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Since at least the mid-nineteenth century in Western Europe, urban parks have played a significant role in the cultural life of
communities. Well-known urban parks include Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens in London, the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, the Retiro Park in Madrid, and the plazas of the cities and towns in
Mexico and in Central and South America.* The first landscaped public park in the United States, New York City's Central Park (modeled after the urban parks of Paris and London) was designed in 1857 by Frederick Law Olmsted, who believed that urban parks were essential to the life of communities, in part because they allowed urban residents to experience nature.
In Texas, counties and cities provide 264,460 acres of parkland at the local level, or approximately 6% percent of the state's
total parkland. Of these 264,460 acres, cities provide approximately 71 percent and counties provide
approximately 18 percent of the park space. Commercially owned recreational sites (guest ranches, etc.) total 226,662 acres, or approximately 6 percent of the state's parkland.* Cities are dependent primarily upon local bonds for funding and receive less than 16 percent of all federal funding for parks.
Of the 35 U.S. cities that responded to a study conducted by the World Resources Institute in 1993, Dallas ranked fourth
highest in percentage of land area devoted to parkland. With 42.2 percent of its area in parkland, Honolulu had the highest percentage, while Washington, D.C., had 29.3 percent, New Bedford
had 20.0 percent, and Dallas had 19.4percent.* Portland, Oregon, had 12.8 percent of its land area in parks, Austin had 8.8 percent, Seattle had 8.5 percent, Houston had 5.2 percent, Fort Worth had 4.8 percent, San Antonio had 2.9 percent, and Galveston had 0.8 percent.
Numerous studies have documented the quality-of-life benefits of open space and parks to a community. But parks may also
benefit homeowners. A study in Boulder, Colorado, concluded that a property's proximity to community greenbelts had a significant impact on the price of the property, and that all things
being equal, property values decrease by $4,200 for every 1,000 feet one moves away from a greenbelt. Other studies have shown similar results.*
Of particular interest to Texans is a 1994 survey that sought to determine which features buyers most want in a community. The
survey responses from people who had purchased a home in a planned community and people who were looking to buy homes in a planned community in Texas, Georgia, Florida, and California showed
that open space was a very high priority. The survey found that golf courses, popular with developers, were a highly desirable feature for less than half of those surveyed: 39.5 percent of
the home buyers surveyed said that a golf course within the community was "very or extremely important," while 60.5 percent preferred open space, wilderness areas, and gardens with walking
paths.* These findings may be good news for the developers and members of planned communities, for the cost of maintaining open space is less than the cost of maintaining a golf course.
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