Chicago loses ground in U.S. public park rankings

Why it matters: Parks confer a wealth of benefits — including, as TPL points out in its latest annual report, significant health boosts.

• Parks offer spaces for physical activity and social gatherings, improve visitors' moods, and provide city dwellers a reprieve from noise and air pollution and the effects of climate change.
• Residents of the top 25 cities awarded a "ParkScore" are less likely to report poor mental health or low physical activity, per TPL's latest report.

Methodology: A city's "ParkScore" is determined by a variety of metrics, including the percentage of residents who live near a park, the share of city land reserved for parks, parks investment and more.

By the numbers: Chicago scored 98 for access, 80 for investment, 64 for amenities and 89 for equity.

Yes, but: The TPL says Chicago's score was also dinged by a drop in park investment, calculated by public and private spending. Chicago saw total per capita park spending fall from $182 a person in 2022 to $178 a person in 2023.

• We notched a paltry 32 for acreage. Our parks average 2.2 acres, compared with the national average of 5.4 acres.

Details: The study says 98% of Chicagoans live within a 10-minute walk to at least one of the city's 1,249 parks.

• Chicago's Latino neighborhoods have the least access to parks, 39% less than the city median.

The big picture: At a national level, parks spending still hasn't recovered to pre-Great Recession levels, says TPL senior director for strategy and innovation Linda Hwang.

• But that's largely driven by the country's biggest cities — by contrast, many midsize cities are increasing their parks spending.

What they're saying: "Memphis stands out," Hwang tells Axios. "They're a great example in that they have [made] significant public and private investment in recent years."

• One concern, Hwang added, is that many parks departments are still recovering from COVID-19's impact, as well as dealing with maintenance backlogs.
• Access also remains a troublesome issue: Nationally, residents of predominantly non-white neighborhoods have access to 43% less park space per person than residents of predominantly white neighborhoods.

The intrigue: Cities increasingly view their parks and parks departments through a public health lens, says Howard Frumkin, TPL senior vice president and director of the Land and People Lab.

• "Simply defining parks as part of the public health infrastructure of a community, and then steering some health dollars towards the parks because they're healthy, is a really interesting innovation," Frumkin tells Axios.
• "And it's not rare — it's getting more and more common."

Reality check: Not every city park is a multi-acre Olmstedian masterpiece — yet even diminutive "pocket parks" and community garden lots confer physical, mental and social benefits, especially if you can walk to them.

• "If there's a pocket park with no sports facilities at all, but I walked 12 minutes to get there and I walk 12 minutes home, I've got my 24 minutes of moderate activity for that day," Frumkin says.

What's next: TPL's report offers a bevy of recommendations for cities looking to boost their ParkScore, including expanding access (through better public transportation, for instance), starting drop-in sports programs, and exploring innovative partnerships with local health care organizations.

The bottom line: "Parks in the past were like, 'Well, I've just got to prune the trees, mow the grass, take the trash out, keep the bathrooms clean, and we're good,'" says Hwang.

• "And they have to do all that — but now there's a level of sophistication that we just haven't seen and a better understanding of what people need in their neighborhoods."