New Jersey Health Initiatives Helps Fund Camden Interactive Map

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.

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.