Phaedra Trethan
Cherry Hill Courier-Post
CAMDEN — Camden, within its nine square miles, has a surprising number of parks and green spaces, and that number is growing as access to previously off-limits sites is opened, parking lots become parks, and parcels that used to be dumps are slowly being transformed into natural oases.
A new interactive online map, the Camden Conservation Blueprint, tracks those parks and green spaces, with users able to filter more information from a variety of menus: amenities like playgrounds and picnic tables; neighborhood population density (a good way to see how crowded a park might be for social distancing); even the quality and quantity of lighting fixtures.
Created through a partnership among the New Jersey Conservation Foundation, Rowan University and The Nature Conservancy, the mapping tool is, its creators hope, a way to improve the quality of life for urban residents.
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Funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's New Jersey Health Initiatives (NJHI), the interactive map is also. meant to help address what needs Camden neighborhoods have: An area with a lot of people, and presumably a lot of children, might need more playgrounds; the map would indicate what is available. An area with a high concentration of poor residents would need to have its parks and green spaces within walking distance for residents who don't own cars.
"We know one approach that community leaders can take to address the deep-rooted issues known to influence health is to make better use of available data and share it with other community stakeholders, partners and residents to guide their decision-making," said NJHI director Bob Atkins in a release announcing the map.
"By leveraging the expertise of a cross-sector coalition of Camden partners, the Camden Conservation Blueprint takes data that might have been previously inaccessible and places it at residents' and community leaders' fingertips to help them locate available resources and advocate for policy, systems and environmental change that can improve health for all."
Parks and green spaces, highlighted in light and dark green hues respectively, are overlaid on a Google satellite map so residents and stakeholders can get a better sense of what's nearby, such as schools, roads, residential areas and industrial areas.
There are also filters that can show farmers market locations, hospitals, urgent care centers and community resources like food pantries and transit stops and stations. Additional filters show natural features like tree canopies, flood-prone areas, contaminated sites and vacant parcels that could be targeted for future remediation or conversion to parks or green spaces.
"We adjusted and customized our statewide mapping resources to serve the unique needs of Camden's urban environment and network of city parks," said John Hasse.
Collaboration made the project possible, added Hasse, director of Rowan's Geospatial Research Lab where the mapping technology was developed and is hosted.
"Rowan's expertise in GIS mapping developed the interface to be intuitive and easy to use for Camden users. NJ Conservation's experience with community outreach facilitated a broad coalition of stakeholders to provide input and feedback to the project. The result is a mapping tool that can be used for a variety of purposes to serve a broad array of Camden residents."
To access the map, visit www.njmap2.com/communityassets/camden
Phaedra Trethan has been a reporter and editor in South Jersey since 2007 and has covered Camden since 2015. She's called South Jersey home since 1971. Contact her with feedback, news tips or questions at ptrethan@gannettnj.com, on Twitter @By_Phaedra, or by phone at 856.486-2417.
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