Houston, Texas real estate development, home buying, landscape, and design

The Trust for Public Land’s annual report on parks in cities is out and—guess what! Houston miraculously has a whole lot more parkland than it did last year.

In 2006, the Trust’s report showed Houston had 16.5 acres of parkland for every 1,000 residents—below the 20.6-acres-per-1,000 average for cities of similar density.

This year, Houston looks a whole lot better: Suddenly, there’s 27.2 acres of parkland per 1,000 residents. That puts us in third place among cities in the “intermediate-low density” category, and well above the new 17.5 acre average.

How’d it happen? Was it the new 11th Street Park? A secret citywide playground-building program? Not quite. It’s the creative accounting effort launched by Mayor White’s office to make sure the Trust counted every green acre.

White simply wanted Houston judged by the same criteria as other cities, [spokesman Frank] Michel said. “As the mayor likes to say, the facts are our friends.”

Where did the mayor find all that green? Well, here’s his biggest catch:

. . . the city argued successfully that the surface area of Lake Houston — almost 12,000 acres — should be counted as parkland. Harnik said the trust agreed that bodies of water should be counted if they were associated with a park owned by a government agency. Houston acquired the 5,000-acre Lake Houston Park in August 2006 from the state parks department.

Too bad we were limited to just the surface area, though. Next year’s report will probably be even better. Isn’t there a city park somewhere associated with the Ship Channel too?

• Study says Houston ranks among metro leaders in green space [Houston Chronicle]
• City Park Facts [The Trust for Public Land]
• In a Paved Paradise, No Need To Put Up with a Lot of Parks [Swamplot]
• West 11th Street Park: Saved by the Bill [Swamplot]

Lake Houston Photo: Flickr user Demonhawk.

Houston may be better known for its parking spaces, but what about our park spaces? In a new report from the Trust for Public Land comparing park spending and usage in various cities, Houston — for the most part — avoids extreme embarrassment:

• First, some reassuring facts: Memorial Park is the 17th most-visited city park in the country, with 3,246,000 visitors a year. Hermann Park makes the list at number 24, with 2,297,673 annual visitors, but even downtown’s supposedly peaceful Tranquility Park hits number 36. Who’s counting all these people, anyway?
• As a percentage of land area, Houston has slightly more than the average amount of parkland: 9.0 percent. Cities of similar (low-to-intermediate) density have an average 8.5 percent of their acreage devoted to parks. Austin and El Paso cream us, though, with figures higher than 16 percent. Dallas bests us too, even though it’s considered a higher density city. San Antonio, though? With only 6.8 percent parkland, we have it beat.

Houston doesn’t look so, uh, hot in some other categories, though:

• We have only 16.5 acres of park per every 1,000 residents. Cities of similar density have an average of 20.6, though higher density urban areas tend to have less. Reason to celebrate, Houston: We’re in great position to increase our density!
• There are precisely 0.8 soccer fields for every 10,000 residents, barely above the average of other major cities in the survey, but clearly not enough to host a World Cup. We’re below the norm in numbers of baseball fields, golf courses, playgrounds, and recreation centers. When it comes to dog parks, we’re in the doghouse: the trust counts a grand total of only four here. Grassy medians must not count.
• Houston spent less than any other of the 56 cities in the survey on total park capital costs: a measly $2 per resident in fiscal-year 2004, well below the $23 average. And when we add in operating costs, only Toledo, Ohio, got by more cheaply: Total annual spending on parks in Houston added up to only $35 per person in FY2004, well below the $86 average. Compared to similar agencies in the other cities, our Parks and Recreation Department gets away with a tiny staff and budget. Should we be proud of that efficiency, or annoyed that we’re not taking better care of public parks?

• New Facts on City Parks [The Trust for Public Land]
• City Park Facts [The Trust for Public Land]

[Memorial Park photo courtesy flickr user Vanita]