The Undeniable ROI of Community Parks and Green Spaces
Published May 2026
Executive Summary
There’s a myth that parks and recreation departments are nice-to-haves, not need-to-haves—placing their perceived utility below that of other municipal infrastructure and systems like schools, sanitation, police and fire protection, and libraries.
To dispel that myth and provide decision-makers with clear, case-making arguments for sustained and increased investments in parks, Trust for Public Land conducted a summary analysis of 11 ground-level economic benefit studies. We also analyzed the responses from our annual City Park Facts survey of the country’s largest park agencies, and we gathered data from trusted outside sources.
We found that every $1 invested in parks and recreation returns, on average, at least $3 in local economic benefits each year, stemming from reduced stormwater treatment costs; lower healthcare costs; improved public health outcomes; consumer savings on fitness and recreation; rising tax revenues, and a boost in public-private partnerships, among other things.
That is undeniable return on investment (ROI). The perennial success of local park-funding ballot initiatives and our 10-Minute Walk data, which examine the experience of cities that have pledged to create close-to-home parks, show that many leaders are investing in parks to reach far-ranging goals. Those who aren’t, should be.
This report provides compelling data and makes a strong case for municipal policymakers and elected officials to advocate for and support local efforts to fund park investments and improvements.
Students playing on the newly renovated schoolyard at the Bronx Latin School, where green infrastructure will prevent flooding by capturing 800,000
gallons of stormwater annually. Photo: Alexa Hoyer
Introduction
When they make it onto local ballots, park funding measures enjoy overwhelming support in blue and red jurisdictions.
There’s promising and concerning news in this year’s ParkScore index. Following a decade of progress, this year’s numbers show that park investments are slowing—or even stopping. The surge of COVID-era federal parks investment has almost completely wound down. Now, 73 percent of ParkScore cities say they’re already feeling or anticipate negative impacts from federal funding cuts. The 10-Minute Walk measure hasn’t moved in the past four years. Today, these are warning signs. Tomorrow, they could become problems, and we could lose or reverse the past decade of progress. Trust for Public Land encourages leaders to honor the importance their constituents place on parks, and we urge park lovers to make their voices heard.
Congress can support investments in critical park infrastructure and connecting communities to open space by fully funding ORLP within the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program, and the Urban and Community Forestry Program in the FY27 budget; and by passing the bicameral Revitalizing America’s Schoolyards Act, recently introduced by Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Representative Summer Lee (D-Pa.), to create the first dedicated federal grant program to transform schoolyards.
Increasingly, practitioners and policymakers are realizing that parks are as essential to a community’s livability as street cleaning, wastewater treatment, roads, libraries, and law enforcement. This year’s City Park Facts survey found a growing trend among leaders who view park investments and 10-Minute Walk access as a means to improving the quality of life for residents. Nonetheless, they’ve lacked evidence-based resources to quantify the value of park investments and to counter the misguided assumption that parks are a nice-to-haves, not need-to-haves.
This report, released as part of our 15th annual ParkScore index (Table 1), aims to fill that evidence gap. It synthesizes previously published city-level economic-benefit studies from a representative sample of 11 of the country’s most populous cities (see Methodology, page 14 of the report PDF), analyzes responses from our annual City Park Facts survey, and explores data and case studies from reputable sources.
These benefits are just the start. This analysis reflects the annual value of operating a large city’s parks and recreation system—maintenance, programs, and capital repairs. Additional impacts are not quantified: $200 billion* in annual economic activity; the economic development role of parks in attracting tourists, residents, and businesses; and the long-term environmental benefits of protecting natural areas.
In short, if your city isn’t investing in spaces that bring the community together, it’s failing to maximize some of its strongest and most cost-effective assets.
Fruit trees at Urban Orchard, a new park in South Gate, California. The park has a workforce development program through the Conservation Corps of
Long Beach, giving young people access to green jobs. Photo: Annie Bang Photographys
Section 1: Benefit: Reduced Healthcare Costs
Investing in parks and public spaces is one way to combat inactivity and reduce cost burdens. Access to parks can help people achieve the CDC’s recommended dose of 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise each week, which can lower their risk of chronic diseases, thus reducing individual healthcare outlays by an average of $2,298 per year, in 2024 dollars.
According to our analysis (see Methodology, page 14 of the report PDF), approximately 6 percent of adults depend on their park and rec system to meet their 150-minute dose of physical activity. This year, TPL’s national polling also found a similar trend; parks and other outdoor public places are the most common setting where people are physically active (more than twice as popular as private gyms). These numbers are critical to estimating the economic benefits attributable to physical activity in parks and rec facilities.
Access to parks and robust park programming, like exercise classes, is a powerful counterweight, addressing the incidence of disease and, by extension, the cost of medical care to society and individuals. But while our study only estimated the health savings from physical activity, there are other means to improved health. A growing body of research links time in nature and social connection—which public parks and rec facilities provide—to improved hormone levels, cardiovascular health, mood, concentration, and life expectancy and to lower BMI and even lower mortality rates. This is supported by TPL’s national polling: 92 percent of adults who spend time outdoors name health as a motivator, including 61 percent who want to de-stress and nearly half who want to socialize (Fig 3).
As popular “third spaces”—neither home nor office/ school—parks are gathering places, bolstering social connection and helping to address the epidemic of loneliness that former Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy called “one of our generation’s greatest challenges,” with “grave consequences for our mental health, physical health and collective well-being.”
Beyond capital improvements, investments in programming and partnerships help cities leverage parks for better public health. Healthcare institutions in at least 26 cities are funding, staffing, or referring patients to health programs in parks, such as health screenings, blood drives, Walk with a Doc sessions, and free or low-cost fitness classes. ParkRx programs in 49 states have doctors issuing prescriptions—which must include a park or other nature-rich environment, an activity, a frequency, and a duration of time (i.e., walk your dog with your sister at Garrison Park, every day, for 30 minutes). Patients have reported nearly an extra hour of activity each week.
All of this explains why health institutions should invest in their communities’ parks and green spaces—because those investments pay off in healthier patients and lower downstream costs. Dignity Health, a major nonprofit healthcare system in California, awarded Trust for Public Land a $94,922 grant in 2024 to help Stockton, California, identify areas for green-space improvements—such as asphalt schoolyards, with their potential to become green oases enjoyed by the general public after school hours.
Visitors exploring Bethel Community Forest in Bethel, Maine, another TPL project
with miles of trails. Photo: Jerry and Marcy Monkman
Young students learning yoga on the renovated and expanded playground at Quitman Street School in Newark, New Jersey. Raised vegetable beds, new trees and shrubs, and a rain garden capture stormwater, reducing costs for the city. Photo: Naomi Ellenson
Section 2: Benefit: Reduced Stormwater Runoff
Like electrical grids, city stormwater systems—the pipes and tanks that divert and hold runoff from streets—were sized to meet peak events at the time they were built. But today, across the U.S., storms have become more intense, overwhelming these now undersized systems and resulting in catastrophic flooding. For some cities, like New York, stormwater is combined with sewage. These combined sewer overflows (CSOs) get diverted to local waterways, threatening water quality, marine life, and public health, and sidelining kayakers and swimmers for days after a rain event. All of this comes at a great financial cost to cities.
To deal with the twin scourges of flooding and water pollution, cities are turning to green infrastructure as a cost-effective alternative to the holding tanks and tunnels of traditional gray infrastructure systems. Several cities, including Philadelphia, New York, and Portland, Oregon, have projected savings in the billions of dollars through established green-infrastructure programs.
Existing parks and green spaces—which represent about 14 percent of the study cities’ footprint but 22 percent of their permeable surface area—act as natural sponges, absorbing stormwater before it flows to overloaded pipes. When thoughtfully designed with bioswales, detention ponds, and porous surfaces that double as places for kids and families to play, exercise, and gather, new parks can be cost-effective, holistic solutions. They frequently cost less and deliver more than a stand-alone detention pond or retrofit sewer network.
The reduction in stormwater runoff has a real financial impact. Every gallon absorbed by a park or green space represents dollars a city can save on capture and treatment. Across the 11 big-city economic benefit studies, parks save anywhere from $2.2 million (Virginia Beach) to $22.6 million each year in stormwater management costs in 2025 dollars.
In the 2022 City Parks Facts survey, 67 percent of cities said they’re improving surfaces to reduce flooding. This year, 13 percent of cities said reducing expenses, both healthcare and stormwater management costs, is the top motivator for making park investments.
Philadelphia’s “Green City, Clean Waters” initiative debuted in 2011 in response to state and federal regulations curbing the volume of stormwater entering combined sewers. The 25-year plan, which relies on green infrastructure, is on track to meet its pollution-reduction goals by the mid-2030s.
In Los Angeles, with its 900 linear miles of alleys, Trust for Public Land has partnered with local groups to transform trash-strewn alleys into clean, sustainable pedestrian walkways that connect to schools, businesses, and parks, and that capture and treat polluted stormwater. Although L.A. is dry much of the year, when there is precipitation, the skies erupt. Stormwater seeps through porous surfaces and landscaping to an engineered substrate with dry wells and storage chambers. There, it remains temporarily or continues draining underground to replenish the aquifers.
In 2023, TPL opened two Green Alley projects in L.A. that together revitalized a dozen underused alleyways in the historic Central Avenue jazz district. The Central Jefferson Green Alley network captures and filters 1.3 million gallons of stormwater a year, while the Quincy Jones Green Alley project handles 263,000 gallons.
Philadelphia Water Department. “How Green Tools Work.” Vimeo video, 2021. https://vimeo.com/533630482
A park user getting a workout at the Fitness Zone at Bitter Lake Reservoir Park in Seattle, Washington. Free outdoor fitness equipment in local parks allows residents to save money on expensive health clubs. Photo: Tegra Stone Nuess
Section 3: Benefit: Consumer Value
With everyday expenses—gas, groceries, childcare, healthcare, and insurance—skyrocketing, Americans are facing tough budgeting choices. That’s especially true for the discretionary activities, experiences, and services that give life meaning, joy, and texture. Suddenly, gym memberships, enrichment camps for kids and adults, cultural programs like theater and concerts, and even family night at the movies are harder to justify when you’re belt-tightening.
It’s times like these that highlight the consumer value of parks and recreation.
On average, a private gym membership in 2024 would run you $69 a month or $828 a year. By comparison, monthly passes to rec centers are often free for city residents or available at a fraction of the cost of a private gym membership. Of course, fitness amenities like running tracks, ball courts, and even basic exercise equipment cost $0 when accessed in a public park, rain or shine.
Many large cities offer free or low-cost fitness classes in recreation centers and outdoors. The New York City parks department has long offered free Pilates, kickboxing, and Zumba classes through its popular Shape Up NYC program. To encourage participation (for reasons outlined in section 1 of this report), the agency added locations in public housing complexes, libraries, and health clinics. There are no income requirements. Nearly 200 parks and playgrounds in the city’s five boroughs now feature outdoor fitness areas outfitted with strength-training equipment—low-tech versions of the machines found in private health clubs. One of the first fitness zones was actually installed on the grounds of the Carver Houses, a public housing complex that’s home to 2,500 people in East Harlem. Trust for Public Land, in partnership with Mount Sinai Hospital and the city’s public housing authority, helped pay for an elliptical machine, a stationary bike, a push-up station, a rowing machine, and plyometric steps there.
Shaun Commodore, president of the Carver Houses Resident Association, said the fitness zone had enabled him to stay fit without plundering his bank account. “It’s convenient,” he said after the fitness area opened. “It’s right there and you don’t have to pay for a gym membership. It gives our residents somewhere to go and relieve stress. We can bond with each other and motivate each other.”
According to USA Today, the average cost to attend a concert in 2024 was $135.92. That’s up from $25.81 in 1996 ($52 in 2024 dollars). In Chicago, the Grant Park Music Festival—a program of the city’s park and recreation department—offers free classical music concerts for 10 weeks in summer.
In some cities, a night at the movies can cost a family of four nearly $100, not including refreshments. In Charlotte, North Carolina, Fourth Ward Park hosts free films on Friday nights from June to October (the first 100 moviegoers receive free popcorn).
Among residents surveyed in TPL’s 11 previously published economic benefit studies, the most frequented activities were visiting playgrounds, playing sports, moving (walking, hiking, biking, jogging, running), and, in some cities like Colorado Springs and Baton Rouge, bird-watching and wildlife viewing.
Economists measure the value of common park activities in terms of what consumers would be willing to pay (WTP) for each. Bird-watching and visiting a playground have WTP values around $2, while festivals and cultural performances are worth $25 by the WTP metric. TPL’s analysis, using survey responses and the WTP metrics, found that, on average, park users in the U.S. stand to save nearly $600 a year in 2025 dollars—a so-called consumer surplus—by taking advantage of free or low-cost park offerings rather than paying for pricier options.
Some cities have turned to ballot measures to generate revenue, in part, to keep programs affordable for park users. In Portland, Oregon, voters last fall passed a five-year $456 million levy to ensure continued access to park programs, including free swimming lessons and meals for children on summer weekdays through the “Free Lunch + Play” program. Mayor Keith Wilson went door to door to win support for the measure. “It’s the basketball games, it’s the strolls, it’s our programs for our kids after school,” he said last fall. “It’s so many things all rolled in together. Frankly, I think the parks is Portland.”
Young residents show off their muscles at West Perrine Park in Miami, where a Fitness Zone enhances physical activity, thus reducing the burden of healthcare costs. Photo: Allana Wesley White Photography
Section 4: Benefit: Economic Development
In many cities, parks are a core strategy for attracting and retaining residents, families, and businesses and for developing commerce and a skilled workforce. In this year’s City Parks Facts survey, two in three cities said they’re investing in parks, in part to advance economic development. The potential for increased tourism and consumer spending was cited as the chief motivator. Hosting visitors is one way to generate revenue. Attracting and retaining residents and businesses is another. Local parks fuel local economies to the tune of $201 billion in spending activity and 1.1 million jobs, 29 according to the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA).
The idea that parks are as important to those groups as, say, public transportation and affordable housing is not lost on city leaders. “Companies often tell us that amenities like parks and trails are a significant factor in attracting and retaining employees,” said Tim Kelly, the mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Data from NRPA in 2025 backs that up: three in five adults said they were “highly likely to consider the availability of park and recreation services” when choosing a place to live.
A woman taking a power walk at the Shamrock Park and Nature Center in Venice, Florida, where a 2.3-mile multiuse trail on the Intracoastal Waterway offers wildlife viewing, hiking, and biking. Photo: Melody Timothee
Parks and trails, themselves, help many young people and entry-level workers gain a toehold in the local economy. Park- or trail-based workforce development programs, like St. Paul, Minnesota’s Right Track program, connect people to work opportunities by providing job training, work-readiness skills, and support services. The strategy also ensures that companies have a reliable, local pipeline of prospective employees.
And if those employees eventually buy a home close to a park, they and their cities stand to benefit. Proximity to outdoor amenities increases property values. That fattens city tax bases, which fund public services. TPL estimates, conservatively, that people are willing to pay a 5 to 15 percent premium for homes within 500 feet, or three blocks, of a well-maintained park. Across TPL’s 11 economic benefit reports, increased property values generated $1 million to $122 million (in 2025 dollars) in annual property tax revenue. Conversely, poorly maintained or neglected parks can diminish property values.
In an effort to draw businesses, tenants, and visitors back to the downtown core following pandemic-era declines, Denver is investing about $35 million to renovate Skyline Park and Civic Center Park, both in the heart of the city. Doug Tisdale, the Development Authority’s board chair, explained that the city has “to invest in the growth that’s going to drive more economic development.”
Stretching from Tampa to Naples, the 420-mile Florida Gulf Coast Trail, is about 50 percent finished. Backers and project partners, including Trust for Public Land, are making a strong economic argument for completing the paved path. Charles Hines, the Florida Gulf Coast Trail program director for TPL, called it an “engine for economic growth, an enabler of safer mobility, and the backbone for regional resilience,” in an opinion piece in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune in March.
The trail’s 18.5-mile Sarasota-to-Venice segment is projected to generate $200 million in economic activity for Sarasota County, Hines said. Finishing the trail would be a boon for cycling-centered tourism, which is hugely popular in the state given the flat terrain and year-round warm weather.
Section 5: Benefit: Funding Leverage
Parks—like libraries, schools, healthcare institutions, and other services in the public commons—are powerful magnets for philanthropy, which can take many forms. Individuals, corporations, or nonprofits can donate land for public parks. They might finance new public spaces or programs. They often support conservancies and friends groups.
All of that largesse is dependent, of course, on an earnest commitment by city governments to invest in and prioritize parks and trails. After all, individuals, foundations, and philanthropies would be reluctant to pour money into institutions or, in this case, green spaces that don’t have meaningful support from the public sector.
A case in point is Pittsburgh, where nonprofit Riverlife recently created a dynamic new public space called Shore Thing, a 4,800-square-foot recreational barge on the Allegheny River. The floating park opened last July as a free public gathering spot with seating, art, concerts, yoga classes, and food concessions. The $1.2 million project followed decades of work by government agencies to clean up the river, which during the city’s industrial heyday had become severely contaminated.
Shore Thing emerged from a major public investment, the Three Rivers Heritage Trail, which is the access point for the barge. The 35-mile trail system is maintained by Pittsburgh’s Department of Public Works and the nonprofit Friends of the Riverfront. Both the river cleanup and the trail laid the groundwork for Riverlife’s decision to invest in the riverfront. “We believe Pittsburgh’s rivers bring life to our region,” said Matthew Galluzzo, president and CEO of Riverlife. “Thousands of Pittsburghers provided input to our guiding vision plan … [they] want riverfronts filled with amenities and attractions—places that bring people together to create memories.”
Hundreds of miles to the south, in Huntsville, Alabama, confidence in the future of the city helped motivate the Hays family to donate more than $1 million and hundreds of acres of former farmland in recent years. “You’ve got to believe in the community, and you’ve got to believe in what’s happening and what can happen,” Jim Hays said of his family’s philanthropy. “Then you’ve got to have the wherewithal to help, and it becomes your responsibility to do that.”
The new $7 million Park at Hays Farm opened in December 2025. It is situated in a part of Huntsville, a city of 250,000, where corn and soybean fields have given way to apartment complexes and other development. Nearby, an additional 500 acres of Hays farmland was protected as a nature preserve. “As our city continues to grow, added park space is a valued part of our infrastructure,” said Mayor Tommy Battle at the ribbon-cutting.
These private contributions supplement municipal investments and do more than expand or create public park space; they catalyze powerful civic engagement and connections among neighbors. Although it’s difficult to quantify the impact of civic engagement, TPL estimated the value of park-related volunteer activity across its 11 economic impact studies. Of the 30 percent of U.S. adults who volunteer each year, TPL’s YouGov polling suggests about half of them do so in parks. A volunteer’s contribution in 2024 was valued at nearly $35 per hour.
TPL estimated the total financial contribution of volunteer hours across each city, ranging from $300,000 to $140 million per year in 2025 dollars. Additionally, nonprofit investments are as high as $221 million per year, as was the case in New York City. In some places, like Atlanta and Austin, about a quarter of the city’s parks are adopted by a “friends-of” or other community group. Without the original public investment in maintaining these parks, none of this volunteerism or private support would happen.
Conclusion
But here’s the thing: None of those benefits comes to the party alone. They show up in force, delivering multiple, complementing, and overlapping outcomes that are far greater than the sum of their parts.
Visit tpl.org/ps2026-studies to read about a few projects that demonstrate the far-reaching collateral improvements a single, local green space can bring to a community.
When it comes to public health, strategic park spending encapsulates the idea that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Create free or low-cost opportunities for people to nurture their well-being upstream, and you’ll avoid downstream costs.
As climate volatility rises, green infrastructure is generally more cost-effective (not to mention more aesthetically pleasing) than traditional gray infrastructure. Put precious public dollars into retrofitting an outdated sewer system, and what do you have? New, expensive pipes and tanks buried under blacktop. Put those same dollars into parks with bioswales, retention ponds, and porous surfaces, and you have natural, sustainable stormwater systems that double as beautiful, community gathering spaces where kids and families can play, exercise, and find connection with their neighbors.
When a city pumps public dollars into park and recreation services like public fitness facilities, childcare or enrichment programs, and cultural experiences, residents can keep precious discretionary dollars in their pockets.
A city’s commitment to parks reflects optimism about what lies ahead, and that optimism tends to inspire nonprofits, funders, and residents to join in and support projects that help the community flourish.
Bottom line: If your city isn’t investing in outdoor spaces that bring your community together, you’re leaving quality-of-life cards on the table and failing to maximize your city’s assets. Voters and policymakers should prioritize and accelerate park funding if they want their communities to grow and thrive.
Students enjoying new play equipment at Scott Elementary School in Atlanta, Georgia, where Trust for Public Land oversaw the schoolyard renovation. Such community schoolyards are open to the public after school and on weekends, increasing 10-minute walk park access for residents. Photo: Leah Overstreet
Authors
Lisa W. Foderaro, Senior Writer and Researcher
Deborah Williams, Editorial Director
Will Klein, Director, Parks Research
Jennifer Clinton, Senior Parks & Conservation Economist
Contributors
Bianca Clark | Shaun Commodore | Delphi Drake-Mudede | Stephanie Flynn | Jan Gerstenberg | David Highness | Charles Hines | Ivy Hinson | Linda Hwang | Jocelyn Imani | Malena Jezek | Kate Kelly | Hannah Kohut | Vanessa Martin | Keith Maley | Molly Morgan | Kevin Niu | Dan Walsh | Jennifer M. Egan, PhD, PG, Program Manager, University of Maryland Environmental Finance Center | Amie Fleming, Senior Director, Quantified Ventures
Publication date: May 2026
Suggested citation: 2026: Foderaro, Lisa W., Deborah Williams, Will Klein, and Jennifer Clinton.
The Undeniable ROI of Community Parks and Green Space: 2026 ParkScore® Report. San Francisco:
Trust for Public Land, 2026. https://www.tpl.org/parks-undeniable-roi-report
