New Report Reveals Increases in City Parks System Spending, Acreage
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Parks are getting record attention from the nation’s largest cities, but experts suggest more investment is needed.
The nation’s largest cities spent a record $4.3 billion on their park systems in 2005, but it still wasn’t enough to meet all the park and recreation needs of the urban residents whose neighborhoods are too crowded or whose homes are too far from green space or a playground.
Those same cities pushed their combined park acreage up to 808,587 acres – an area larger than Yosemite National Park – with Jacksonville (102,836 acres), Houston (56,405 acres), San Diego (44,707 acres), and New York City (38,147 acres) having the most parkland.
These and many other urban park statistics were released today by The Trust for Public Land (TPL), a national nonprofit which works to protect parks and open space. The results are based on an eight-month study by TPL’s Center for City Park Excellence (CCPE), the nation’s leading source of data about urban park systems. 2005 is the most recent year for available data. CCPE releases new numbers annually and posts them on the web at www.tpl.org/cityparkfacts.
“After years of budgetary crises, the increase in spending is probably most significant,” said Peter Harnik, director of the Center. “By our calculation, urban park spending in the large cities grew by more than five percent between 2004 and 2005. It’s not a whole lot more than inflation but it’s a step in the right direction.”
New Park Facts:
Of all large cities:
- Albuquerque devotes the most land area by percentage to parks and preserves
- Jacksonville has the most park acres per 1000 residents
- Boston has the oldest park
- New York has the most visited park
On a per-capita basis:
- Minneapolis has the most ball diamonds
- Portland, Ore. has the most dog parks
- Cincinnati and Virginia Beach have the most playgrounds
- Las Vegas has the most skateboard parks
- Seattle, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. spend the most on their parks and recreation systems
For more information, visit www.tpl.org and for complete list of city parkland, facilities and budgets visit www.tpl.org/cityparkfacts.
