Sustainability and Urban National Parks

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainability is an increasingly important challenge that confronts national parks around the world. This Special Issue highlights the diverse range of sustainability challenges in urban national parks. 

Many of the world’s urban national parks are a combination of a natural park and a cultural site. They may have hiking trails and forests, beachfront promenades and grassy open spaces. They may be home to historic buildings or artifacts, playgrounds, public squares, amphitheaters, or may have past industrial or disturbance legacies. Some urban national parks such as the Presidio in San Francisco, or Rouge National Park in Toronto are significant in size. Others may be small, such as Plymouth Rock in Cape Cod. Still others are noncontiguous spaces within the city, such as The Freedom Trail in Boston and Motor Cities National Heritage Area in Detroit. Some face pressures from encroaching urbanization, such as Los Remedios in Mexico City. Many urban national parks require collaborative management with local or state agencies, local nonprofits, foundations and educational institutions. Urban national parks are part of a national or federal park system and are valuable for study because they:

• Are home to distinctive and unique ecosystems;
• Represent some of the most important historical sites;
• Require stewardship of both natural and cultural heritage;
• Are subject to political, economic and environmental pressures;
• Contribute to urban, regional and even national identity.

This Special Issue invites theoretical and empirical studies on the following sustainability challenges in urban national parks, although other relevant topics will also be considered:

• Ecological: climate change and resilience, air pollution, water pollution, biodiversity, ecosystem services, green infrastructure, the ecological pressure/impacts from tourism and urbanization;
• Economic: financial challenges in maintenance and development, sustainable tourism/ecotourism;
• Equity/Social: access and equity for all urban residents, heritage and historic conservation, community engagement and participation, educational programming, culturally relevant programming and interpretation and the ability to be relevant to new populations, dealing with a history of racism/sexism in interpretation, policy and management.

Prof. Lisa Benton-Short
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sustainability is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• Sustainability
• Urban national parks
• Natural and cultural sites
• Climate change and resilience
• Pollution in parks
• Ecosystem services
• Green infrastructure
• Impacts of tourism and urbanization
• Financial challenges in maintenance and development
• Sustainable tourism/ecotourism
• Access and equity
• Heritage and historic conservation
• Community engagement and participation
• Educational programming
• Culturally relevant programming
• Historical legacies of racism/sexism