By Charlie McCabe A view from the Butler Trail boardwalk, looking west toward Downtown Austin. If you're attending the Greater and Greener Parks Conference in Austin beginning in Saturday, June 12 and running through Tuesday, June 16, you'll get to see a number of parks and public spaces during the scheduled activities, including: Auditorium Shores and portions of the Butler Trail at Lady Bird Lake on Sunday evening's opening reception at the Palmer Event Center. Waterloo Par

by Charlie McCabe One of the most common types of signage that I see in public parks and related open spaces is those with rules and regulations. A general fear of many of my clients and at park agencies that I've worked for is "too many signs with too many rules." Generally, I think this is overstated in tersm of an issue by park staff. I base this statement on the fact that I visit hundreds of parks annually and generally don't see that many signs with too many rules. How

By Charlie McCabe Volunteer roles in park maintenance continue to evolve with the ongoing efforts of public park agencies and park nonprofits working together. Many things have changed since the initial release of my Partners for Parks Report Series in 2024, so I’ll be covering some of the new developments in this blog over the next month or two. Today’s topic: citywide volunteer days in parks. The idea of a citywide park volunteer day is not new: In 1995, the City Parks Foun

by Charlie McCabe If you’re attending the Greater and Greener Parks conference in Austin in June, you need to watch the new documentary Foreverland. I lived in Austin for 18 years (1994-2012) and for the last seven, I served as Executive Director of the Austin Parks Foundation. (Since then, I’ve lived primarily in the Boston area continuing to work in parks, public spaces, and programming.) During my time running the then still small and scrappy Austin Parks Foundation, I wor