Through Parks, a City Beautiful (and Prosperous)

For the past 10 years, the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership has promoted the downtown core as the “premier location to live, work, shop, dine, play and visit.” Recently, PDP President and CEO Michael Edwards has begun to use public parks, trails, and recreation opportunities as a compelling calling card for bringing visitors, new residents and corporate investment to his town.

No surprise there, really. For years, researchers, park and recreation professionals and citizen advocates have acknowledged the integral role that public parks, open space and trails can play in advancing a town’s economic vitality. And from Chicago’s Millennium Park to Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park to Boston’s Park at Post Office Square, parks have not only contributed to economic development and revitalization, regional tourism and landscape aesthetic, they have also helped to define the unique characteristics and sense of these cities’ most celebrated spaces.

In "Project Urban Recreation" in the March 2008 issue of P&R, Edwards shares his strategies for revitalization through parks and recreation. Using national examples to explore ways in which park and recreation agencies can spur downtown revitalization, Edwards examines how communities have generated billions of dollars in new investment, and how park and recreation opportunities can contribute to economic development in their own cities.

We had an opportunity to ask him a few questions as a follow-up to his article:

Q: How do people benefit as a result of their city having a quality system of public parks and recreation?

A: Parks and open space give definition and a sense of unique place to communities around the world. These places benefit children by providing interesting spaces for exploration, play, learning, recreation and socialization. As people mature, the benefits of the same places change. Adults benefit from parks and open space as a place for escape, contemplation, self-awareness, spirituality, exercise, rejuvenation, wellness and socializing.

These benefits only become more important against a backdrop of a society increasingly techno-centric, a population that is aging and more interested in physical fitness and significant negative health trends in the areas of obesity, heart disease and diabetes.

There is a real opportunity for parks and open space to reposition themselves in the near-term as even more essential amenities for healthy communities.

Q: What is your advice to decision-makers who might feel it a bit frivolous to attach great importance—and money—to parks and recreation?

A: It is incumbent upon the park professional to make a compelling case articulating the value of parks and recreation to community-building. There may be a new opportunity available to park professionals with:

• The rise of green building design.
• Increased competition for private investment.
• New outdoor lifestyles.   

Elected officials and city and county managers completely understand how competitive it is to attract new investment—jobs and tax revenue. Communities able to separate themselves by offering a robust and compelling vision of an active, outdoor recreation lifestyle can attract both active adults (who own companies) and younger “knowledge workers,” who put more emphasis on a holistic lifestyle, including a great environment in which to live. The power of the green building movement, a growing outdoor-oriented lifestyle and the need for the mayor’s support to succeed in attracting new investment (companies, talent and jobs) provide a new opportunity . . . but someone has to make the case.

Q: If parks and recreation are so essential, why do they continue to be considered less important than other municipal services such as transportation, education and fire and rescue?

A: The link between parks and recreation is not as apparent to most people as, say, a company locating downtown, the creation of a start-up enterprise from a local university or the need for a new highway on-ramp.

Parks and recreation as amenities may be viewed as less important because they don’t ”get you to work faster,” “increase your job opportunities” or “directly increase your tax base.”

It would be helpful to develop a broader vernacular to describe the direct measurable benefits of parks and open space—in economic terms. To speak the economic-development language, to make the connection between parks and open space to promote high employee retention, to increase competitiveness to attract creative talent, and to increase property values and tax revenue adjacent to accessible rivers and trails.