PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — The City of Philadelphia has seen a sharp drop in a national ranking for its park system.
The nonprofit Trust for Public Land rates Philadelphia 32nd among the nation’s 100 largest cities this year, down from 19th in 2021.
Philadelphia Parks and Recreation Commissioner Kathryn Ott Lovell says a large part of the drop is the trust’s formula which this year removed spending for Rebuild, the project that is rehabbing Parks and Rec facilities in the city.
But Lovell said the trust’s broader conclusion that the city’s parks are underfunded is true.
“We were cut dramatically during COVID,” Lovell said. “We lost a full 20% of our budget. We only got a little more than half of that back last year.”
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The city’s Parks and Recreation budget for fiscal year 2019 was $66 million. In fiscal year 2021, it was $55 million.
Lovell said even before the pandemic, Parks was not funded at the same level as other cities.
“We are the most underunded large city municipal parks department in the country for a lot of reasons,” Lovell said. “We just have so many other issues as a city we need to deal with. We don’t get the funding that other cities receive.”
Lovell said that outside of funding, the city did well in the rankings.
“We get great scores for our number of amenities, our walkability to parks, for the assets that we have,” Lovell said. “It’s just we know as a city, I think everyone knows, that our Parks and Recreation Department is not funded at the level it should be.”
According to Lovell, the funding issue creates challenges for a parks system as large as Philadelphia’s.
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“With the size and scale of the system we’re incredibly blessed to have, we do struggle with how to maintain it on a day-to-day basis,” she said.
The Trust for Public Lands said most cities cut park budgets during the pandemic and funding levels now are “insufficient to maintain existing space or increase park access.” It noted that parks are increasingly important as a way to mitigate the impact of climate change.
The top 10 Trust for Public Land rankings for 2022 are as follows:
1. Washington, D.C. (84.9 out of a possible 100)
2. St. Paul, Minnesota (79.7)
3. Arlington, Virginia (79.1)
4. Cincinnati, Ohio (78.9)
5. Minneapolis, Minnesota (78.6)
6. Chicago, Illinois (76.8)
7. San Francisco, California (76.7)
8. Irvine, California (76.6)
9. Seattle, Washington (76.2)
10. New York, New York (75.5)