Ranking the American Cities with the Most Parkland Per Household

While we often talk about the places that are park poor, Builder Online has done the data crunching to find out which cities are park rich.

1 minute read

October 18, 2015, 9:00 AM PDT

By jwilliams @jwillia22


Audubon Park, New Orleans

InSapphoWeTrust / Flickr

When we talk about great communities, we often think about places that have an abundance of outdoor space available nearby. Builder’s Dian Zhang has compiled data from The Trust for Public Land and the 2014 American Community Survey to identify "America’s top 10 cities with the most public park acreage per 1,000 households."

In order to get an accurate read on the park situation, the rankings exclude low-density cities and look at individual cities, not metro areas. Further, the parks, whether city, county, metro or federal, must be within the boundaries of the city. Given these restrictions, the rankings found that the majority of park rich communities are in the southwest, led by El Paso, Albuquerque, and Phoenix. Surprisingly, the only city east of the Mississippi to make the list is New Orleans, Louisiana.

The full list is available on Builder's web site.

Saturday, October 17, 2015 in Builder

portrait of professional woman

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

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