Last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) represented a striking shift in US infrastructure priorities away from clean energy, broadband, climate resilience, and equity and toward fossil fuel infrastructure, border walls, detention facilities, and military defense systems. Most critically for cities and communities, the OBBBA eliminates flexible, locally driven funding streams that empowered states and municipalities to shape projects around their own needs and values.

The Five-City Equitable Development Workforce Pilot offers an emergent playbook for how cities can still achieve economic inclusion, environmental sustainability and community-driven investment—even in this new federal environment. The project focuses on how green infrastructure projects such as parks can reuse old industrial or transportation assets to serve not only as places of beauty and recreation but also as platforms for upward mobility for workers who may be new to trades focused on construction and landscaping.

Over three years, the pilot trained nearly 500 people, and three of the sites achieved a 70 percent placement rate—a remarkable feat considering these programs are explicitly centered on cultivating workers from neighborhoods which aren’t often reached by traditional workforce programs.

Our study identifies four adaptable strategies other localities can tailor to their own contexts, capacities, and community needs.

1. Partner with existing workforce programs for quick wins

For park development projects without in-house workforce expertise, tapping into existing training programs can be the fastest path to impact. They should look for high-capacity local workforce organizations and explore how the park project can boost their reach to potential workers through funding, referrals, or shared visibility, like in these cities:

• In Grand Rapids, Michigan, the Grand River project partnered with Grand Rapids Community College to cover costs for construction and electrical training—enabling nearly 100 local residents to gain in-demand skills.
• In Buffalo, New York, the Riverline joined forces with the Buffalo Center for Arts and Technology to deliver a Landscape Maintenance Technician program, working together on both design and recruitment.

2. Build custom programs for more alignment

Green projects often benefit from custom training models that align with both local labor needs and the park’s anticipated effect on jobs. When time and partner capacity allow, cocreating a workforce training program that aligns directly with a park project’s mission can drive longer-term impact:

• In San Francisco, the India Basin Waterfront Park launched a union-connected construction training program with CityBuild Academy and Laborers Local 261. The result? More than two-thirds of graduates secured high-quality union jobs.
• In Washington, DC, the 11th Street Bridge Park collaborated with Skyland Workforce Center to offer custom trainings in hospitality and construction, reflecting the park's broader community wealth-building goals.

3. Fund the ecosystem to build trust and long-term capacity

For earlier-stage park projects or those working in communities with historic distrust, providing funding to local contractors and workforce development providers can lay the foundation for collaboration. This approach helps build relationships and strengthen the local workforce infrastructure—without tying outcomes directly to a park project in its infancy, a potential workaround for the common challenge of timing training completion to infrastructure improvements, which may be slower to emerge.

For example, in Dallas, Trinity Park Conservancy supported Lone Star Justice Alliance and ReadyToWork, allowing them to launch a pharmacy technician training and provide emergency funding for justice-involved youth.

4. Offer stipends to cover the lost work hours of participants in training

Workforce development projects frequently struggle with recruitment and retention since many would-be participants still must make a living even if they must accept a low-quality, low-wage job to do it. Building stipends into the launch design of park development projects can mitigate participants’ income loss:

• In Buffalo, New York, the Riverline attached an “earn and learn” component to their Landscape Maintenance Technician training program. Participants who attended every class and completed the in-field placement earned $1,500, which boosted their completion rate from less than 50 percent to nearly 100 percent.

Green spaces can be gateways to economic opportunity

The Five-City Pilot demonstrates that infrastructure reuse projects—especially parks—can be a promising lever for economic mobility for residents of disinvested places. Whether by teaming up with existing programs, creating custom pipelines, or investing in the broader ecosystem, local leaders can ensure parks aren’t just for play or beauty—they’re potential platforms for building lives, careers, and communities.