Can Cities Fill the Swimming Pool Equity Gap?
In Long Beach, California, a push to build a public pool in a lower-income area underscores a deep urban disparity: How did spaces to swim get so scarce?
Parent-and-child swimming lessons at a Los Angeles-area pool. Long Beach’s plan to spend millions renovating a public pool in a high-income area has drawn criticism from a local lawmaker.
Photographer: Terry Pierson/The Press-Enterprise via Getty Images
A few months ago, a video began circulating on the social networking site Nextdoor of a dozen middle-school students from Long Beach, California, who had jumped a fence on a hot day to take a dip in an apartment complex’s pool. Building management quickly told them to jump the fence again and threatened to call the police.
When Long Beach city councilman and vice mayor Rex Richardson saw the video, which he spoke about at an August council meeting, he thought of himself at that age, doing what kids on a hot day do when they don’t have access to a public pool. “This video popped up during the Olympics, when young swimmers were winning medals, and at a time when our city is investing millions in pools and aquatics for youth in areas that already have access,” said Richardson, who represents Long Beach’s northern 9th district, an inland section of the city.