A national analysis of the 100 largest U.S. cities’ public park systems finds Orlando “stuck in the middle,” ranking 64th for the second consecutive year on the Trust for Public Land’s annual ParkScore Report.
The analysis ranks city park systems on 5 categories: acreage, investment, amenities, access and equity.
Orlando’s lowest ranking, 24/100, is for acreage. In that category, the City Beautiful falls to the bottom 25% of all cities analyzed, according to TPL Associate Director for Parks Research Will Klein, who led the study.
“That is a challenge that the city leaders today face: as Orlando has grown, historically, the park space has not kept up with that growth,” Klein said.
Still, Orlando’s 64th-place ranking doesn’t necessarily mean the city isn’t making any progress, Klein said.
“Staying in the middle of the pack, when you're scored relative to others, doesn't mean that you're not doing anything,” Klein said. “It means that you're keeping pace with the fastest-improving park systems in the country.”
Nationally, spending on parks is up $1.5 billion this year, according to the report. And Orlando’s park investments are keeping pace with that upward trend, which Klein said isn’t the case for all cities in the analysis.
“In spite of having few acres, there's a significant investment in staff and community partnerships, to engage people and connect people to the outdoors, and through the park space,” Klein said.
In fact, when it comes to public parks, Orlando has one of the strongest programmatic departments in the country, Klein said. He attributed much of that success to the park agency’s placement within Orlando’s Families, Parks and Recreation Department, saying that “very rare” structure helps center people in how they interact with public spaces and parks.
“I think that's one of the things to celebrate in Orlando, and lots of people around the country look to them for those models,” Klein said.
In terms of park equity, Orlando is about on par with the rest of the country. Compared to white neighborhoods, people living in Orlando’s neighborhoods of color have access to about 48% less park space. Looking solely through the lens of income, Orlando does slightly better, outperforming the national average disparity gap by 7 percentage points.
George Dusenbury, TPL’s southern region vice president and current interim Florida state director, says parks help make urban environments more livable and less prone to development sprawl.
“If people have some exposure to nature, if people can have that quality of life, then you don't have to continue to sprawl. You don't have to continue the development,” Dusenbury said. “Especially in a state like Florida; your population is increasing so quickly.”
Right now, only 5.5% of Orlando’s city area is dedicated to public parkland, less than the 10% national average. But Dusenbury says the city could possibly increase that acreage by exploring more holistic land conservation strategies, like community schoolyards.
“Schoolyards is the easiest way to make a pretty significant jump in your ratings,” Dusenbury said. “You actually design the schoolyard so it helps support the children during the day, in terms of learning and recreation, but then also as a community amenity during off-school hours.”
Klein echoed that sentiment, saying Orlando could boost its ParkScore in other categories by maximizing the category where it already performs so well: investment, particularly in recreation and programming.
“Parks aren't just the land itself. It's the programs and the people,” Klein said.
