The Unused Assets of Our Public Recreation Facilities

Abstract

Of the fifteen cities, commencing with New York and ending with Washington, D. C., which had in 1907 a population of 300,000 or over, only four had over five per cent. of the city's land area in public parks. The average for the entire group was 3.8 per cent. In the second group of twenty-nine cities-the largest, Newark, N. J., and the smallest, Grand Rapids, Mich.-having a population of Ioo,ooo to 300,000, only six had more than five per cent. of the city's land area in public parks, while the average for this group was only 3Y2 per cent. In the third group of forty-seven cities having a population of between fifty and one hundred thousand, the average park area was but I.9 per cent. of the city's land, and the sixty-seven cities having a population of from thirty thousand to fifty thousand in 1907 averaged only 1.4 per cent. Recognizing the tendency of population to concentrate and even to congest in every one of these cities, it is apparent that the existing recreation facilities must be utilized to the maximum if the city is to secure the largest returns for its investment. The per capita expenditure for recreation in these four groups of cities was fifty-one cents in I907, ranging from sixty-eight cents per capita in the first, thirty-six cents per capita in the second, thirty cents in the third, to as low as twenty cents per capita in the fourth or largest group of cities with populations between thirty thousand and fifty thousand. In the first two groups the cost of land for outdoor recreation purposes is a much more serious factor than in the smaller cities.