One of North Long Beach’s largest public playground space—the kids’ area inside Ramona Park—is getting a much-appreciated upgrade, allowing families to visit other playgrounds beyond existing playgrounds like those at Coolidge or Houghton Park.
With expectations to break ground later this year, the City of Long Beach has released a map and renderings of the new Ramona Park playground will look like, including how it will expand accessibility thanks interactive playground features and, perhaps most notable, fog misters that will help families cool down in the high-temp months of the summer.
Though the city has impressively expanded its park access over the past five years—with 84% of the city’s residents being within a ten-minute walk of a space, a nearly 5% increase in access over three years alone according to the Trust for Public Land—our overall ranking across the nation has dropped significantly across the pandemic as we have yet to create any new park space and solely depend on existing space.
Even more, as has been the tale for decades, the disparities between the accessible and not accessible fall disproportionately on two areas of Long Beach: West and North Long Beach, with North Long Beach receiving the largest brunt of that not-so-great distinction.
Of the 31,066 acres of land within our city limits, 3,123 acres are dedicated to parks—a number that has not changed in years, with the aforementioned El Dorado Park representing the largest chunk of that acreage.
Ramona Park is located at 3301 E. 65th St.
