Parks- how useful are they?

I'm not looking to piss anyone off but I'm doing some research for a class and I'm not sure how to approach it.

What functions do you think parks play in communities? Is there any quantitative data that backs up the idea that parks are beneficial. I'm thinking along the lines of smaller parks in the city as apposed to the huge parks that have like 10 soccer fields or something.

I'd love hear your opinions.

they get.

Picnic areas for large groups, playground equipment out of my price range, ducks to feed but not have to care for :-), nature trails, etc. One place I like putting my tax money.

more oxygen from more plant life

space for city-dwellers to get away from the city while still being in the city

space for children to play away from traffic



Also, keep in mind the idea of intrinsic value - that the park has value apart from human use, but not sure this is the way you want to go with this.

that I've run into a lot of people that say that parks are great for the community but I don't know if I buy in to that. What is a park going to do to help a crappy community?

of the "everything must make us money" mindset that is destroying us slowly. Just go there, relax, and enjoy the space and greenery.

In many Inner-City communities, especially the lower income ones, many if not most of the residents live in Apartments or small homes with no real yard. In these communities the children don't have anywhere else to get outside and play. Without the parks in these "crappy" communities, the children will have nothing to do all day except either sit in front of the T.V. (creates fat, unhealthy kids) or play in the street (creates dead kids).

In more upscale communities, the parks are primarily used for stress relief. I know that I was healthier when I lived close to a park.

What I'm getting at is that the benefits of a community park really depend on the community. I would suggest that for your report, look at the types of communities (inner-city, upscale, lower income, suburban, etc...) and then determine what sort of benefit they receive.

To be fair, in many communities, the parks are a great place for "the local criminal element" to get together and cause trouble. So they can be both beneficial and non-beneficial for the same reasons.

I have read about rundown communities where someone fixed up just one vacant lot and made it into a garden, a park, benches, whatever. And suddenly flower boxes appeared in the windows along the street and people began cleaning up and painting. So there is an emotional component. I think that a lot of people wouldn't live in NYC without Central Park. It is a spiritual thing. If you add a community garden to a park, it creates an entirely different element. Gardens are all about planning in the winter, the joy of spring and growing, exercise...life. I could go on and on.

Plus, a park in an urban area provides places for squirrels and birds and foxes and racoons and possums and these may well be the only wildlife people see.

I remember reading about the importance of nature in our lives in a book..I can't remember the name! Something about the Soul, and there was a CD put out with it. How helpful is THAT? ..sorry. I might remember later.

And of course, oxygen...and...visually. Well, you just can't get any more important than the visual elements. Our eyes and brains NEED the texture..the lines...the patterns. The light and dark and the contrast. And the smell. And the dirt. Dirt Rocks! And birds! Oh, I said that.

Also, in the city, where would kids play without parks? We need more parks. Water parks, skate parks, hiking parks, garden parks, camping parks..

Oh..the book. It is called Care of the Soul by Thomas Moore

I think you need to clarify, or be specific.

That's important for good health.


Along this line, I grew up in a city of 100,000 in a rural area. There were no public parks except for a complex of softball fields. So, we were surrounded by "the good earth" but the only people who could enjoy it were people who owned land somewhere outside the city. The city finally developed a riverfront and you would not believe the opposition it got. But the last time I was down there, I saw lots of people - black, white, young, old - co-mingling and enjoying the space.

but I think if you go to the mags that do the stats and ratings on best places to live, best places to raise kids etc. you'll find that no. of parks or acres in parkland/population ratios are used. Parks here are fabulous...river walks, canyons, great scenery....wouldn't live here without them.

so i guess it's clear in case of widespread destruction of housing units, the parks are providing a huge benefit even to "crappy" -- i think it's fair to say that having your neighborhood knocked down is "crappy" -- communities

people who don't like parks are usually people who believe that anyone who goes outdoors & hangs out in a park is a drug dealer & that goes double if you happen to be a black person in the park so i have little patience w. the anti-park sentiment

people who live in apartments deserve a place to get outdoors, barbecue, exercise, see birds and other small wildlife, just as much as the rich person with thousands of acres of personal property

i think the burden of proof is on you, since there are too many benefits of parks to even type them all, but the only arguments you ever hear against them are from anti-minority & anti-youth type NIMBYs

how is a park hurting the community? allergic to flowers or something?

:-).

Animals are very important to me. A park is important to me because I take my dog there to run and play.

....grandbaby.

Poppa knows every park in the four corners of this community....he takes the little guy to neighborhood parks so the baby gets a chance to play with other children and it gives poppa a chance to interact with others in small groups... parents, caregivers and grandparents...and the parks here are safe and beautiful and are free entertainment..... (yes, I know we pay taxes)

Many of these same children will be attending preschool and schools with the baby in the future. Starting to socialize this little guy on a daily basis is a gift a retired grandpa can give to his grandson.


Tikki

in no particular order

Parks provide safe places for recreation. Often making possible recreation otherwise generally not available within the domain of private residences of urban or suburban neighborhoods...
Swimming and diving, sledding, skate-boarding arenas, baseball and other fields, etc.

Parks provide memorials or preserved sites that build a sense of history and community.

Parks generally increase the value of residential properties in their vicinity.

Built along rivers can alleviate damage to flooding.

Parks can serve as buffers between dramatic changes in land use. Thus softening the impact that would be present when industrial and residential land uses share a border.

Similarly parks provide noise barriers along highways.

Parks can provide protection and local access to native plant species.

Parks can preserve features of geologic or geographic importance

"safe parks" (kind of like Maslow's Need Hierarchy) do increase residential real estate values.

Concrete on the other hand, does not produce this required product needed for life on earth.

are occupied exclusively by the homeless. the city is the poorer for it. one tends to feel uncomfortable spending time in someone else's yard, especially when they're drunk or whacked out of their gourd on crack or heroin.

but, do we need more parks, or less homeless?

Between Hoover and Reagan we had very little homelessness and usually it was confined to areas known as skid row areas. Even very poor people could manage to find some kind of affordable shelter for themselves. That all changed with Reagan when all the mentally ill, old vets and other marginally functional people were thrown out in the streets because funding for the various programs they were under was cut off to give tax breaks to the rich.

do we put individual taxpaying homeowners on the hook for solving a nationwide, federal issue?

i say no.

cut the pentagon in half & build SROs

But if our leaders don't get together and put all solutions on the table, to come up with a plan, nothing will happen.

I think the property taxes should be increased on second homes and people who have homes here from out of state. Even Warren Buffett said that his property taxes in his home state were more than on his properties in California.

My area is dotted with vacation homes that go empty most of the year and we have working homeless in my area. We have arab sheiks who keep million dollar properties in Beverly Hills, yet they only pay the 2% taxes everyone else pays. Please they need to pay higher property taxes. These people can well afford the extra taxes on their vacation homes, condos, and second homes in our states, IMHO.

Grass is a wonderful plant for pulling carbon out of the air. Trees are excellent, too, and serve as sound barriers and temperature regulators. (Compare daily temp readings from the older sections of towns like Phoenix, which have trees, to the newer burb claves, which have these little baby things to see what I mean.)

Smaller parks give a sense of openness that those of us who live in more dense housing are often missing. Psychologically, open space is relaxing for most people, thus parks serve a calming function in a stressful community.

Google urban planning parks psychological - you should come up with a few hits that will have substantive data

green things like trees help lessen pollution. They use up carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. Grass and other plants act like a sponge in the rain to prevent flooding if there is too much concrete around. Plants also help prevent erosion. Trees not only provide shade but can lower hot temperatures if there is enough of them. Trees also act as windbreaks.

I think every city should plant as many parks even narrow ones down the middle of a street to make a place pleasant and livable. Also, the wild critters that adopt parks as their homes can make people more cheerful with their presence. Even planting trees alongside roads makes the environment much friendlier for the reasons I stated above.

Also, parks are good places to take children and pets to play and have a picnic on a nice day to enjoy the outdoors.

there's your title, I can't help you with the rest.

There's a lot of good points in this thread, but I don't think anyone has mentioned water. Greenbelts/parks and other non-paved over parts of cities help protect the paved over and developed portions in that when it rains, the water cannot be absorbed by cement which causes more and worse flash flooding.

edit: commas

the lungs our our cities." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Not to mention, that every city has it's own zoning laws, and a percentage of the land, MUST be designated for "buffer zones",and "Green Zones". Cities and towns are laid out in "plats" and the zoning boards must allow for community "highest and best" use for it's parklands. I was a Realtor before I retired, and this is one of the things that I retained. I dont think MAN could survive in a totally CONCRETE JUNGLE!

the person asking the question might also find Robert Kennedy Jr's writings about the history of the "public commons" of interest. I believe that "Crimes Against Nature" has some things worth reading.

Parks and other bits of public land are a place a person can be -- you can hang out all day and not owe a dime, or anything else, to anyone. I support parks on that basis alone: that they're NOT private.

Greenness certainly adds to property values. I'd pay more for a house near a park where I could take a picnic.

They are a place to meet your neighbors, so they add to a sense of community -- they are a shared asset.

a survey (the wider the better) to find out what percentage of people think they are beneficial. It's a fairly subjective thing...like art, in a way - most everyone who likes art does so without being able to say specifically -why-, if you see what I'm getting at, not saying it very well extemporaneously though...
;-)

green spaces are in urban settings. Even if they never set foot in a park they are benefitting from the work the plants and trees are doing to make their environment healthier and more pleasant. I think taking a survey of horticulturalists, botanists and city plannerw would be better because they would be better informed.

That's a good place to start, since he is considered a very influencial figure in American urban and landscape design.

edit: consider investigating park projects in other cities like Chicago, Boston, and New Orleans.

In terms of the more natural parks that we have throughout the nation. I live in a large urban city. The parks we have still protect wildlife and trails that we can explore. As a family its a great thing to be able to picnic, camp, and hike through untouched terrain. The soccer fields? They serve a purpose as well. Not the same purpose as the more natural parks, but they do serve a purpose. Its more like apples and oranges. You don't go to a soccer field to hike and see deer. And you don't go to a wild park to play soccer. I think they both offer different views of living. One more urban, the other more focused on nature.

"The Chosen City" by Nicholas Schoon and Jane Jacobs' classic "The Life and Death of American Cities: The Failure of Town Planning" all have extensive material on the very real economic benefits of high-quality community parks - many small local parks within walking distance, and a few huge parks.

Their benefits are hard to quantify, but are well known. They increase what is known as "social capital", whcih is sorely missing from America cities. Social capital is the sense of ownership and pride that comes from sharing a common amenity, and also the informal links built up by people linking through use of that amenity. Parks stimulate community involvement and promote interaction between neighbours. If well maintained, they actively reduce crime by encouraging people to walk rather than drive, improve local health, foster community involvement, raise property prices, improve the prospects of children and beautify areas.

Need any more?

Edit: typo

during the last few years.

See http://www.wallacefoundation.org/WF/KnowledgeCenter/KnowledgeTopics/Parks/ThePublicValueofUrbanParks.htm :

"The Public Value of Urban Parks

Download PDF Now (1350KB)

Summary:

Parks have long been recognized as major contributors to the physical and aesthetic quality of urban neighborhoods. But a new, broader view of parks has emerged. It focuses on parks as valuable contributors to larger urban policy objectives, such as job opportunities, youth development, public health, and community building. This first in a series of policy briefs reviews the traditional view and explains how parks are claiming new attention for their broader potential, how they are building new partnerships to strengthen their communities in these broader ways, and how public support for parks increases as they expand their role.

Related Links

City parks can play a broader role than traditionally understood in advancing urban policy objectives, three briefs from the Urban Institute conclude."

Sometimes places are set aside because they are unique in some way: unique habitat, some historical significance. I think parks are important as places people can go, even if they never do. Cities need parks because all that concrete has to be hard on the nerves of people. Everyone needs green spaces no matter how "urban" they might be. I like the idea of setting aside places just for the hell of it. Because there have to be places that are undeveloped.

Dogs need parks.

neighborhood where I have to get in a car and drive to a park.

Never again. That is my #1 priority for my next neighborhood, that I'm able to walk (and bike) safely to a common space where I can not only experience nature but be with other people from other neighborhoods who are there to enjoy it.

Landlocked subdivisions are TEH SUCK!

Parks, like many other public investments, more than pay for themselves.

Unfortunately, they pay nearby landowners, rather than the public that paid for the park.

Research has shown (sorry no links) that if Central Park in Manhattan were sold and developed, the overall value of property in Manhatton would DECREASE, rather than increase.

To correct the problem of paying the wrong people (for parks, schools, firestations, roads, subways, etc.), localities need to recapture the value they add to real estate. They may do this by simply exempting building values from their existing property tax, and raising it.

You might want to check into some of the literature on ecological valuation (ecosystem services such as drainage system protection) -- I think Robert Costanza at the U of Maryland has been looking into some of this. Just from a practical urban design standpoint, parks break up potentially-hazardous "urban heat islands" and make summers more tolerable. Plus, it saves on energy costs for air conditioning, as the DOE study on Los Angeles found. (Even small amounts of greenspace, "pocket parks" and undeveloped strips and corners, can help.) Tim Oke at the University of British Columbia, and many others since then, have done work on urban climates and parkland. There is also the natural hazards issue. The more pavement in a watershed, the greater the peak (and frequency) of flooding. It also hits very soon after rainfall, so there is little warning. Greenspace in a watershed delays the flooding and makes it less dangerous, by soaking up and detaining the outflow. And then there's the carbon sequestration function (discussed in earlier posts).

From a health/recreational viewpoint, parks which have been developed in some way (trails, play facilities, etc.) can help make neighborhoods healthier. If people have free access to parkland, they have the incentive to exercise more. Saanich BC and Hamilton Ontario have both used the development of public parkland (connecting the city with commuter trails) to decrease car use, increase a sense of community, and encourage healthy habits.
(Another bonus of having some parks which are outfitted like this is that it decreases the pressure on areas which were set up for habitat preservation -- if there is a dedicated mountain-biking area, there won't be as much damage to areas which are needed to preserve biodiversity.)

From a cultural/aesthetic viewpoint ... First Lady Johnson did lots of activist work on how important it is for everyone, especially poor people and those in urban environments, to have pleasant and enjoyable surroundings. Besides the health benefits, there is the feeling of community, and the belief that everyone is a valued and worthy citizen -- not a potential danger or a burden. I work for a man (a professor named J.D. Porteous) who has written a book on these issues, "Environmental Aesthetics". He draws on a number of quantitative studies (listed in his bibliography). It may be available in your local public or college library. Another helpful author is Christopher Alexander (he writes a lot about neighborhood and urban design).

Good luck! Let me know if you need any more leads.