When you hear people talk about the economy, you always hear them refer to manufacturing or service businesses or finance. But you rarely hear people mention the economic impact of parks.
According to a study by the National Recreation and Park Association, the revenue from regional and local parks is worth paying attention to! We're talking about a figure of $140 billion in economic activity. All that spending also supports one million jobs in the US.
That's one heck of an impact.
Think about it. Every county, city and town in the US has a bunch of parks. Dozens of them. After all, people recognize that the number of quality parks in a town is one measure of the quality of life overall in that community.
Now think about what happens at those parks. Every day, especially on weekends, individuals and families trek to their favorite local or regional park. To get there, they buy gas. If they plan to hold a picnic, they buy food and supplies.
(Have you noticed lately, park picnic tables seem to generate quite a few visitors every weekend? In fact, it's getting harder to find a picnic table and a charcoal grill any more at many parks. Blame in on rock star barbecue grill masters like Bobbie Flay and the Food Channel).
There's more. Think about all the items that a park must offer to accommodate all those visitors. Take picnic tables, for example. They have to be made somewhere. Then there are all the different types that need to be manufactured: aluminum, metal, concrete or recycled plastic picnic tables. Most of these are made domestically as municipalities prefer to buy Made in the USA products.
That produces manufacturing jobs. Then someone has to sell those tables and process the orders for them. More sales and customer service jobs created. Those picnic tables then need to be shipped. That's more work for truck drivers.
Now, multiply that impact with all the other park amenities that are required to run these thousands of parks across the US: park benches, bicycle parking racks, charcoal grills, fences, barricades, rest rooms, swing sets, dog park equipment, doggie bags, water drinking fountains. (If you want to get an idea of all the park furnishings used, just check out The Park Catalog website. There are literally thousands of items that parks need to function effectively).
The items we mention above are basic park amenities. Capital expenditures for amenities such as park furnishings, which according to the NRPA study, add up to $59.7 billion in economic activity. Activity that supports more than 340,000 workers and their families.
Wait, there's more. Now let's explore the economic impact of specific activities and events.
Take a simple softball field at a park for example. All those players need to purchase uniforms, baseball gloves, softballs, bats, cleats and other related products. Not only that, you need to build a field for them. That requires a backstop, fencing and aluminum bleachers.
As everyone knows in every town, one field is certainly not enough. You need a dozen fields. If you build a park with a dozen fields, you are going to attract players of all ages from tiny Babe Ruth League T-ball players to a large number of grown-ups and their sponsorships from local businesses and taverns.
If you have a nice facility with plenty of lighting and parking, chances are your town will attract regional or even state tournaments. That's quite a few out-of-towners coming to your town to spend money on gas, hotels and meals. (Ever try to get a cup of coffee at a Dunkin Donuts near a ball park? The line just never ends. Those kids consume a lot of coffee coolattas).
Employees hired to manage all those parks plus events, arts festivals and concerts
Starting to add up isn't it? We're just getting started on how a park stimulates the economy.
Consider the impact of all those arts and music festivals that your local parks department toil over every year and many people take for granted.
A popular arts or music festival will attract thousands of people not only from in town, but from surrounding areas as well. That's more gas, more food and more goods that are purchased. Think of all the money that vendors alone spend in transporting their wares and setting up a booth. Think of all the advertising that is spent promoting an event.
That actual impact is probably higher, much higher, if you could really count all the ancillary expenditures generated by a park, right down to the granular level if you could ever count every hot dog placed on a grill or batting glove placed on a pair of hands. The NRPA study does not take into account spending by visitors.
Think of all the people and money required to put on these activities. The NRPA estimates it comes out to $80 billion in operations spending and supports 660,000 jobs and families.
You need thousands of park employees to run all these parks, ballgames and events. You also need part-time counselors, lifeguards and umpires as well. All this park operational activity puts money in people's pockets. That's money they will spend locally on homes, cars, food, toys, electronics, health care, haircuts, you name it. All those paychecks circulate throughout a local economy keeping other people employed as well.
Total employment created by parks is estimated at one million workers according to the NRPA study. Again, the employment factor is probably higher if you could measure the effect of every dollar spent and other workers supported in some way by those dollars.
When it comes to stimulating economic activity, the use of all these parks creates quite a bit of wear and tear and requires quite a bit of maintenance and upkeep. That means lawns to be mowed, roads to be repaved and picnic tables, park benches, charcoal grills replaced.
Then there's the tax benefit. Every time a person comes to town for a bluegrass festival, an art show or a girls softball tournament and they buy gas or a sandwich or even book a hotel room, they are also contributing to the tax base. Every dollar spent has X number of cents in taxes attached to it. (This doesn't even count the federal impact from taxes on paychecks).
So, if you consider the annual impact of $140 billion in expenditures and one million people put to work to manage all that activity, it begs this question: Why aren't municipalities focusing more time, money and effort promoting parks as an economic driver of the local economy?
Ironically, when municipal budgets are tight, many times it's the parks and recreation department budgets that are the first to suffer. Perhaps it should be the other way around.
Economic activity has a beautiful way of stirring more economic activity. (Been to Orlando/Kissimmee, Fla., lately? Disney built it. People flocked to it. Now it looks like that snowball is never going to melt. There are numerous theme parks still being built every year).
Some towns are emulating major amusement parks by creating their own mini-attractions with mid-size splash parks. Research shows the drawing power of those water parks can be tremendous. Especially if they are indoor water parks in a northern region with cold weather. People have to find something to do in the winter.
Bike tourism is another opportunity. Creating rails to trails or interesting bike paths can attract a tremendous number of bike tourists as well without a major million-dollar investment in slides and pools. All you need are clearly delineated and safe bike lanes, bike rentals, bike repair shops, bicycle parking racks and some interesting scenery.
(Keep in mind, the NRPA research only deals with local and regional parks. This does not cover federally-funded and managed national parks. According to the National Park Service, in 2014 park visitors spent about $15.7 billion. That spending supported 277,000 jobs and $10.3 billion in worker income. Those dollars have a rippling, beneficial effect as well).
After reading this study, perhaps it's time to start taking parks more seriously as an economic multiplier. Sometimes they are mistakenly seen as places where money is sunk into, when in reality they can be utilized as assets that increase tax revenues and circulate more dollars throughout a town.
The NRPA took out their magnifying glasses and calculators in an effort to add it all up using data from 1,169 local and regional parks and other sources. The result was an astonishing $140 billion dollars a year in activity. That's a major chunk of the GDP. Especially on a municipal or county level.
It's certainly a number that demands serious consideration and nurturing.