Photo: Darcy Kiefel

One park at a time, Chicago neighborhoods are creating places to play.

By John McCarron

Phil Jones is a blue-collar kind of guy, a carpenter by trade and a family man with a tattoo of his three children across his right bicep.

Which is to say, he's not your typical enviro-wonk or open-space crusader. But here in Chicago, city of big shoulders and the political flex, Jones is proving just the guy to anchor one of the more innovative coalitions ever to enlarge and enliven a tired old neighborhood park. It's a coalition, moreover, that is pumping up for heavier lifting—the creation of a three-mile biking and hiking trail from a dormant railroad spur. Both projects are showing how neighborhood activists and a nimble nonprofit can create precious public space in the most congested urban neighborhoods.