How New Orleans' parks compare with the rest of the country
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Audubon Park in 2020, located in a predominantly white, high-income neighborhood. Photo: Sophia Germer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
New Orleans residents can walk to a public park easier than the average person nationwide.
- But the city's high-income and white residents have access to disproportionately more total park acreage.
Driving the news: The Crescent City ranks 32nd among the 100 largest U.S. cities for its public parks, per the latest report from the Trust for Public Land, a pro-parks nonprofit.
- The group rates cities on 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. Cities are then awarded a "ParkScore."
Details: 80% of New Orleans residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park, the nonprofit found — higher than the 74% median for the country's most populous cities.
- New Orleans' park access is roughly equal among high, middle and low-income residents.
Yes, but: When it comes to total park space, the city sees major disparities. Neighborhoods with high concentrations of white people have access to 140% more park space than average — the highest of any racial/ethnic group.
- Neighborhoods with high concentrations of Black residents have just 25% more.
- High-income neighborhoods have 109% more park space than the city average, while low-income neighborhoods have 31% more.
Zoom in: The nonprofit's map of New Orleans' parks shows that New Orleans East has the biggest need for more park space, followed by Algiers, Gentilly, the Lower 9th Ward and parts of the Carrollton area.
Why it matters: Parks confer a wealth of benefits — including, as TPL points out in its latest annual report, significant health boosts.
- Residents of the top 25 cities by ParkScore are less likely to report poor mental health or low physical activity, per TPL's latest report.
By the numbers: The Crescent City scored 70 out of 100 for access, 56 for acreage, 76 for investment, 35 for amenities and 52 for equity.
- New Orleans' government and agencies spent $264 on parks per capita in 2022 — more than double the national average of $108.
The intrigue: Cities increasingly view their 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 park is a multiacre Olmstedian masterpiece like New Orleans City Park — yet even diminutive "pocket parks" and community garden lots confer physical, mental and social benefits.
- "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 TPL senior director for strategy and innovation Linda 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."