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Benefits of Urban Open Space

Photo by: Boston Natural Areas Fund

In a world increasingly concerned with the problems of a deteriorating environment, including pollution, global climate change, vanishing plant and animal species, reliance on fossil fuels, and the inappropriate development of natural and productive landscapes, there is a marked tendency to bypass the urban environment. More than 200 million Americans and 5 billion people worldwide live in metropolitan areas. When seen in the context of the impact of humans on world ecosystems, it is clear that the links between cities, nature, and sustainability have profound impacts on the global environment.

Urban greenspace provides a range of tangible benefits, such as mitigating air and water pollution, combating suburban sprawl, providing opportunities for recreation, reducing crime and fostering cohesive neighborhoods, attracting businesses, and stabilizing property values. As part of a broader urban agenda, investing in open space can serve as an anchor for revitalizing neighborhoods and building healthy communities.

Mitigating Air and Water Pollution

Trees and other plants play a critical role in improving air quality and serve as indicators of air pollution. According to Michael Hough, author of Cities and Natural Process, "Where air pollution is dilute, an important environmental control device is plants. Leaves take up and absorb pollutants such as ozone and sulfur dioxide to significant levels. For example, to take up the 462,000 tons of sulfur dioxide released annually in St. Louis, Missouri, it would require 50 million trees. These would occupy about 5 per cent of the city's land area."

Photo by: Susan Lapides

Rainfall in urban areas washes pesticides and fertilizers from lawns and oil, antifreeze, gasoline, salt and sand from parking lots and roads, creating polluted runoff that flows into nearby water bodies. Although run-off is generally absent in forested watersheds, in heavily paved urban areas, as much as 85 percent of all precipitation can enter nearby water systems in the form of polluted runoff. Because soils filter out many types of contaminants and vegetation slows the flow of water, open space buffers along rivers and waterfronts significantly reduce runoff into urban fresh water and marine systems.

Fighting Sprawl and Reducing Fossil Fuel Consumption

Since the 1960s, many of America's cities have suffered from decentralization and disinvestment. The complex set of factors contributing to this phenomenon include federal taxation and highway construction policies, racial and ethnic tensions, increased reliance on automobiles, and a deteriorating quality of life in urban areas. The reduced vitality of city centers has been accompanied by the growth of edge cities and expansive metropolitan areas leading to significant environmental impacts on surrounding areas, including the loss of productive farmland, forests, and wildlife habitat, as well as increased air and water pollution.

The automobile-centered design of low-density suburban and fringe areas has also reinforced the dominant role of the automobile in American society, leading to increased gasoline consumption and air pollution. A report on the future of urbanization by the Worldwatch Institute has shown that inner-city residents of New York use only one-third of the gasoline of residents living in the outer regions of the tri-state metropolitan area of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

Investing in green, livable cities can help combat sprawl with all of its associated environmental impacts. It addresses a number of the underlying factors promoting decentralization by helping to reduce crime rates, attract businesses, and serve as an anchor for community revitalization.

Reducing Crime and Fostering Cohesive Communities

There is mounting evidence that access to open space and recreational facilities can significantly reduce juvenile crime rates in urban areas, at a fraction of the cost of increased police and prison facilities. In Fort Myers, Florida, for example, police have documented a 28 percent drop in juvenile arrests since 1990, following the construction of a new recreation center in the heart of a low-income community.

In northeastern Massachusetts, the Minuteman Bikeway runs through Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington, and Bedford. According to Alan McClennen, a project planner for the bikeway, "Numerous studies have been done that show that as abandoned railroad corridors are converted to bikeway use, crime in the area decreases. Our experience with the Minuteman is consistent with those findings."

In Providence, Rhode Island, Bill Walter, executive director of the Smith Hill Center maintains that greenspace and community gardens also foster community renewal by building neighborhood spirit. "As is the case with many impoverished urban areas, the residents of Smith Hill previously lacked opportunities to connect with one another. Fear, cultural difference, and language barriers had driven people into their homes. Green space and community gardens have helped bring residents out of their homes by giving them an opportunity to interact with one another." And recent events in California provide additional support for this perspective. In 1992, after the violence in Los Angeles, a survey revealed that 77 percent of neighborhood residents in that city ranked improved parks and recreation opportunities as "absolutely critical" or "important" to their communities.

Attracting and Retaining Businesses

Green cities that offer a high quality of life consistently attract and retain businesses. For example, Portland, Oregon, which has implemented the strictest anti-sprawl regulations in the country and invested in an extensive park system, has attracted many new companies, including Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Hyundai, which picked the city because its quality of life appealed to their educated workforce. According to Bill Calder, a spokesman for Intel, the computer chip manufacturer that has nearly 9,000 employees in Oregon, "Companies that can locate anywhere they want to will go to places that attract good people."

On a smaller scale, popular parks and greenways also foster entrepreneurial economic development. Typical examples include food services, as well as the rental, sale, and repair of recreation equipment. For example, the Minuteman Bikeway has fostered the development of several new businesses, including snack bars and a bicycle repair shop. This kind of local economic activity also helps keep residents' expenditures in their own communities.

Stabilizing Property Values

Well-maintained parks enhance the quality of life by providing scenic views and convenient recreation opportunities. As a result, nearby landowners see an increase in real property values and marketability for their property. According to real estate agents in the Seattle area, property near the Burke Gilman Trail, a 12-mile recreational trail, is significantly easier to sell and roughly 6 percent more valuable than similar property far from the trail.

Not only do open space projects offer amenities to residents, they often provide a mechanism for remediating contaminated or vacant land, thus improving the overall productivity of a neighborhood or city. For example, in 1993, TPL helped the city of Portland and the state of Maine purchase 30 acres of abandoned industrial land on their waterfront. The creation of a new waterfront trail on this site has helped boost the local real estate market, sparking the renovation of nearby buildings and the construction of new housing.