Grounded and Growing: A living history of our region's parks and trails

Grounded and Growing is an ongoing multimedia project launched by the Metropolitan Council in 2025 to better understand people’s experiences of parks and trails over the past 50 years. By pairing key moments from history with the present-day experiences of those from marginalized communities, we seek to surface root causes of visitation disparities and ground efforts to advance equity in shared understanding. By finding ways to acknowledge this past, Met Council, Park Agency Partners, and communties of our region, can build a more empathetic, inclusive, and equitable regional system together.

Learn, listen, and collaborate

We describe Grounded and Growing as a "living history" project for key reason: it cannot become a comprehensive or complete accounting of how our Regional Parks and Trails System arrived at this moment without you—yes, you! With this in mind, Grounded and Growing interactive tools include opportunities for continuous community crowdsourcing and contributions:

Build on the current historical timeline. We invite submissions about historical events, people or groups, untold stories, or government actions that made an impact on park and trails use at the local, regional, or even national level. Gather basic information like a description, timeframe, and source materials and tell us about it using the historical information submission form.
Create an inclusive story collection about outdoor experiences. Each story shared presents an opportunity for us to grow our understanding about the varied experiences with parks, trails, and the outdoors. Read current stories, and consider sharing your outdoor experiences through our ongoing survey .

Submit historical information to the timeline

Project themes

Grounded and Growing connects the past, present, and future considerations through five interconnected project themes developed across community engagement and parks and trails research over the past decade.

ACCESS

From getting there, back or around, to using amenities and programs or even just awareness that these public investments exist and are here for everyone, access to parks and trails varies across population groups. Access is fundamental to strengthening the equitable use of the Regional Parks and Trails System.

Watch full interviews on the Grounded and Growing YouTube playlist

FEELING SAFE

Feeling safe, physically or psychologically, fundamentally shapes our well-being and how we navigate the world around us. Perceptions of safety at parks and trails can stem from our relationship with the outdoors, built infrastructure of the park or trail itself, or personal interactions with other visitors, staff or volunteers.

HISTORY OF OUR LANDS

Recognizing the genocide and displacement that American Indian communities survived—and continue to endure—is a critical first step towards a full accounting of land history in our region. (Read Met Council's Land, Water, and People Acknowledgment.) Further, contemporary exclusionary policies in community development, such as redlining, racially restrictive covenants, and other infrastructure placements like highways have also contributed to unequal access to and investments in parks and trails over the last 50 years.

Watch full interviews on the Grounded and Growing YouTube playlist

SENSE OF BELONGING

A sense of belonging overlaps with access and feeling safe but considers the more nuanced and personal experience of whether you can just be yourself.

OUTDOOR EXPERIENCES

Relationships with and connections to nature range from intergenerational cultural and spiritual practices to contemporary traditions with family or friends, to restoration of our well-being. Our experiences with the outdoors are personal, but they also reflect the communities we come from in terms of what we do and how we feel in nature.

Grounded and Growing Project Contact

Emmett Mullin

Regional Parks and Trails Senior Manager

[email protected]