Like so many big music festivals these days, this past weekend’s Shaky Knees Festival had an impressive lineup. The headliners were some of the biggest bands of the last 20 years, plus a slew of other rock and alternative acts with loyal followings. When the lineup was first released, my interest was piqued; I’m still kicking myself for missing The Strokes at Music Midtown in 2004.

Shaky Knees’ rapid rise over the last three years from the Masquerade Music Park to Atlantic Station to this year’s three-day takeover of Old Fourth Ward’s Central Park has likely been welcomed by many, especially those currently enmeshed in the zeitgeist scene of #festivallife.

But in the weeks leading up to the event, as I debated getting a ticket, the more I envisioned enjoying some of my favorite bands with the skyline as a backdrop, the more I couldn’t ignore the dark cloud of another growing trend: a disturbing disregard for the “public” part in public parks, a bend towards privatization and profiteering that’s at odds with almost everything these cherished spaces are meant to represent.

To be clear, I’m not against concerts being held in parks. Much to the contrary, I appreciate that they are a beloved and time-honored tradition: later this May, the Atlanta Jazz Festival is celebrating its 38th year in Piedmont Park. And in the last 20 years there have been plenty of successful alternative shows around town: On the Bricks at Centennial Olympic Park, earlier Sweetwater 420 Fests at Candler Park, and 99x Downtown Rocks at Underground Atlanta.

The one thing all those concerts had in common? Their price tag: free and open to any one who wandered in.

The fact is, whether free or not, big concerts always come with a few costs: inevitable traffic congestion in the surrounding neighborhoods and wear-and-tear on the site.

Wear-and-tear has taken the spotlight of late after the disastrous timing of record rains and an estimated 70,000 people in Centennial Olympic Park for last month’s ticketed Sweetwater 420 Festival. The mud churned up was calf deep and the park will be a maze of barricades for the better part of the next month, with the majority of the former lawn areas cordoned off as the grass re-establishes itself.

It’s important to note that Centennial is actually not managed by the city but is under the control of the Georgia World Congress Center Authority, a state agency. A park spokeswoman informed me that private events are a crucial part of the park’s revenue. The GWCCA is attempting to have the park operate at a self-sustaining level. Its budget is higher than the average park given the cost of operating the Olympic fountain and other water features, she said.

In City of Atlanta parks, event organizers are responsible for 100 percent of the clean-up and remediation of parkspaces. But the remediation process, as noted, can vary from a few days to well over a month.

The pertinent issue, however, for the state and city alike is the rising frequency with which the public must not only accept those aforementioned inconveniences while also being denied access to their own taxpayer-funded resources.

Last summer, in a two-week period, major private events dominated the space at arguably Atlanta’s two premier parks: first Music Midtown in Piedmont Park and then the OutKast #ATLast shows in Centennial, which snowballed from a planned single Saturday night into a three day mini-festival extravaganza.

I boycotted Music Midtown on principle for disrupting the most pleasant part of my daily commute. The event staff working in the days leading up to the concert were remarkably inhospitable, acting as if I and other park users were inconveniencing them for using the roads in the park as they barreled around in forklifts and carts.

But I felt strongly compelled to attend what promised to be the greatest homecoming a city could possibly muster. Despite my nagging irritation that Outkast had decided to charge their most loyal supporters and neighbors, the concert did not disappoint. The energy was so captivating that some friends and I returned the following night just to take in the scene. After circling the chain-linked enclosure for an opportune spot I was momentarily in eyeshot of the stage. Then a guard approached: “Hey! You gotta move.”

“Why?”

“You can’t be there.”

We ended up watching from the top of a parking deck, a bird’s eye view into the last place I would want to see one of the metro area’s original sins: a gated community.

According to the Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore index, Atlanta ranks 42nd out of the top 60 biggest U.S. cities for how well the city is meeting its need for parks. Only 5.8 percent of the city area is parkland, compared to percentages 3 or 4 times higher for cities in the top 10 like Minneapolis, Portland, and New York. To some, this may come as a surprise given Atlanta’s reputation as a city with a dense green canopy. But the truth is Atlanta is woefully underserved when it comes to parks and city leaders should show some action where that statistic is concerned (continuously plugging the Beltline does not count.)

To begin with, given our lack of park space, the city should impose a ban on large-scale, ticketed events in existing public parks. If city government is so keen on hosting these events and reaping the revenue they provide, they need to devote new and designated parkland for it.

Along Northside Drive alone, there are two large empty tracts of land within a couple miles of each other, one just north of Ikea — the parcel was last reported as eyed for development — and another just north of the GWCC parking lots on Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard — the site of the demolished Herndon Homes. There are similar plots scattered throughout the city, including the most obvious candidate for a Chastain-on-steroids addition: the Old Atlanta Prison Farm.

The selection of Central Park (along with Renaissance Park and the parking lots behind the Civic Center) for Shaky Knees typifies the inherent injustice of selectively closing public spaces, particularly in a rapidly changing city. Central Park is small, just 17 acres, and largely used by people living in close proximity. Most people I’ve encountered who live more than a couple miles away are unaware Atlanta even had a Central Park, or that it was formerly Bedford-Pine Park. The park anchors the corner of an area of the Old Fourth Ward that contains the highest amount of subsidized housing in the Southeast. It is an area that has long suffered from the underinvestment typical in low-income urban areas.

It is also in the heart of an area that has undergone some of the most extreme redevelopment in the city in the last 20 years, with surging rent prices spurred by numerous large developments of upscale apartments. Councilman Kwanza Hall, whose district includes the festival footprint said he’s “not sure that the [site selection] says very much” about the changing demographics of the area.

But in a city becoming more and more known for its wealth disparity, there’s something a little off-putting about the extravagance of a private 3-day festival butting up to the front doors of the working poor.

Politicians in general (and city mayors in particular) love to play up their appreciation for public spaces. Constantly referring to them in endearing clichés like “jewels of the city” and frequently citing them as the single best attraction for both tourists and locals alike, it’s impossible to disagree. So what does it mean if even for a few days, any random visitor, passer-by or daily user can no longer freely enjoy the city’s greatest gift?

[An edited version of this piece was published by Creative Loafing Atlanta: http://clatl.com/atlanta/time-to-rethink-private-events-in-public-parks/Content?oid=14291961]