Greensboro Plan2Play Parks and Recreation Master Plan 2019

GREENSBORO PLAN2PLAY MASTER PLAN - 45

Parks Today: National and Peer Comparisons For a community of its size, Greensboro is well-served for overall city-owned park acreage today, but the city’s population continues to grow. To understand how Greensboro compares to other similar cities, the assessment drew from the 2017 NRPA performance benchmarks that are created from an annual survey and data gathering from organizations across the country. Whenever possible given available data, Greensboro was compared to benchmarks for similarly sized cities. The national average of park acreage for agencies of all sizes is 9.6 acres per 1,000 residents. Today, Greensboro has slightly more park space than this benchmark: with 2,937 acres total that equates to 10.2 acres per 1,000 residents based on Greensboro’s 2016 population of 287,030 people. In the future, Greensboro’s projected growth will increase demand on the system. By 2038, North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management (NC OSBM) projections can be used to project that Greensboro may grow by an additional 45,000 people. Using the same benchmark, the city will need a

total of 3,328 acres, which is an additional 391 acres of parkland, to support the densifying city. The analysis also identified eight peer cities to compare with Greensboro, each of which have similar populations, provide similar community services, and have similar departmental structures. They include Arlington, Virginia; Buffalo, New York; Cincinnati, Ohio; Fort Wayne, Indiana; Richmond, Virginia; St. Louis, Missouri; Toledo, Ohio; and Wichita, Kansas.

Richmond, Buffalo, Arlington, and Fort Wayne all have less than 10 acres per 1,000 residents. St. Louis, Toledo, Cincinnati and Wichita each have greater than 10 acres per 1,000 residents. Despite a few outlying data points, Greensboro is well within the average of its peers. Among these 9 cities, the average acreage and acres/1,000 residents, at 3,282 and 11.4 respectively, are only slightly higher than Greensboro today.

Table 4 - Greensboro Peer City Systems

Current Population (2016)

Acres/1,000 residents

Walkable Access to Parks

City

Acres

Greensboro

287,019

2,937

10.2

59%

Richmond

222,035 260,404 318,699 278,254 227,499 302,939 246,777 371,744 279,486

2,027

9.1

74%

Buffalo

1,913 3,721 3,128 1,787 6,891 2,400 4,737 3,282

7.3

85% 90% 76% 98% 71% 42% 50%

St. Louis

11.7 11.2

Toledo

Arlington VA Cincinnati Fort Wayne Wichita KS

7.9 9.7

12

12.7 11.4

Average

71%