Environmental concerns, however, tend to be overshadowed by the fears of community members who think that the darkness will encourage illegal or unsafe activities in parks.

Civic Space Park, Phoenix. By Michael Ruiz.

How can park managers and landscape architects use lighting to increase usability and safety without negatively impacting the environment?  Safer Parks After Dark: New night-lighting methods help provide answers for dark sky advocates, an article originally published in the November 2011 issue of Landscape Architecture Magazine, explores this multifaceted issue and finds that economically feasible solutions can be achieved using new technology and careful planning.

“We selected Hudson River Park for recognition because it exemplifies the power of public-private partnerships to create and maintain urban parks that build community and make our cities sustainable and vibrant,” said Catherine Nagel, Executive Director of City Parks Alliance.  “We hope that by shining the spotlight on this park that we can raise awareness about both the necessity and the promise of these kinds of partnerships to spur investment in our nation’s urban parks.”

“Hudson River Park is the realization of more than a decade of work to restore Manhattan’s waterfront into a true community resource and model for public projects,” said A.J. Pietrantone, Executive Director of Friends of Hudson River Park, “We are proud to be selected as a Frontline Park, a testament to the positive results that come from partnerships between citizens and city government.”

Pier 45 before renovation

Hudson River Park stretches the five miles from Battery Park City to 59th Street, making it the second largest waterfront park in the nation and the largest open space project in Manhattan since Central Park was completed. It is the first in a series of waterfront revitalization efforts in New York, and is currently one of the most visited urban parks in North America.

“It is an honor to receive recognition from the City Parks Alliance for innovation and leadership in this field,” said Madelyn Wils, President and CEO of Hudson River Park Trust. “As the first project of its kind, Hudson River Park provides an exciting glimpse at what the future holds for all of the City’s waterfront parks.”

The renovation of Hudson River Park has improved quality of life on Manhattan’s West Side, helped spur the boom of families living downtown, and served as a catalyst for economic development in surrounding neighborhoods. For instance, over the past decade, there has been $3 billion in new construction in the blocks surrounding the Park.

In total, more than 17 million residents and tourists take advantage of the bike path, walkway and  piers, enjoy a cruise, or attend a concert each year. More than 7,500 children a year participate in the Park’s free educational programming and almost 120 different organizations use its recreation fields.

“It’s hard to overstate the impact of Hudson River Park on the city’s waterfront and on the quality of life of the park’s neighbors,” said Hudson River Park Trust Chair Diana L. Taylor. “Once a dilapidated remnant of New York’s industrial past, the Hudson River waterfront is now a blue and green playground for the whole city to enjoy.”

Pier 45 after renovation

Hudson River Park is being featured on CPA’s website during the month of January.

The “Frontline Parks” program is made possible with generous support from DuMor, Inc. and PlayCore.

Much of this progress would not have been possible, however, without essential funding from the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF), the nation’s primary tool for protecting open space in urban and rural communities nationwide. Denver, like cities across the country, relies on the fund to match state and local dollars to create and enhance urban parks and restore waterways.

Instead of using taxpayer money, the little-known LWCF is funded with fees paid by oil and gas companies drilling offshore. For nearly 50 years, the fund has protected national parks, wildlife refuges, rivers, parks, and ball fields in every state.

“The Land and Water Conservation Fund continues to be an essential tool to meet the increasing demand for livable communities in cities all across this country,” Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock said recently. “In Denver, we value our great open spaces and recreational facilities. These investments are as much economic investments for the city as they are quality of life investments for our residents. “

Denver isn’t alone. Recognizing the importance of parks to the vitality and health of their communities, 50 U.S. mayors joined Mayor Hancock in appealing recently to President Obama and Congress to maintain funding for LWCF during these difficult economic times.

With cities facing depressed property values, reduced tourism, and lower tax revenues, urban parks have incurred approximately $6 billion in deferred maintenance costs, according to Will Rogers, president of The Trust for Public Land. Newly released data from TPL’s Center for City Parks Excellence show that many city park systems are struggling to deal with budget shortfalls, resulting in fewer people employed in full-time and seasonal positions, and potential impacts on programs and services.

At a time when the nation is looking for every opportunity to create new jobs, mayors assert that parks are just as important to a city’s prosperity as banks, coffee shops, department stores, and corporate headquarters. In addition to luring tourists, parks bolster community home values. Mayors know that could mean more real estate tax revenue.

Furthermore, parks breathe life into communities. Urban parks are not just safe and beautiful retreats, but also help to address nearly every critical urban need from health to housing, education and environmental justice, countering sprawl, and combating crime.

Just last month, Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa announced a plan to create dozens of new parks throughout the city. The initiative is part of his goal to create a livable, vibrant and prosperous community, and at the same time drive economic development and create new jobs.

“Urban parks are more important than ever as cities grow larger and denser,” said Rogers. “Though budgets are tight everywhere, urban parks have consistently proven to be a wise investment, helping to improve health, increase environmental quality, and sustain property values.”

Are President Obama and Congress listening? Working together, we can revitalize and green our cities and create jobs. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is an essential tool for realizing that vision.

-  Catherine Nagel, Executive Director of the City Parks Alliance

This article was originally published in “The Hill” on December 20, 2011.

The typical organization sponsors 60 programs each year and provides park maintenance, volunteer recruitment, and other key functions. These parks are resourceful in securing funding, spending an average of $160,000 per acre managed, but real estate value capture remains a substantial, often untapped opportunity to support signature city parks.

To read the full report, click here: Signature Park Survey

2011 City Park Facts

Despite aggregate increases in acreage and facilities across the U.S., many city park departments are struggling with funding shortages. Operational spending shrank by 0.6 percent overall, with close to half of cities experiencing cuts.  Full-time employee counts fell by 3.9 percent, a loss of 935 jobs nationwide. The impact on seasonal jobs was particularly severe, with a decrease of 11.04 percent, or more than 8,000 jobs. Overall though, the rate of employment cuts has slowed since the previous year, which witnessed a 7 percent drop in employment.

The 22,493 city parks profiled in the report serve 62 million urban residents with a wide array of facilities, including 419 public golf courses, 569 dog parks, 9,633 ball diamonds, 11,678 playgrounds, and 14,415 basketball hoops.

Budgets grew slightly overall, but not enough to sustain jobs or overcome increasing – and often deferred – maintenance costs. Peter Harnik, director of the Center for City Park Excellence, noted that “cities are still saddled with a reported $5.8 billion in deferred repairs and improvements.” That figure is only slightly smaller than the total parks expenditure of the 92 cities that provided financial data for FY 2009, which equaled $6.1 billion.

The enthusiasm for great parks among city dwellers hasn’t suffered. Nearly half the primary park and recreation agencies reported more than 1 million visits during the year, and 14 boasted more than 10 million annual visits. Topping the list were New York (123 million visits), San Diego (72.3 million), and Chicago (50 million). Park directors welcome this popularity, though heavy usership can also be a burden, with 1,261 parks categorized as “overused.”

Madison, Wisconsin has the most parks per capita, with 12.7 per 10,000 residents, followed by Cincinnati, St. Petersburg, Anchorage, and Buffalo. Madison also has more playgrounds per capita than any other city, with seven for every 10,000 residents. The next five are Virginia Beach, Corpus Christi, Cincinnati, and Norfolk.

For the set of cities which provided data in both FY 2009 and FY 2010, the only major facility type to decrease in number was swimming pools, dropping from 1,337 to 1,227.

There are almost 20,000 community garden plots in the parks of the 100 largest cities. Despite being two of the coldest cities, St. Paul, Minnesota and Madison, Wisconsin were tops in the number of garden sites per 10,000 residents, with 35.6 and 32.9, respectively.

Spread-out cities such as Anchorage and Albuquerque usually offer the most park acreage per resident. Older, denser cities that still manage to offer residents large swaths of open space include Minneapolis (13.3 acres per 1,000 residents), Oakland, Washington, D.C., and Seattle. But operating quality parkland in dense cities does not come cheap – Minneapolis, Washington, D.C., and Seattle each spent $200 or more per resident, compared to a median of $84.

Read the entire 2011 City Park Facts report here.

Twelve parks – one each month – will be featured on CPA’s website home page in 2012.  Each “Frontline Park” story will show how parks and their stewards are on the forefront of creating healthier, more sustainable cities.  With each month’s feature, CPA will coordinate with each park partner a joint press release for local, national, and social media to announce their selection as a “Frontline Park.”  Featured parks will also be included in CPA’s quarterly e-newsletter Benchmarks distributed to hundreds of CPA members and on the City Parks blog.

We are looking for the best stories.  Is there a non-traditional leader who has helped to bring about change in your local park?  How has park programming helped to address pressing urban issues, such as public health, job creation or community revitalization?  Have you done something really fun and innovative to increase revenue, cultivate volunteers or educate young people?  How did a crisis create an opportunity to build a new partnership?  Stories should be related to one or more of the following topics:

• Community Capacity Building
• Design
• Economic Development
• Education
• Environment
• Funding
• Health
• Maintenance
• Programming
• Public/Private Partnerships
• Safety
• Transportation
• Workforce Development

For more information about application guidelines, please click here: Frontline Park Nominations

Civic Center Park
Civic Center is the primary green space in the center of Denver, and as such, it serves as both regional and neighborhood park.  The urban park hosts the Rocky Mountain region’s largest public festivals, political rallies, and public celebrations.  The neo-classical architecture in the park provides the perfect backdrop to one of the city’s largest public art collections.  Surrounded by the City County Building, Colorado State Capitol, Greek Theater, Voorhies Memorial and the McNichols Building (formerly the Carnegie Library), its importance is recognized by the National Register of Historic Places and the Civic Center Historic District, a Denver Landmark District.  The experience is a draw for hundreds of thousands of tourists each year.

Civic Center

In 2005, a comprehensive master plan was adopted for the park, which recommended the formation of a non-profit organization, the Civic Center Conservancy.  The public-private partnership has grown significantly through passionate volunteerism to restore, enhance and activate Denver’s historic Civic Center.  In 2007, the Better Denver Bond invested $9.5 million in the complete rehabilitation of the park’s historic structures.

Rotary Centennial Park
Long Beach’s Rotary Centennial Park has been called a “ribbon of green” due to the contrast of its colorful landscaping and art elements against the monotones of apartments that surround it. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of Rotary International in 2005, the Long Beach Rotary Club raised $100,000 to help design and construct a 1.2-acre park at Pacific Coast Highway and Junipero Avenue. This city-owned undeveloped land along the former Pacific Electric right-of-way is surrounded by a densely developed area with nearly 80 percent of the residents living in apartments with no backyards.

Before & After

Long Beach Rotary involved the public and stakeholders throughout the design process.  Community input was translated into plans that incorporated a solar system theme with art installations of planets, a sundial sculpture, benches, turf, trees, playground equipment, and a shade shelter. These creative elements have made Rotary Centennial Park one of the most unique and inviting parks in the city and a welcome addition to a park-poor neighborhood.  The Rotary’s involvement didn’t stop with the park’s creation.  Every month since the park opening, Long Beach Rotarians have held work parties to help clean, repair and maintain the park.

Frontline Parks is generously supported by DuMor, Inc. and PlayCore.

The letter notes the significant economic impact these venues have had on local economics:

“Outdoor recreation activities contribute $730 billion annually to the U.S. economy, supporting 6.5 million jobs, according to the Outdoor Industry Foundation. New investments in parks could quickly create an added 100,000 to 200,000 positions—jobs based largely in communities and, thus, hard to outsource.”

The President’s proposed FY2012 budget recommends full funding for LWCF, including $200 million for matching grants to states and communities. The LWCF does not rely on taxpayer dollars, but rather on a very small percentage of fees paid by companies conducting offshore oil and gas production. Congress must appropriate the funds every year to parks. However, nearly every year since 1965—when the LWCF was created—lawmakers have largely diverted the funds to other, non-related purposes.

The mayors’ letter came just a week after U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar identified many renowned urban parks as places to create and protect in the final 50-State America’s Great Outdoors Report—a compilation of public feedback and strategic conversations with the nation’s governors and diverse stakeholders about locally-driven conservation opportunities. City parks in Cleveland, Detroit, Hampton, Va., Philadelphia and Pittsburgh were among the projects highlighted in the report representing “a 21st Century approach to conservation that is designed by and accomplished in partnership with the American people.” Research shows that urban parks help to drive tourism, raise property values, and help communities to thrive. A new study of Chicago’s Millennium Park, for example, concludes that the cultural, environmental, educational and economic benefits to the city quadrupled the value of the public-private investment in the space.

“Cities are the engines that drive the nation’s economy,” said Catherine Nagel, executive director of the City Parks Alliance, an independent, nationwide organization dedicated to urban parks. “Parks and green space are critical to helping our cities become healthier and more vibrant places to live and work, and the leadership of the president and Congress is critical to keeping this engine running.”

For 45 years, the Land and Water Conservation Fund has been a crucial source of support to conserve open space and water resources, while also funding new parks, trails, and recreational facilities in urban and rural communities.

“The Land and Water Conservation Fund continues to be an essential tool to meet the increasing demand for livable communities in cities all across this country,” said Denver Mayor Michael B. Hancock. “In Denver, we value our great opens spaces and recreational facilities. These investments are as much economic investments for the city as they are quality of life investments for our residents. I applaud the President for his commitment and proudly sign the letter encouraging his continued support.”

President Obama acknowledged the importance of urban parks and open space and his support for the Fund when he released the America’s Great Outdoors report, saying:

“They help spur the economy. They create jobs by putting more Americans back to work in tourism and recreation. …They help Americans stay healthier by making it easier to spend time outside. And they’ll help carry forth our legacy as a people who don’t just make decisions based on short-term gains of any one group but on what’s best for the entire nation in the long run.”

The mayors, along with the City Parks Alliance, believe Congress should provide consistent funding for LWCF and not divert these funds for other purposes—a sentiment echoed by nine in 10 Americans, according to recent national polling.

You can read a copy of the mayors’ letter and a list of signees here.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 30 percent of Americans are fully sedentary. They are not all obese, of course, but lack of exercise is certainly a risk factor for being overweight. On average, an obese American racks up nearly $1,500 more per year in health care costs than an American of normal weight, for a national total of $147 billion in direct medical expenses.

Urban park facilities are a resource to help city-dwellers be active. As Jason Cissell, administrator of community relations of Louisville Metro Parks puts it, “we’re the largest gym in the city, and we’re free!” But the system only works if people know about it. A 2002 study for the American Journal of Preventative Medicine showed that community-wide fitness campaigns can help, succeeding in encouraging, on average, 4.2 percent of residents to begin engaging in regular physical activity.

If even one in ten of those newly active people transitions from obesity to a healthy weight, medical costs would fall by $6.30 for each man, woman and child in the city per year. In Washington, D.C., with 600,000 residents, that translates to $3.7 million – an amount that dwarfs what is spent on park marketing in Washington.  In fact, that is more than the country’s largest park marketing budget, the $2.7 million spent by the Chicago Park District (for a city of 2.8 million people).  Compared to expected benefits, every city park marketing effort in the country is underfunded.

San Antonio's marketing effort set the standard for cost efficiency. Credit: San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department.

In July 2009, San Antonio, Texas launched a marketing campaign that must have set a record for frugality. The city-wide, multi-media “Get Active. Get Fit. Step Up to Recreation” campaign cost only $28,000, thanks to the use of public service placement rather than paid advertising and the use of city officials and local athletes instead of paid actors. To stir excitement the department used prizes as rewards, handing out free “Step Up to Recreation” water bottles and tee shirts. But since there’s no money to count users, it’s not known if the campaign actually increased park use or fitness.

Louisville's parks and health departments cooperated to raise awareness of the city's "best parks for exercise." Credit: Louisville Metro Parks.

The truth is that marketing parks is too difficult, too expensive and too important to be left only to park and recreation agencies.  The effort needs and deserves to be a partnership between the parks community – with its land and facilities – and the health community – with its science, its funding and its outreach. A few of these partnerships do exist, but they are challenging enough to require strong leadership from above. In Louisville, where Mayor Jerry Abramson was determined to combat Louisville’s high levels of obesity and inactivity, Metro Parks joined with the Department of Health and Well-Being to launch the “Healthy Hometown Movement” in September 2009. The city-wide initiative encourages citizens to get 30 minutes of physical activity at least five times per week. The health department, going further to focus on the eight neighborhoods with the most serious obesity-related risks, granted Metro Parks $25,000 to provide free fitness classes in recreation centers.

The powerful and well-heeled insurance industry has not yet done much cross-marketing with parks, but United Healthcare may be the harbinger of a new approach, having partnered with the City of Denver, Colorado to advertise parks. The company gave the Department of Parks and Recreation $60,000 to print and distribute 75,000 copies of its programming guides, more than three times the number printed in 2008. In addition to recreation centers, libraries and the Sunday Denver Post, the guides are distributed in United Healthcare offices.

With Colorado boasting the lowest obesity rate in the nation, it is either ironic or emblematic that this kind of partnership is coming out of Denver. Regardless, it is the kind of creativity that park departments, health departments and mayors will increasingly utilize in the future: according to The Trust for Public Land’s analysis of 2008 (the most recent year available), the marketing budgets of city park agencies fell by another 11 percent.

The full text of this article, which ran in the August 2010 issue of Parks & Recreation magazine, can be accessed through The Trust for Public Land.

According to Coletta, “58 percent of a city’s economic success can be attributed to the percentage of the adult population with a college degree. In Chicago, there is a $7.2 billion annual increase in personal income when college attainment rises by one percentage point. This is greater than the payroll of the largest employer in the city.”

In New York, according to Dr. Nancy L. Zimpher, Chancellor of SUNY and Chair of the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, “for every one percentage point increase in college graduation rate of the city’s population, New Yorkers will earn an additional $17.5 billion each year.”

CEOs for Cities believes there are three driving factors that influence the growth of cities: quality of talent, quality of place and quality of opportunity. We at City Parks Blog are most interested in quality of place, the parks and green spaces that attract and retain people to cities in the first place. The Center for City Park Excellence has identified seven measurable attributes of city park systems – property value, tourism, direct use, health, community cohesion, clean water, and clean air – that provide economic value to municipalities. These economic value studies have been done in 10 cities and two counties across the country.

It would be interesting to see if there is a direct link between college attainment and the quality of urban park systems. The idea is that more college graduates in a city could lead to more advocates for parks, which in turn leads to more funding and stewardship for parks, thus creating an overall stronger and healthier park system.

CEOs for Cites and its partners will host a launch event for cities that register for the Talent Dividend Prize competition on May 10, 2011 in Chicago, and the winner will be announced in September 2014.

The Talent Dividend Prize competition is open to all U.S. cities with a metropolitan population of 500,000, or the largest metropolitan area in a state based on 2009 American Community Survey data. (This equates to 108 municipalities.) Each metropolitan area is required to register and submit annual documentation of its educational attainment efforts in order to be considered for the prize.

Eligible cities may register here. As of Friday, four cities had completed the application: Little Rock, Louisville, Memphis and Milwaukee. Twenty-five other cities have begun the application process.

Urban leaders from any sector are eligible to register; however, each city is required to appoint a key liaison and a 6-8 member advisory panel composed of leaders from multiple sectors.

CEOs for Cities is a national network of urban leaders who are committed to sustaining and advancing the greatness of America’s cities. The group conducts research and advocacy and develops strategic partnerships on behalf of urban centers.

The prize competition is an outgrowth of City Dividends, CEOs for Cities research that calculated the monetary value to cities and the nation of increasing college attainment rates by one percentage point (Talent Dividend); reducing vehicle miles traveled by one mile per person every day (Green Dividend); and reducing poverty rates by one percentage point (Opportunity Dividend).

The Talent Dividend Prize competition is supported by The Kresge Foundation and Lumina Foundation for Education. Registration for the prize is now open and will close on May 1, 2011.