California’s $4 billion plan to get people outside
By Jake Bullinger, Outside
The phrase “the great outdoors” evokes certain landscapes: towering spires, roiling cascades, undisturbed deserts. Yosemite, Moab, Acadia, and the like. These are places diverse in flora, fauna, and geology, but the outdoor spaces Americans cherish and have accordingly preserved often share one trait: For most people, they’re hard to visit.
“We’re increasingly urban as a population,” says Rue Mapp, founder of Outdoor Afro, an organization bent on getting more black people outside. “We have to imagine conservation that doesn’t look like the more traditional viewpoints.”
In June, California will have a chance to shift the state’s policy in that direction. If voters approve Proposition 68, the state will dedicate $1.3 billion to creating and maintaining parks in underserved communities, many of them low-income where residents are people of color.
