Seward Park, photo by Laurel Mercury
Seattle residents are quick to boast about the Emerald City. Seattle is home to Super Bowl champions, and a great cup of coffee. Now Seattleites have another item to add to their long list of bragging rights. The Trust for Public Land recently named Seattle as having one of the top 10 park systems in the country.
According to ParkScore, an annual ranking system designed by the Trust, Seattle’s parks are ninth in the nation. The Trust analyzed the 75 largest U.S. cities and used mapping technology and demographic data to determine how well each city is meeting the need for parks. Points were awarded for factors such as park accessibility, recreation facilities per 10,000 residents and maintenance funding.
Seattle was called out for having more than 6,500 acres of public park space despite being a highly dense area with high land costs.
“Seattle is one of the most creative cities in squeezing in more parkland,” Peter Harnik, the Trust for Public Land Director of the Center for City Park Excellence, told Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Seattle’s ParkScore stats included:
- Park land as % of city area: 12.4 %
- Spending per resident: $265.11
- Basketball Hoops per 10,000: 1.9
- Dog Parks per 100,000 Residents: 2.1
- Playgrounds per 10,000: 2.3
- Recreation / Senior Centers
per 10,000 Residents: 0.8 - Population density: 12.4 per acre
- City area: 52,765 acres
- Median park size: 4 acres
To view Seattle’s entire scorecard, go here.
Other cities on the top 10 list included (ties were awarded):
- Minneapolis
- Paul
- Washington, D.C.
- San Francisco
- New York
- Portland
- Cincinnati
- Boston
- Seattle
- San Diego