SCORING CITY PARKS
How does your city’s park system compare with others in how well it serves residents? The Trust for Public Land’s ParkScoreTM
tion. Launched in May, the project website at parkscore. org provides a quick comparison of the nation’s 40 larg- est cities—rated from one to five “park benches”—along with in-depth maps to help park professionals under- stand how a system can better serve residents and where parks are needed most. Ratings are based on the percentage of residents living
within a half-mile (ten-minute) walk of a park, the median size of a city’s parks, the amount of parkland related to population, and the services and investment in the park system. Underlying the rating system is data on these and other factors collected by TPL’s Center for City Park Excellence, as well as Geographic Information System (GIS) data gathered by TPL’s Conser- vation Vision and GIS team. The groundbreaking interactive maps allow park profes-
sionals and other users to zoom in and study park access block by block. And the maps are “smart” enough to base ten-minute access not only on the distance between parks and residents but also on the location of park entrances and whether the route to the park might be blocked by physical obstacles such as a major highway. The website also provides access information about each public park in every one of the 40 cities rated.
COURTESY OF ESRI
Conservation Vision and GIS director Breece Robertson accepts the Esri Making a Difference award for TPL.
In July, ParkScore itself received a rating of sorts when
TPL’s GIS team received the annual Making a Difference Award from Esri, the world’s leader in GIS software used by more than 300,000 organizations worldwide. The award hon- ors people or organizations that have used GIS to bring about meaningful change in the world. In presenting the award, Esri president Jack Dangermond highlighted the TPL team’s Greenprinting work (see story page 70) and how ParkScore “elevated the analysis of city park systems.” For more information about ParkScore and to see how well your park system serves residents, go to
parkscore.org.
project is designed to answer just that ques-
FIND YOUR PARKSCORE
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