I’m a huge supporter of Public skateparks. It still astonishes me that Montréal has done JACK to address this need. They have tossed money at badly thought-out schemes — and the ones that have received money have been poorly built with little, if any, consultation by the end users. While other cities in Canada now boast some of the largest, well thought-out and fun places to skate in the entire world. I wonder how long it will take for the city to see the light…

Someone should raise money and buy them 1000 copies of this guide which comes out in Mid-April from publicskateparkguide.org…

…Skaters For Public Skateparks has collaborated with the Tony Hawk Foundation and the International Association of Skateboard Companies to create the Pubic Skatepark Development Guide, a fully fleshed-out skatepark how-to book for anyone interested in campaigning for a skateboard park in their community. “Currently, there are about 2,200 skateparks in the U.S., and there’re more than thirteen-million skateboarders,” says Miki Vuckovich, executive director of the Tony Hawk Foundation. “That’s almost 6,000 skateboarders per park.” While he recognizes that skateboarding is a street-based activity, Vuckovich points out that street skating evolved out of a lack of sanctioned areas to skate (i.e., parks), and as a group of such size, don’t skateboards deserve their share of public resources?

Written by SFPS Publishing Director Peter Whitley, this step-by-step guide takes you from start to finish, detailing everything from how to determine a community’s skatepark needs to the strategic nuances of advocacy to fundraising, design, and management. “The largest intended audience for the Guide is the advocate who has the passion for contributing to their community but lacks experience in the process of building public spaces with public dollars,” says Whitley. “It was written by advocates for advocates, whether they’re city workers, landscape architects, or skateboarders.”

TWSBIZ article