Privatization of Recreation

The Privatization of Recreation: Thinly Veiled Structural Racism in the Built Environment 

The privatization of recreation today (and within it, the privatization of youth sports, now a 40B+ industry in the U.S.) echoes the post-desegregation closures of the post-Civil Right Era. It shifts the benefits of movement, safety, and community connection into private hands while leaving public systems underfunded.

When a city or town allows its pools to crumble while subsidizing elite youth sports complexes, it is making a policy choice—a modern form of redlining. It is choosing who gets to learn to swim (blue spaces), who gets to play safely (green and blue spaces), and who gets to access the physical and mental health benefits of recreation.

As scholars and advocates argue, dismantling these inequities requires not only rebuilding infrastructure but reframing recreation as a public health and climate resilience necessity—not a luxury.

Also of note: Taxpayer-funded pools such as pools belonging to high schools are closed for much of the year; some are not available to the public at all. To what extent should publicly-funded pools be required to be 

Toward a More Equitable Future

To advance health equity and climate justice, cities can:

• Reclaim public pools (blue spaces) as shared infrastructure for health, cooling, and safety.

• Fund community-based swim programs that begin in early childhood, leveraging innate water learning before fear develops.

• Integrate climate resilience and recreation planning, ensuring pools, retention ponds, and water features are safe, sustainable, and equitably distributed.

• Recognize recreation as an equity issue, embedding it into public health and urban planning policy.

Recreation should not depend on race, zip code, nor income. The ability to float, play, and cool off safely is part of what makes life both possible and joyful—and in a warming world, it’s a basic public good we can no longer afford to drain.

For Further Reading / Research Publications:

• Green and blue spaces: crucial for healthy, sustainable urban futures. The Lancet, 2023.

• The Heart Health Benefits of Urban Green and Blue Spaces: Why Going Outside is Good for Your Heart. Northwestern Medicine, 2024.

• Green–blue space exposure changes and impact on individual-level well-being and mental health: a population-wide dynamic longitudinal panel study with linked survey data. National Library of Medicine, 2023.

Next Module:

Pool Deserts & Excerpt from "Racism Drained the Pool"