Recognizing the Benefits of City Parks

I’m not sure who enjoyed it more— the child feeding the birds or the parent watching her. Obviously the birds were happy as they gathered, hoping to catch some morsels. 

This scene took place in a city park, and I found it fun to watch, too. 

The recreational, physical, and psychological benefits of parks are obvious: through them we urban dwellers preserve and connect to nature. Yet these benefits have been considered subjective, difficult if not impossible to quantify. So I’m pleased to notice a growing trend to calculate the economic value of parks and open spaces and to officially recognize them within a city’s financial balance sheet. 

City parks are a public trust, financed through taxes in the public interest and managed by governments or other official bodies. Admittedly it sometimes feels like we pay too many taxes, but parks are an expression of who we are as a people and what we believe to be important. If we fail to protect nature and deny access to it within our increasingly urban society, we will experience great losses, themselves beyond calculation. 

I’m not an economist, and I don’t claim to know how to quantify or measure all of this. But one of the motivators in finding ways to do so has been climate change. The irony is that overdevelopment and industrial practices are major contributors to the problem in the first place. We know that green spaces help the environment by improving air quality and by reducing smog and CO2 emissions; this can definitely be quantified. Similarly, a park’s role in providing food for insects and animals can be valued in concrete terms. Improvements in human physical and mental health due to outdoor recreation and beauty can be measured. Property values in areas with parks and green spaces tend to remain stable or increase, which in turn generates tax revenue for supporting the parks. 

These are among the many ways that parks and green spaces contribute to the environment and to community well-being, and they show that parks are more than just an expense. They both save and attract money, and they are investments to protect. Furthermore, a park belongs to everyone in a community and its visitors; it is an equalizer. Wealthy people readily surround themselves with beauty; parks are indifferent to a person’s financial or social status. 

Referring to ideas proposed by Baha’u’llah, the Baha’i International Community has called for new economic models. These models will feature: 

… universally agreed-upon and enforceable laws, the equitable sharing of resources, fundamental adjustments to present institutional and economic relations … shaped by insights that arise from a sympathetic understanding of shared experience. –  Environment, Development and Prosperity.

Giving up green space is still a common practice when building a structure; and then that structure is measured through the economic activity it will generate. But finally, albeit slowly, this practice is changing. True progress, not just physical development, is indicated as economists and municipal authorities acknowledge the environment as a natural source of wealth. This leads to valuing it, not just trading it for something else that is more readily quantified. As such, it is an example of a new economic model. 

When I pass by a city park and see a child feeding birds, when I drive though eco-corridors along highways, and whenever I see open spaces I feel encouraged that our beautiful planet is being given a chance to live. Some of us cherish it without having to measure it. Others need to measure it. Either way is fine with me, so long as the outcome preserves our natural environment and its treasures.