Parks: The Great Unifiers
Published May, 2025
Executive Summary
Published annually since 2012, Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore® index ranks the park systems across the country’s 100 most populous cities. This year, with growing division, disconnection, and distrust in our communities, the importance of investing in spaces that bring us together seems to have struck a particular chord with Americans across the country. For the first time, we are supplementing our annual rankings with national polling to better understand this dynamic and the role people hope for parks to play in bringing us back together.
Irvine, CA, jumped to 2nd place (from 4th last year), its highest-ever finish, propelled by continued progress on its “Great Park,” one of the most ambitious public park projects in the country.- Minneapolis, MN; Cincinnati, OH; and St. Paul, MN, round out the top five.
- For the full rankings, see tpl.org/parkscore.
Irvine, CA, jumped to 2nd place (from 4th last year), its highest-ever finish, propelled by continued progress on its “Great Park,” one of the most ambitious public park projects in the country.- In these increasingly polarized times, parks are also among the few settings free from partisan divide. According to TPL research, a plurality of Americans— including both Trump and Harris voters—wish they’d spent more time outdoors last year than anywhere else, including home, place of worship, or the gym.
- Two-thirds of respondents (66 percent Harris voters; 67 percent Trump voters) say they struck up a conversation with a person at a park they hadn’t known previously, with over half reporting a conversation with somebody of a different social or economic background.
- Having a top park system matters. Cities with top- ranked park systems have more friendships between people of different income groups, higher rates of volunteering, and more civic organizations than lower- ranked cities.
A family observes wildlife in the East Sandusky Bay Nature Preserve along the Lake Erie shoreline. Communities with easy access to high-quality parks have higher rates of volunteerism and civic engagement. Photo: McKinley Wiley
- Seventy-six percent of ParkScore city residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. That’s an all-time record, up from 75.5 percent and 68 percent when the ParkScore index launched in 2012.
- Across the 100 most populous cities, a record $12.2 billion was invested in park and recreation systems, the most since Trust for Public Land started tracking city park trends in 2007 and a 16 percent inflation-adjusted increase since 2019.
- TPL’s annual survey of parks departments shows that— beyond just increasing funding and access—cities are changing how they create and steward their park systems. More of them are investing in human capital— the fitness instructors, community leaders, and park neighbors—as the essential ingredient.
Introduction
Our research shows that people living in cities with better park systems are more likely to have friendships with people of different economic backgrounds. A lack of access to parks means fewer opportunities to make meaningful connections.
That fact was illuminated during the COVID-19 pandemic, when parks were among the precious few places where people could safely gather and spend time outside their homes. Since then, we’ve been acutely aware of why parks are so critical for societal health and well-being.
Each year, Trust for Public Land publishes the ParkScore index, a ranking of the park systems across the 100 most populous U.S. cities on five factors that shape an excellent park system: acreage, access, amenities, investment, and equity. The index, published annually since 2012, allows us to evaluate investment, access, and other trends over time.
In short, residents of America’s biggest cities are finding connection, well-being, and community power in parks. Civic leaders are stepping up to improve their park systems to foster and create more such opportunities. These two overarching trends form the basis of this year’s ParkScore report.
And yet, while the news today is positive and suggests that Americans are placing a priority on quality open space access and equity, delivering and sustaining those assets is a long game. As we learned from the 2008 financial crisis and again during COVID-19, economic stagnation can halt or even reverse progress. In fact, we’re hearing from a number of our city park partners that budgets are tightening and parks might once again be on the chopping block.
At a time when it feels like Americans have never been further apart, the insights and stories in this report offer hope that parks may be the best space we have to heal, unify, and move forward.
A young family strolls in a nature preserve in Chagrin Falls, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio. The preserve is one of several conservation projects TPL completed near the headwaters of the Chagrin River. Photo: Chris Bennett
Methodology
The ParkScore index emerged out of collaborative discussions with national park and recreation experts in the early 2000s about the elements of an excellent city park system. Trust for Public Land has published the index annually since 2012. It’s widely used by practitioners, and researchers have found a city’s ParkScore rating is associated with more physical activity, better mental health, more social connections between people of different income groups, more volunteering, and more civic organizations. For more information, visit tpl.org/parkscore/about.
The trends shared in this report are derived from an analysis of TPL’s annual City Park Facts survey of 581 public and private organizations supporting public parks across the 100 most populous cities. All investment and amenity data is self-reported by organizations and validated by TPL staff. When data is missing, TPL staff make estimates using publicly available data (e.g., nonprofit tax forms) or estimate based on prior responses. Park investment trends are adjusted for inflation using the seasonally adjusted “SA0 All Items” Consumer Price Index (CPI) value for January of each fiscal year. The community strategy trends reflect agencies’ self-assessment of their practices and strategies and compares only the agencies that responded in both years. For more information, visit: tpl.org/city-park-facts.
This year, for the first time, we supplemented our ParkScore index with a national survey of residents. The National Survey on Outdoor Public Spaces is a web-based survey administered by YouGov and sponsored by Trust for Public Land. YouGov interviewed 4,000 respondents from their opt-in panel representative of U.S. adults between March 13 and March 27, 2025, including an oversample of 2,000 U.S. adults living in one of the 100 most populous cities. The sample was then weighted to 2,000 big-city U.S. adults by gender, age, race/ethnicity and, education to match nationally representative targets based on Census data, voter file records, and other public voter surveys. The sample was further post-stratified on 2020 and 2024 presidential vote selection. The full survey and methodologies are available upon request.
FIGURE 1: 2025 PARKSCORE METHODOLOGY
TABLE 1: ParkScore Index 2025, Top 25 Cities
A young artist sketches at the North Lawndale Arts Festival, held last year in Douglass Park in Chicago. The communities surrounding the park have held a series of events to bring residents together. Photo: Open Center for the Arts
Part 1: Parks Are the Great Unifiers
The outdoors in general, and parks in particular, have the potential to bridge America’s widening fault lines—politi- cal affiliation, educational background, and socioeconomic status. So many venues—real and virtual—accentuate our differences and our discomfort with one another; parks reveal and make space for our commonalities. They deliver joy and encourage connection.
Given this, it’s perhaps no surprise that cities with better park systems have higher rates of volunteering and civic engagement.
We know that people are happier when they’re spending time in nature, and local parks are one of the easiest ways for people to experience it. The overwhelming majority of Americans across the 100 largest cities reported visiting an outdoor public space, such as a park, natural area, trail, or schoolyard in the past year. And it’s true for Trump and Harris voters, PhDs and high-school grads, parents and nonparents, and people across age and income spectrums.
Andre Dunn, 22, still marvels at the way his community in Colorado Springs was transformed by the renovation of Panorama Park. When Dunn was in middle school, the 13-acre park was “just weeds and broken glass and fire ant hills,” he says. The long-neglected community in southeast Colorado Springs, where the park is located, is about 7 degrees hotter than surrounding neighborhoods, and life expectancies there are 10 to 12 years shorter than in other areas of the city.
Following four years of deep community engagement and collaboration with local partners, Trust for Public Land joined Dunn and his neighbors to open the renovated park in 2022. The scene was joyful and boisterous. Panorama Park features hundreds of new trees and shrubs, as well as sports fields, a spacious lawn, skateboard park, fitness station, splash pad, and on-site bathrooms. Adults, children, laughter, music, and community filled the space. Andre Dunn was there.
Today, Dunn and his younger siblings—ages 12, 7, and 4— all find something to capture their imaginations when they visit. “I’ve been there many times since it reopened and every time there has been an event, whether a concert, a farmers’ market, a barbecue, or trick-or-treating,” he says. “This project is not benefiting the rich. It’s benefiting the people who really need it. My little brothers and sisters will experience this completely differently than I did.”
Nearly four in five respondents in our national survey— regardless of political affiliation—reported that they, like Dunn, have a park where they feel comfortable and that they want to visit on a regular basis (Figure 2). In these increasingly polarized times, parks are also among the few settings free from partisan divide. According to TPL research, a plurality of Americans wish they’d spent even more time outdoors last year than anywhere else, including home, place of worship, or the gym (Figure 3).
FIGURE 2: NEARLY FOUR IN FIVE BIG-CITY U.S. ADULTS HAVE A PARK WHERE THEY FEEL
COMFORTABLE AND THAT THEY WANT TO VISIT REGULARLY.
Regardless of distance, is there at least one outdoor public space (such as a park, natural area, trail, or schoolyard open outside of school hours) where you feel both comfortable and want to visit on a regular basis?
FIGURE 3: AMERICANS WANT TO SPEND MORE TIME OUTSIDE
In the past year, where do you wish you had gone the most often to find joy? Select up to three.
Parks are one of the few places today where people still meet new people and find common ground.
In 2020, the predominantly Black residents of North Lawndale and the predominantly Latino residents of South Lawndale in Chicago found themselves at odds. The police killing of George Floyd was reviving historic tensions between the two communities, and civic leaders were eager to bridge the divide through an initiative called “One Lawndale.”
While greater Lawndale is bisected by a four-lane highway—the storied Route 66—North and South are linked by Douglass Park (Figure 4). The One Lawndale initiative, among other things, spawned annual gatherings in the 173-acre park that both communities now look forward to.
They’re dubbed “peace parties,” with one held in July in the north section of the park and the other following in August on the south side. Each event draws people from both neighborhoods. “Hundreds of people come,” says Omar Magaña, executive director of the OPEN Center for the Arts in South Lawndale and an organizer of the peace parties. “There is food and music and art, and there are organizations serving the community that set up stations so residents can find out what resources they offer.”
FIGURE 4
A map showing Douglass Park in a densely developed
neighborhood on the west side of Chicago. The park
provides critical green space for residents and unites
the North and South Lawndale communities.
The One Lawndale initiative has also brought together professional artists and young people to create posters, videos, and murals—including in local community gardens—promoting unity between the two Lawndales.
What is it about a green space, such as Douglass Park, that fosters an opportunity for people to find and embrace connection? TPL’s data offer some insight.
Second, parks are mixing grounds, bringing together people of different backgrounds to a shared physical space that often has something for everyone. About half of Americans reported having at least one positive park- based conversation with someone of a different social or economic background this past year.
Parks create opportunities for people to show up in shared space, again and again. With each visit, we move from unfamiliarity to recognition, from a nod to a wave, from strangers to acquaintances to friends. Over time, those small interactions build the kind of trust and connection that strengthens communities, builds empathy, and seeds more resilient social networks.
FIGURE 5: NEARLY TWO IN THREE BIG-CITY U.S. ADULTS HAD A POSITIVE CONVERSATION IN A PARK WITH A STRANGER
To the best of your memory . . . In the past year, about how many positive conversations have you had with someone whom you did not previously know in an outdoor public space (e.g., park, natural area, trail, open- access schoolyard)?
While parks are often sources of happiness and social connection, they also often set the stage for community members to navigate the complexity and tensions of democratic life.
Parks bring diverse voices and perspectives together in a shared space, and the process of navigating a diverse social environment can build empathy, mutual understanding, and greater appreciation for the collective interest. When parks serve as spark plugs for listening, understanding, and advocating for not just yourself but also your neighbor, they become everyday platforms for democracy. By embracing teamwork, diverse perspectives, and community-government relations, park advocates often become civic leaders along the way.
Take Carrie Salvary of the Vine City neighborhood of Atlanta as an example. She’d worn a lot of hats professionally. She managed a temp agency, ran a housing nonprofit, and sold insurance. But it was a catastrophic flood—and its aftermath—that propelled her into the dual roles of park activist and community leader.
An Easter egg hunt in Cook Park drew residents of the Vine City neighborhood in Atlanta. The egg hunt is sponsored by the Alliance for Cook Park, a nonprofit organization chaired by Carrie Salvary that provides programming and advocacy for the park. Photo: Alliance for Cook Park
Torrential rains in 2002 unleashed historic flooding in Vine City where she lives. Dozens of homes were damaged or destroyed, and 60 structures had to be demolished, forcing many families to permanently relocate.
Trust for Public Land worked with the community on a new park that rose from the devastation and became not just a beloved new green space but a vital piece of green infra- structure. The result: Cook Park. Its 16 acres prevent floods with a number of engineering features, including a two-acre retention pond that manages up to 10 million gallons of rainwater. The pond, which also aerates and filters stormwater runoff, doubles as a popular attraction, with landscaped fountains and pools of water that delight parkgoers.
In the years leading up to the park’s opening in 2021, Salvary participated in public design workshops and mapping exercises. She showed up. She spoke up. She participated.
After the park’s completion, a local councilman tapped her to be his representative in a new advocacy group. Salvary chairs the 14-member board of the Alliance for Cook Park, a nonprofit organization that includes residents from the community as well as city heavyweights like the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, JPMorganChase, and a restaurant consortium.
As the first board chair of the Alliance, Salvary has led efforts that continue to evolve the park. She pressed the city to install electrical outlets in the park for festivals and other gatherings. She secured funding for shade structures near the playground, outdoor classroom, and fitness area. And she found dollars for the addition of benches and trash bins in high-traffic areas. Jay Wozniak, director of TPL’s Georgia urban parks program, says Salvary’s impact is far-reaching. “Park officials, including the city’s parks commissioners, respond to her requests quickly since they know she is unlikely to take ‘no’ for an answer,” he says.
For Salvary, the process of helping to create the nonprofit was gratifying. “We knew going in that if we were to be credible at all, we could not be just a neighborhood group,” she says. Referring to the park’s price tag, she adds: “We are kind of like the steward of this $40 million asset.”
The story of Cook Park, Salvary, and the broader Vine City community is just a glimmer of what happens when local leaders—from both the public and private sectors— collectively invest in people. The everyday engagement in a park design project is a stepping stone for local residents to assume positions of power, leadership, and influence and aligns with leading voices in civic research and philanthropy. As Loren McArthur argues in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, community organizing is not simply a political tactic during an election season—it is the practice of democracy itself. Organizing builds the muscles of citizenship: listening, consensus-building, shared leadership, and collective action.
Stories like this are happening across the country. When we foster and fund community leadership in parks, we create visible, local platforms where those muscles can grow.
People living in cities with top-ranked park systems (Table 1) are more socially connected and more likely to be civically engaged than those in lower-ranked systems (Figure 6). The product of a century of local leadership— nationally, 94 percent of city park investment comes from local government, volunteers, or nonprofits—the association between quality parks and civic engagement highlights an opportunity for today’s leaders.
FIGURE 6: TOP-RANKED PARKSCORE CITIES ARE MORE CONNECTED AND HAVE MORE CIVIC ENGAGEMENT
Relative to the bottom 25 ParkScore cities, the top 25 ParkScore cities have 26% more friendships between people of different income groups (“economic connectedness”), 61% more volunteers per capita, and 45% more civic organizations per capita.
Children on a swing set in Atlanta’s Cook Park, where TPL engaged the
community through design workshops and listening sessions. Other
amenities include climbing boulders, outdoor fitness equipment, sports
courts, and walking paths. Photo: Julieta Vergini
Part 2: The Smart Money’s on Parks and People
As the trends outlined in part 1 of this report become more widely understood and embraced, park practitioners, city leaders, and voters are becoming more bullish about park investments. They recognize that a dollar spent on a new or improved local park is also a dollar spent on community and climate resilience and public health for nearby communities.
Park investment, even after accounting for inflation, is at record levels and driven, in part, by the rise of voters and city leaders saying “yes” to dedicated funds for parks and recreation. School districts and parks teams are collaborating to open schoolyards after hours and on weekends to expand park access in communities where green space is otherwise limited.
Parks departments are thinking outside the lines of amenities and acreage, allocating more of their budget dollars to human capital—from community organizers and engagement staff to volunteers and neighborhood leaders. These are the people who animate and activate public spaces with compelling programming and events. Many cities have begun implementing recommended strategies from TPL’s On Common Ground Framework.
Across the 100 most populous cities, a record $12.2 billion was invested in park and recreation systems, the most since Trust for Public Land started tracking city park trends in 2007 and a 16 percent inflation-adjusted increase since 2019.
That increase was fueled by three trends, all of which modestly outpaced inflation (Figure 7). Local funding for staff and capital projects increased 7 and 25 percent, respectively, in part driven by dedicated park bonds and taxes. Federal dollars—mostly one-time COVID-era grants from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the American Rescue Plan Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act—were up 95 percent. And support from volunteers and park nonprofits was up 26 percent. Notably, the share of local park investment from volunteers and park nonprofits is greater than federal grants, highlighting the measurable impact of people power.
FIGURE 7: 2024 SETS RECORD-HIGH PARK INVESTMENT ACROSS 100 MOST POPULOUS CITIES
Analysis shows park investment is up after accounting for inflation; federal grants accounted for 5% of overall
funding for local parks in 2024.
Fort Worth sees parks and recreation as a strategic investment opportunity for improving residents’ quality of life and for attracting and retaining businesses. As such, it increased its annual investment in its park system by nearly 50 percent over the past four years, from $73 million to $111 million.
“In the city of Fort Worth, we’re working to ensure every resident has easy access to a park or green space, improving the livability and connectivity of our community,” Mayor Parker says. “Strong initiatives like Good Natured, which aims to preserve our city’s natural heritage, protect its water supply, and improve our park system to meet the growing needs of our community, are making this goal a reality. I’m proud of the city’s increased 2025 ParkScore® ranking.”
Dedicated park funding is necessary to sustain a premier park system. It’s also a political winner. Seven of the top 10 cities in the ParkScore index have citywide dedicated funding streams for parks (Table 2).
During the November 2024 election, ballot measures championed by Trust for Public Land went 23 for 23 across the country, generating more than $16 billion in funding for parks, climate resilience, water quality, wildlife habitat, and land conservation. Seven out of 10 Americans interviewed as part of our national survey said they support programs to improve the quality of existing parkland, even if it means a small increase in their taxes (Figure 8).
FIGURE 8: BY A 62-POINT MARGIN (71%–9%), CITY RESIDENTS SUPPORT PARK FUNDING EFFORTS
In general, would you support or oppose programs in which your STATE OR LOCAL government improved the
quality of existing conservation lands, natural areas, neighborhood parks, trails, or open-access schoolyards even
if it required a small increase in taxes?
Fort Worth—which increased its investment score and climbed 19 spots in the 2025 rankings—operates on a four-year cycle for bond programs. Voters have consistently approved measures that include park funding. The next bond proposal, in 2026, will ask voters to approve $25 million for open space acquisition as well as for additional money to renovate the city’s signature green spaces—Gateway Park and Trinity Park.
In fact, many of Fort Worth’s 305 parks, which are spread across 13,000 acres, are being rehabilitated. “We have 80 construction projects underway right now, ranging from a playground replacement to adding multiple new ball fields,” says Dave Lewis, the director of the Fort Worth Park & Recreation Department.
The city is also updating its new 10-year park master plan, called GREENprint Fort Worth. “It’s a great time for us now in parks,” says Lewis, who oversees a 850-member park staff. “We are a city of almost a million people and we have a thriving downtown. But residents need space to enjoy nature and play pickleball and just recreate. We are also very mindful that once the trees are gone, they are gone. Once the green space is paved, it’s not coming back. Development has been good for our city, but we need to make sure we understand where we can conserve and expand green space so it’s here for future generations.”
Nationwide, however, continued investment in local park systems is at risk of stagnating or falling behind, given the expiration of COVID-era federal funds and budget shortfalls confronting local governments. It took 17 years following the 2008 fiscal crisis for local park systems to recover. As park leaders confront uncertain economic conditions, securing support for dedicated park and recreation funds—as a key strategy to build trust and connection—will be essential.
More than three-quarters of people across the 100 most populous cities live within a 10-minute walk of a park, up from 68 percent in 2012, the first year Trust for Public Land started tracking this metric as part of its inaugural ParkScore index (Figure 9).
A 10-minute walk, or a half-mile, is the average distance able-bodied people are willing to walk to reach a nearby destination; tracking this metric provides a useful way to assess the availability of close-to-home parks in each city.
These close-to-home parks are critical for protecting residents from heat and flooding, providing opportunities for play and exercise, and—as we’ve seen in this report— for building and strengthening community.
FIGURE 9: PERCENTAGE OF PEOPLE WITHIN
A 10-MINUTE WALK OF A PARK, 100 MOST
POPULOUS CITIES
In 2024, 20 of the 100 cities increased their 10-minute walk scores by 2 percent or more. That translates to about a half-million people who gained close-to-home park access. This includes Jersey City, which became just the third of the 100 largest cities to achieve 10-minute walk access for 100 percent of its residents. Most of these cities deployed one of the three most effective strategies to increase their scores on this metric: 1. Opening schoolyards to the public after hours and on weekends, 2. Creating greenways, or 3. Creatively transforming existing public lands.
The City of Atlanta illustrates what happens when you deploy all three. In 2016, 66 percent of Atlanta residents lived within a 10-minute walk of a park and the city ranked about average nationally on the ParkScore index (51st out of 100). Over the past decade, however, the city has built out the Atlanta Beltline, one of the most ambitious trail and park systems in the country, and worked through its Department of Watershed Management to transform more than 350 acres of existing, underutilized land into publicly accessible green spaces, such as Historic Fourth Ward Park.
Just this year, the city reached an agreement with the Atlanta Public Schools to ensure that all schoolyards in the city are open to the community to enjoy after school hours. (Unlike schoolyards in many cities, those in Atlanta tend to have more grass than asphalt, giving them a parklike feel.)
Notably, none of these efforts are parks in the traditional sense. Yet they provide many of the same benefits. As of this year, 82 percent of Atlanta residents now live within a 10-minute walk of a green space or trailway, and the city has one of the highest-ranked park systems in the nation, at No. 21.
Byron Amos, an Atlanta city councilman, says that allowing communities to use schoolyards when school is not in session was key to boosting access to desperately needed park space. “The schoolyards just sit there when school is out,” says Councilman Amos, who is also a former member of the city’s board of education. “I remember when the city of Atlanta officially fenced in all of the schoolyards. It put more kids into the streets because they had no place to play. Living in the inner city, green space is always a precious commodity.”
Three-quarters of the 100 most populous cities in the nation have a program that makes schoolyards available to the public—up from just 44 cities in 2018. Trust for Public Land has worked with hundreds of schools from New York City to Oakland, California, to transform drab asphalt schoolyards that grow dangerously hot in the sun into inviting green oases.
Renovated community schoolyards, which involve students in the design process, can be filled with trees and shrubs, turf fields, new play equipment, murals, rain gardens, and outdoor classrooms. The TPL model for transforming these community spaces has broad public support. Seventy percent of those interviewed in our national survey say they support opening their local schoolyards to the broader community after school and on weekends (Figure 10).
FIGURE 10: 70% OF CITY RESIDENTS SUPPORT KEEPING SCHOOLYARDS OPEN FOR COMMUNITY USE
In general, would you support or oppose keeping outdoor spaces at schools—such as playgrounds, fields, tracks,
and seating areas—open for community use outside of school hours?
Increasing investment and access with the construction of new playgrounds, trails, splash pads, or other park amenities is essential. But these projects alone are not sufficient for making a world-class park system. The most meaningful and lasting benefits of parks come from what happens in them: the cookouts and cleanups, the yoga classes and youth councils, the moments when a neighbor becomes a friend.
These are not extras; they are core to what makes a well-appointed park start to function as a vital platform for democratic life.
Human capital requires significant investment, and thoughtfulness, to fully animate public spaces. At a time when polarization is rising and civic trust is declining, investing in the face-to-face, relationship-driven work of activating parks provides a tremendous opportunity to bridge divides and build civic muscle.
Trust for Public Land’s On Common Ground Framework offers a blueprint for cities to implement community strategies that build stronger relationships, identity, and community power . Published in 2023, the framework is already helping cities adopt many of these proven strategies, according to this year’s ParkScore index data.
A group of friends hikes at Snoqualmie Point Park east of Seattle in
Washington. Studies show that access to park space reduces stress,
boosts mood, and fosters social connection. Photo: Adair Rutledge
Notably, many of the most-effective strategies are also those with the biggest adoption rates in the past year. These strategies include:
1. Conducting community-based participatory research (+10 city agencies),
2. Workforce and employment training (+9 city agencies), and
3. Compensating community members for their time, wisdom, and labor through stipends (+10 city agencies).
One other strategy with heavy adoption: advisory boards—whether a youth leadership council or a city-wide board—are essential to sustaining leadership development pipelines in local communities, turning volunteers into organizers and neighbors into civic leaders. An additional four city park and recreation agencies reported convening a youth leadership council, while an additional eight reported engagement of a project-specific advisory board.
Cities that are adopting TPL’s On Common Ground best practices are better engaging residents in the messy process of governance. According to ParkScore data this year, the number of big-city park systems that reported collaborating with residents on park projects “most of the time” or “always” increased from 53 percent to 61 percent, while the number reporting “empowering” residents most or all of the time increased from 19 percent to 24 percent.
In this year’s ParkScore index, we’re seeing signs that city leaders are choosing to invest in their human capital—the staff and community leaders who make programming possible, who activate parks as sites of belonging, and who ensure that parks are not just places people visit but places they shape.
This isn’t happening only in Fort Worth, Atlanta, or Colorado Springs. Parks exist everywhere and so do opportunities to support the next Carrie Salvary or Andre Dunn, people who are transforming their communities not through politics but through place. Yes, it takes money, but the return is extraordinary—not just in park use or public health but in civic power.
Conclusion
As the evidence and stories from this year’s ParkScore index make clear, parks are not only vital public infrastructure but also powerful engines of civic connection and collective well-being. Realizing and sustaining their full potential requires investment and action. Whether you’re a resident, mayor, community leader, or funder, there are steps you can take to join, advocate for, and invest in the spaces that bring us together. In a time of growing division, disconnection, and distrust, local parks offer an accessible, joyful, and profoundly impactful path forward.
Across the country, people are rediscovering just how important it is to be a part of something—not just digitally but in real life. Participating in shared community spaces and programs is a powerful antidote to loneliness, distrust, and isolation. Parks offer one of the most accessible and welcoming ways to get started.
Joining doesn’t have to mean a major commitment. It can start small. Volunteer for a Saturday cleanup. Sign up for a community tree planting, a local sports league, or a class. Join a local friends-of-the-park group or a park advisory board. Across the country, thousands of residents are finding purpose and community through these simple acts of participation and stewardship.
Joining is powerful, but sustained change requires advocacy. This year’s ParkScore report shows that cities with the strongest park systems also have higher rates of civic participation, more community organizations, and greater social interactions among residents of different backgrounds. Parks can be launchpads for the kind of cohesive public life our democracy needs, but only if we shape them intentionally. “Don’t agonize; organize,” says Mantua Civic Association President De’Wayne Drummond, whose organization has long leveraged the 37th and Mt. Vernon Playground in West Philadelphia as a platform for food and voter drives and keeping residents informed on issues affecting their neighborhood. “You’ve got to plan or you’re gonna be planned for. If you’re not at the table, you’re gonna be on the menu.”
Local leaders can make it easier for community members to advocate by adopting the proven strategies identified in the Common Ground Framework. Those include making it easier for residents to provide input on park plans; removing barriers to residents who want to host their own events and programs in parks; formalizing advisory boards and youth leadership councils; and hiring community experts and community-based organizations.
From Minneapolis to Chattanooga to Fort Worth, city governments are proving that when residents help shape parks, they don’t just improve public spaces, they strengthen civic trust, deepen neighborhood bonds, and build opportunities to grow grassroots leadership.
Finally, and crucially, we must invest. Parks are popular, omnipartisan, and deeply effective—but they are not guarantee. As this report shows, park systems in top-ranked cities have benefited from consistent, dedicated public funding, often paired with private philanthropic support.
Local leaders have a unique opportunity to strengthen their communities by elevating parks as platforms for civic infrastructure through creating dedicated funding streams, increasing park access through community schoolyards, and adopting a set of community strategies that invest in the most important ingredient—people. In this moment of national division, we must focus on the local possibilities that exist in every American park and public space. They’re not just places to play or walk the dog. They are where neighbors become allies, happiness becomes habit, and conversations become coalitions.
People play at Panorama Park in Colorado Springs. TPL led the community through design and development of the 13-acre park, which includes multiple amenities like this green igloo providing children with a calm space. Photo: Olivedia Productions
Primary Authors:
Will Klein: Director, Parks Research
Trust for Public Land
Lisa W Foderaro: Senior Writer and Researcher
Trust for Public Land
Cary Simmons: Director, Community Strategies
Trust for Public Land
Contributors
Councilman Byron Amos, Atlanta | Carrie Besnette Hauser | Bianca Clarke | Delphi Drake-Mudede | Andre Dunn, resident, Colorado Springs, Colorado | George Dusenbury | Kate Gannon | Dave Highness | Ivy Hinson | Linda Hwang | Eliza Lawson | Dave Lewis, Fort Worth Parks and Recreation Department | Omar Magaña, Open Center for the Arts | Keith Maley | Sheila McNary, North Lawndale Community Coordinating Council | Molly Morgan | Kevin Niu | Caroline O’Boyle | Mayor Mattie Parker, Fort Worth | Emily Patterson | Carrie Salvary, Alliance for Cook Park | Sam Savin | Dan Walsh | Deborah Williams | Lindsay Withers | Jay Wozniak
