
But this is why parks matter more than ever, both green, open spaces where humans and nature are given a chance to reconnect and restore, and those experiences and places that uplift the human spirit by bringing people together in nature. That is what make a city a community.
For generations, Chattanoogans have been doing just that, but becoming a National Park City will bake it into our collective identity. It’s saying it out loud for the world to hear. And that’s why we’re the perfect choice to lead North America in earning this distinction.
Tim Kelly is the mayor of Chattanooga.