Hartford, CT

Built environment  | 2025

Expanded youth access to sports and recreational activities. 

Access to sports and organized play is associated with positive physical, social, and academic development in young people. Despite these benefits, young people in Hartford, Connecticut, have experienced the closure of three of the city’s five recreation centers, a reduction in public pool hours during the summer, and the loss of several high school sports teams during the school year, limiting the affordable sports and recreation options available to Hartford’s majority Black and Latino young residents. To create priorities for public investment in recreation and reverse this trend, the Connecticut Data Collaborative (CTData) collected and analyzed data on barriers to youth sports participation in Hartford.  

CTData partnered with six alumni from its Hartford Youth Data Fellowship to codevelop a survey and facilitate focus groups of youth and families to learn whether current programs meet the community’s diverse needs. CTData mapped the proximity of youth to sports programs and recreational facilities, discovering that although about 60 percent of Hartford children live within walking distance to a park, access is uneven across neighborhoods. The team also found that a majority (52 percent) of families access recreation programs only in the city of Hartford, but the rest also travel outside the city for recreation programming. Respondents reported that most youth sports and recreation programs in Hartford are supportive and inclusive. But communication channels to learn about programs are fragmented, and parents and youth would benefit from one centralized listing. The team presented their findings to city officials, community organizations, and residents in a Youth Data Spotlight event, in addition to publishing an online summary.  

The City of Hartford’s newly established Department of Sports and Recreation will use the findings to inform its investments in youth recreation opportunities and to demonstrate the need for additional resources in future city budgets. Active City, a nonprofit consortium of youth sports programs, will use the data to plan for a spectrum of programs in neighborhoods where residents are best able to access them. Across the public and private sectors, the project will generate momentum for resources to expand sports and recreational opportunities for Hartford children and youth.