Why America Needs More City Parks and Open Space

The Benefits of pose Why America necessarily More metropolis park and Open aloofness BY Paul M. Sheerer Published by 116 b atomic number 18-assed Montgomery Street Fourth Floor San Francisco, CA 94105 (415) 495-4014 www. Tip. Org 02006 the swear for reality subvert Reprint of putting fleeceables for race ashen paper, coterie In 2003. Table of Contents Forward Will Rogers, President, commit for universal belt d hold 5 Executive Summary 6 America Needs More urban center Parks U. S. Cities Are Park-Poor Low-In assimi modern a go at it Neighborhoods Are Desperately unequal of Park Space Case Study bracing Parks for Los Angles The Public Wants More Parks 8Hi flooring of Americas metropolis Parks Inspiration, Abandonment, Revival The pooh-pooh of City Parks A Revival Begins Budget Crises Threaten City Parks 10 Public Health Benefits of City Parks and Open Space Americas Twin Plagues Physical Inactivity and Obesity Access to Parks Increases frequence of Exercise Expo sure to Nature and Greenery Makes People Healthier 12 Economic Benefits of Parks 14 Increased post Values Property Values in Low-Income urban Areas Property Values at the Edges of Urban Areas Effects on Commercial Property Values Economic revitalization Attracting and Retaining Businesses and Residents TourismBenefits Environmental Benefits of Parks Pollution Abatement and Cooling Controlling Stemw be overflow 17 Social Benefits of Parks Reducing Crime Recreation Opportunities The immenseness of Play Creating Stable Neighborhoods with Strong friendship 18 Conclusion 20 Notes 21 Bibliography 24 3 Forward At the turn of the twentieth century, the majority of Ameri screwings lived in rural areas and small towns, relatively close to the land. At the beginning of the 21st century, 85 desperate need of stains to experience temperament and refresh ourselves in the unwrap-of- doors.The emergence of America as an urban area was anticipated by Frederick Law Limited and other nineteen th-century car super C visionaries, who gave us New Works Central Park, San Francis forthright fires Golden penetration Park, and similar luxurious place in cities across the acres. They were gardeners and designers- notwithstanding similarly p leaders for the power of put, fired from within by the understanding that they were shaping the quality of American lives for generations to come. In the view of these super acid visionaries, position were not amenities. They were necessities, providing recreation, inspiration, and essential respite from the urban center blare and bustle. And the visionaries were oddly concerned that pose be available to all of a urban center residents-especially those who did not cede the resources to escape to the countryside. As population shifted to the suburbs after existence War II, this vision of lay for all faded. umteen cities lost the resources to produce late car cat valiums. And in the new suburbs, the sprawling landscapes o f curving CUL-De-sacs were broken in general by boxy shopping centers and concrete cat valiuming lots.The time has come for Americans to rededicate themselves to the vision of position for all the nations battalion. As the actions leading saving group creating parks in and most cities, the place for Public Land ( tip) has launched its Parks for People initiative in the belief that every American child should enjoy convenient admission fee to a nearby park or playground. This white paper outlines how desperate the need is for city parks-especially in inner-city neighborhoods. And it goes on to describe the social, environmental, economic, and wellness get aheads parks bring to a city and its slew. compass point hopes this paper go out generate discussion about the need for parks, propel new research on the benefits f parks to cities, and serve as a reference for administration leaders and volunteers as they fetch the evidence that parks are essential to the health an d well-being of all Americans. You exit find more information about the need for city parks and their benefits in the Parks for People section of Taps Web site (www. Tip. Org/poor) where you can also sign-up for Parks for People information and confirm Taps Parks for People work. rap is proud to be highlighting the need for parks in Americas cities. thank for Joining our effort to ensure a park within reach of every American home. Will Rogers President, the Trust for Public Land City parks and splay space improve our sensible and mental health, assure our communities, and make our cities and neighborhoods more attractive places to live and work. But too a few(prenominal) Americans are able to enjoy these benefits. Eighty percent of Americans live in metropolitan areas, and many of these areas are abominablely wanting in park space. only if 30 percent of Los Angles residents live within move distance air mile. Low-income neighborhoods dwell by minorities and recent immig rants are especially short of park space. From an honor standpoint, in that respect is a strong need to redress this imbalance. In Los Angles, white neighborhoods enjoy 31. 8 country of park space for every 1,000 sight, compared with 1. 7 acres in African-American neighborhoods and 0. 6 acres in Latino neighborhoods. This inequitable dispersal of park space harms the residents of these communities and pull ins potent costs for the nation as a whole.U. S. Voters have repeatedly shown their willingness to raise their own taxes to comprise for new or improved parks. In 2002, 189 conservation patronage measures appeared on ballots in 28 states. Voters approved three-quarters of these, generating $10 jillion in conservation-related funding. Many of the nations great city parks were built in the second half(a) of the 19th century. Urban planners believed the parks would improve general health, relieve the stresses of urban life, and create a demonstrating public space where r ich and poor would im cock on equal terms.By the mid-20th century, city parks spend into decline as people fled inner cities for the suburbs. The suburbs fared no better, as people believed that backyards would meet the necessary for public open space. Over the past couple of decades, interest in city parks has revived. Governments and civic groups around the country have revalidated fizzle city parks, built gre takes along rivers, converted aband wizardd railroad lines to trails, and coiffure community gardens in unemployed lots.But with the current economic downturn, states and cities facing severe budget crises are slashing their park spending, threatening the health of animate parks, and curtailing the creation of new parks. Strong evidence shows that when people have access to parks, they exercise more. Regular physical activity as been shown to increase health and reduce the risk of a wide range of diseases, including heart disease, hypertension, colon cancer, and diab etes. Physical activity also relieves symptoms of depression and anxiety, improves mood, and enhances psychological well-being.Beyond the benefits of exercise, a growing body of research shows that contact with the inbred world improves physical and psychological health. Despite the importance of exercise, only 25 percent of American adults submit in the recommended levels of physical activity, and 29 percent engage in no leisure-time physical activity. The sedentary lifestyle and unhealthy diet of Americans have produced an pestilent of obesity. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has called for the creation of more parks and playgrounds to service of process fight this epidemic.Numerous studies have shown that parks and open space increase the appreciate of neighboring residential holding. Growing evidence points to a similar benefit on commercial property value. The availability of park and recreation facilities is an weighty quality-of-life factor for corporat ions choosing where to locate facilities and for well-educated individuals choosing a place to live. City parks much(prenominal) as San Notations Riverview Park a good deal become important touristry draws, contributing heavily Green space in urban areas allows substantial environmental benefits.Trees reduce air pollution and water pollution, they admirer conserve cities cooler, and they are a more effective and less expensive dash to manage stemware runoff than pee-peeing systems of concrete sewers and drainage ditches. City parks also produce important social and community development benefits. They make inner-city neighborhoods more livable they offer amateurish opportunities for at-risk youth, low-income children, and low-income families and they provide places n low-income neighborhoods where people can feel a sense of community.Access to public parks and recreational facilities has been strongly linked to reductions in abomination and in particular to minify Juvenil e delinquency. Community gardens increase residents sense of community ownership and stewardship, provide a focus for neighborhood activities, expose inner-city youth to nature, connect people from diverse cultures, reduce crime by cleaning up vacant lots, and build community leaders. In light of these benefits, the Trust for Public Land calls for a revival of the city parks movement of the late 19th century.We invite all Americans to Join the effort to bring parks, open spaces, and greengages into the nations neighborhoods where everyone can benefit from them. 7 The residents of many U. S. Cities lack adequate access to parks and open space near their homes. In 2000, 80 percent of Americans were existing in metropolitan areas, up from 48 percent in 1940. 1 The park space in many of these metropolitan areas is grossly inadequate. In Atlanta, for example, parkland covers only 3. 8 percent of the city area.Atlanta has no public green space larger than one-third of a square mile. 2 Th e city has only 7. Acres of park space for every 1,000 residents, compared with a 19. 1 acre average for other medium-low population density cities. 3 The story is much the same in Los Angles, San Jose, New Orleans, and Dallas. raze in cities that have substantial park space as a whole, the residents of many neighborhoods lack access to nearby parks. In New York City, for example, nearly half of the city 59 community board districts have less than 1. 5 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. Low-Income Neighborhoods Are Desperately Short of Park Space Low-income neighborhoods inhabit by minorities and recent immigrants are especially short f park space. Minorities and the poor have historically been shunted off to live on the incorrectly side of the tracks, in paved-over, industrialized areas with few public amenities. From an equity standpoint, in that respect is a strong need to redress this imbalance. In Los Angles, white neighborhoods (where whites make up 75 percent or more of the residents) boast 31. 8 acres of park space for every 1,000 people, compared with 1. 7 acres in African-American neighborhoods and 0. Acres in Latino neighborhoods. 5 This inequitable distribution of park space harms the residents of are costs alone are potentially enormous. Lacking places for recreation, minorities and low-income individuals are significantly less likely than whites and high-income individuals to engage in the regular physical activity that is crucial to good health. Among non-Hispanic white adults in the United States, 34. 9 percent engage in regular leisure-time physical activity, compared with only 25. 4 percent of non- Hispanic black adults and 22. 7 percent of Hispanic adults. And adults with incomes below the poverty level are three measure as likely as high-income adults to never be physically active. Even where the political relation or voters have allocated new money for park acquisition, there is significant risk that wealthier and better-organize d districts will grab more than their fair share. The Los Angles neighborhood of South Central-with the city second-highest prove- The Trust for Public Land TTY rate, highest share of children, and lowest access to nearby park space-received only about half as much per-child parks funding as affluent West Los Angles from proposal K between 1998 and 2000. Case Study New Parks for Los Angles With 28,000 people crammed into its one square mile of low-rise buildings, the city f humankind in Los Angles County is the most densely populated U. S. City outside the New York City metropolitan area. 10 Its residents-96 percent are Hispanic and 37 percent are children-are often packed five to a bedroom, with whole families living in garages and beds being used on a time-share basis. The Trust for Public Land (TIP) has been working in Manhood since 1996 to purchase, assemble, and convert sextet separate former industrial sites into a seven-acre riverside park.The job will double Manhoods pa rk space. 11 Before TIP began its work, the future park site was occupied by abandoned arouses and industrial buildings, covered in garbage, graffiti, rusted metal, and barrels of industrial waste. Until the late asses, the parcels contained a glue factory, a transfer facility for solvents, and a truck service facility one parcel was designated an Environmental Protection Agency Superfine site. 12 TIP is preparing to use up the final parcel and has developed preliminary designs for the site.The completed park will invite Manhoods residents to gather at its picnic benches, stroll its walking trails, relax on its lawns, and play with their children in its tot lot. The Manhood project is a precursor of Taps Parks for People-Los Angles program, an ambitious new effort to create parks where they are most desperately needed. The case for more parks in Los Angles is among the most get of any American city today. Only 30 percent of its residents live within a quarter mile of a park, compa red with between 80 percent and 90 percent in Boston and New York, respectively. 3 If these residents are Latino, African American, or Asiatic Pacific, they have even less access to green space. TIP has set a goal of creating 25 new open space projects in Los Angles over the would be invested in undeserved minority communities. To accomplish this goal, TIP will help these communities through the gauntlets of public and esoteric fundraising, real estate transactions, strategic intend, and stewardship issues. Los Angles is also the site of Taps first application of Geographical schooling Systems (GIS) to assess the need for parks.TIP launched the GIS program in late 2001 in Los 9 O The Trust for Public Land Angles and has since expanded the program to New York, Lass Vegas, Boston, Charlotte, Miami, and Camden and Newark, New Jersey. Taps GIS system uses census, anemographic and other data to mapping out areas of high population, concentrated poverty, and lack of access to park sp ace. With GIS technology, TIP can now pinpoint the areas of fastest population growth, study landownership patterns, and need key parcels before development demand reads up property prices or destroys open space.Further, GIS helps TIP create contiguous park space, protecting natural habitats and connecting larger parks with linear greengages, rather than create a oddments quilt of open space. 14 Voters have repeatedly shown their willingness to raise their own taxes to pay for new or improved parks. In the November 2002 elections, voters in 93 communities in 22 states approved ballot measures that committed $2. 9 billion to acquire and restore land for parks and open space.Voters approved 85 percent of such referendums in these elections. 1 5 Voter hold water in 2002 increased from the already strong 75 percent cheers rate for similar measures in November 2001. 16 History of Americas City Parks Inspiration, Abandonment, Revival During the second half of the 19th century, Americ an cities built grand city parks to improve their residents quality of life. Dubbed 19th-century pleasure grounds by ark historians, the parks include New Works Central Park and San Franciscans Golden Gate Park.Municipal officials of the time saw these parks as a refuge from the crowded, polluted, nerve-racking cities-places where citizens could experience fresh air, sunshine, and the spiritually transforming power of nature a place for recreation and a demonstrating public space where rich and poor would mix on equal terms. The new parks were inspired by an anti-urban standard that dwelt on the traditional prescription for relief from the evils of the city-to escape to the country, Galen Crane writes.The new American parks thus were conceived as great pleasure grounds meant to be pieces of the country, with fresh air, meadows, lakes, and sunshine right in the city. 17 The Decline of City Parks spending on city parks declined. The agreeable and white abandoned the cities for the suburbs, taking public funding with them. Cities and their parks fell into a spiral of decay. Cities cut park maintenance funds, parks deteriorated, and crime rose many city dwellers came to view places like Central Park as too dangerous to visit. 18 The suburbs that mushroomed at the edges of major cities were often built with little public park space.For residents of these areas, a trip out of the house means a drive to the shopping mall. Beginning around 1990, many city and town councils began forcing developers to add open space to their projects. Still, these open spaces are often effectively off-limits to the general public in the vast sprawl around Lass Vegas, for example, the newer subdivisions often have open space at their centers, but these spaces are hidden inside a labyrinth of winding streets. Residents of older, low- and middle-income neighborhoods have to get in their cars (if they have one) and drive to find recreation space. 9 More recently, city parks have experie nced something of a renaissance which has benefited cities unequally. The trend began in the asses and flourished in the asses as part of a general renewal of urban areas funded by a strong economy. It coincided with a philosophical shift in urban planning away from designing around the automobile and a backlash against the alien modernism of mid-20th-century public architecture, in favor of public spaces that welcome and engage the community in general and the pedestrian in particular.Government authorities, civic groups, and private agencies around the country have worked together to revivalist UN-down city parks, build greengages along formerly polluted rivers, convert abandoned railroad lines to trails, and plant community gardens in vacant lots. The Park at Post blank space Square in Boston shows how even a small but well-designed open space can transform its surroundings. Before work on the park began in the late asses, the square was filled by an exceptionally ugly concrete parking garage, blighting an important part of the financial district.Many buildings on the square shifted their entrances and addresses to other streets not facing the square. 20 Completed in 1992, the 1. -acre park is considered one of the most beautiful city parks in the United States. Its immaculate landscaping-with 125 species of plants, flowers, bushes, and trees-its half-acre lawn, its fountains, and its teak and granite benches lure throngs of workers during lunchtime on warm days.Hidden underneath is a seven-floor parking garage for 1,400 cars, which provides financial support for the park. 21 It clearly, without any question, has enhanced and changed the entire neighborhood, says Serge Denis, managing director of Lee apex Hotel Boston, which borders the park. Its absolutely gorgeous. Not surprisingly, rooms 11 Yet despite such success stories, local communities often lack the transactional and development skills to effectively acquire property and convert it into park sp ace.TIP serves a vital role in this capacity, working closely with local governments and community residents to determine where parks are needed to help develop funding strategies to negotiate and acquire property to plan the park and develop it and finally, to turn it over to the public. Between 1971 and 2002, the Trust for Public Lands work in cities resulted in the acquisition of 532 properties totaling 40,754 cress. In the nations 50 largest cities TIP acquired 138 properties totaling 7,640 acres. 3 In the wake of the bursting of the economic bubble of the late asses, states and cities facing severe budget crises are slashing their park spending. With a projected $2. 4 billion budget shortfall in the biyearly period beginning July 2003, Minnesota has cut its aid to local governments, pain in the neck city park systems across the state. The Minneapolis Park &038 Recreation Board, confronting a 20 percent cut in its funding through 2004, has been forced to act by deferring main tenance, closing wading lolls and beaches, providing fewer portable toilets, and reducing its mount police patrol program.The required program cuts represent a vast loss to the Minneapolis Park &038 Recreation Board and to the children of Minneapolis, says Park Board super Mary Merrill Anderson. 24 When galliumns state legislature went into session in January 2003, lawmakers engraft themselves grappling with a $650 million budget shortfall. Part of their response was to forfend the planned $30 million in fiscal 2003 funding for the Georgia Community Greengages Program, after appropriating $30 million per fiscal year in 001 and 2002.The legislature also cut the 2004 budget from $30 million to $10 million. The program helps the states fastest-growing counties set aside adequate green space-at least 20 percent of their land-amid all the new subdivisions and strip malls. Most of the affected counties are around Atlanta, among the nations worst examples of urban sprawl. For legislato rs hunting for budget-cutting targets, Georgians $30 million Community Greengages Program was like a buffalo in the middle of a group of chickens, says David Swan, program director for Taps Atlanta office.The cut makes a compelling argument that we need a dedicated funding source, so that green space acquisition isnt depending on fiscal cycles and the legislature. 25 The federal government has also cut its city parks spending. In 1978, the federal government established the Urban Park and Recreation Recovery (PARR) program to help urban areas rehabilitate their recreational facilities. The program received no funding in fiscal year 2003, down from $28. 9 million in both 2001 and 2002. 26 President Bushs budget proposal for fiscal 2004 also allocates no PARR funding.