St. Paul, Minneapolis rank second and third nationwide for parks

St. Paul Parks and Recreation again has been recognized as the nation's second-best park system by the Trust for Public Land, while the Minneapolis park system rose to the No. 3 spot after slipping to fifth place last year.

St. Paul boosted its ParkScore ranking by opening three new dog parks — Uŋčí Makhá in the Highland Bridge development, Lilydale and Lower Landing — while Minneapolis moved up after opening new park space, including Bridal Veil Gardens in the Prospect Park neighborhood.

"This annual ranking serves as both a cause to celebrate our achievements to date and a reminder of the investments that are still needed to achieve equitable access to parkland and amenities within our city," said St. Paul Parks Director Andy Rodriguez.

Both Twin Cities' park systems have placed first in the past, and usually land somewhere in the top three. But Washington, D.C., grabbed the top spot this year as it has for the last two years, owing perhaps to being crammed with national parks. Nearly one-fourth of the nation's capital is parkland.

Parkgoers in St. Paul and Minneapolis have the distinct privilege of being able to swim, sail or lounge beside a magnificent string of lakes. But the Trust's ParkScore index doesn't count public waters as part of the systems' acreage metric.

Neither does the Trust credit park systems for land they manage outside their city's boundaries. Minneapolis doesn't get points for much of its largest park, Theodore Wirth Regional Park, while St. Paul doesn't get to count swaths of Lilydale Regional Park.

Other cities' park systems are hamstrung by that rule. Denver, for instance, manages twice as much parkland beyond its city limits as it does within, which affects its ParkScore ranking despite its large expanse of parkland in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

But when it comes to park access — determined by how many residents live within a 10-minute walk to any park inside or outside the city — both St. Paul and Minneapolis are closing in on 100%. Only 1% and 2% of residents in the cities, respectively, must walk more than 10 minutes to reach a park. Compare that with the national average of 76%.

Both of the Twin Cities also spend a lot of money on park improvements, more than twice the national average per capita. Al Bangoura, Minneapolis parks superintendent, said they're especially proud of the system's "equity-based investments in park improvements and programming," and are committed to acquiring more land along the upper riverfront and in former industrial areas to remediate into green space — one way to expand parkland in a built-up city.

"We need to continue our important work making investments based on racial equity metrics and improvements based on community outreach and engagement with the diverse communities we serve," he said.

Minneapolis funds neighborhood park improvements according to an equity matrix that considers demographics and historic investments. As a result, neighborhoods of color now get the benefit of more park spending per capita.

For example, the recreation center at North Commons Park in north Minneapolis is set to get a makeover running from $33 million to $49 million — the Park Board's largest-ever investment in a neighborhood park.

But none of those equity efforts count for ParkScore. The index identifies racial disparities by comparing parkland in predominantly white neighborhoods with neighborhoods of color. It finds that most American cities have significantly more green space in the former — the result of past land use and housing policies.

A University of Minnesota research brief, published February in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, explores how developers and government worked together in Minneapolis' early years to secure public money for park space while enforcing racial covenants for private property. The result was segregated neighborhoods that delivered parks and their health benefits for higher-income white communities.

While land use continues to be shaped by history, Twin Cities park leaders are trying to blend equity into their park management practices regardless of the annual park rankings.

Adam Arvidson, the Minneapolis Park Board's strategic planning director, told board members last year that if a city has exactly the same park acreage in neighborhoods of color as in predominantly white neighborhoods, while doing programming and upkeep only in the latter areas, that city would still score high on the equity metric.

"We fully endorse that there's an equity metric," Arvidson said. "We just think they need to go further ... because if you've got three acres of unknown turf with nothing to do, is that really equitable park access?"

Will Klein, ParkScore's lead analyst, acknowledged that Twin Cities parks are doing things to improve equity that are difficult to measure right now.

"It's always great to talk with the folks in Minneapolis, because in many ways it represents the future of city parks," Klein said. "These questions around equity, of looking at funding and programs and how people are interacting in parks ... challenge us for the next decade.

"It's what we hope to grow into by following the lead of cities like Minneapolis."