Orlando's poor planning might be exacerbating unequal park use post-pandemic

The pandemic has dramatically altered how people interact with the physical world outside of their homes. A new academic study looks at how public spaces, such as parks, public transit, and libraries, were impacted by the pandemic. It finds disturbing data on racial/ethnic inequalities among park use.

The Harvard-backed researchers lay out their findings after reviewing more than 5,600 parks across the nation. The data, which looks at 2018 through late 2020, points to similar park usage in majority white and majority people of color areas. However, that changes dramatically after the pandemic begins. Both areas see a rapid drop in use around April, around the time much of the country was under stay-at-home orders, with an average of 35.7 percent decline associated with last spring’s pandemic closures. Then as places began reopening, parks within white communities began seeing much higher usage.
Despite many parks outside of white majority areas remaining less popular than pre-pandemic, there have been numerous media stories on the increase in park use. In the paper, the researchers state this “potentially underscoring how media narratives center White experiences.”

Other locations, such as libraries and places of worship, did not find the similar rebounds that parks experienced. Post-reopening park use within white majority communities was, in fact, higher than in 2019. The researchers found community racial factors were associated with a 42.7 percent change in park usage.
The past year has highlighted the importance of accessible outdoor space. In addition, there’s a direct correlation between access to park space and health.

In 2020, the Trust for Public Land’s (TPL) annual ParkScore ranked Orlando fifty-second in the nation for parks. The annual list looks at major cities in the country, reviewing their park access, investment, amenities, and acreage. In comparison to Orlando, St. Petersburg came in nineteenth. Tampa was just behind Orlando in the fifty-sixth spot.
More than one in three Orlando residents don’t have a park near them, and the number is most bleak for children, with just 61 percent having access to a park within a ten-minute walk from their residence. High-income areas in Orlando report the most access to a park.

The news isn’t all bad. For example, Black, Asian American and Pacific Islander residents report access to a park within a ten-minute walk at similar rates to whites. However, Hispanic people have the least access to a nearby park. Orlando also scored high on the number of recreation and senior centers within the community, with 1.4 per 20,000 people. The city also had high marks for access to public restrooms and the number of basketball hoops.

On average, according to research by TPL, American cities have 15 percent of city land dedicated to park use; in Orlando, it is just six percent. A map published by TPL shows where parks are needed most within Orlando. On it are large segments of red and orange, with only a handful of green pockets.

The sprawl-filled suburbs of southeast Orlando are mostly orange, while the southwest area has numerous pockets where there are no parks within a ten-minute walk. In the northeast, one bright red pocket was proposed to become parklands, but the developer withdrew his proposal when it became clear the City Council was planning to vote against the project. That project, known as the RoseArts District, would’ve transformed a dilapidated, abandoned golf course into a mixed-use village with 6,000 apartments, arts venues, and more than 60 acres of parklands.
Commissioner Stuart, whose district the project is within, spoke against the project due to the high number of apartments it was asking for and remained against it even as experts advised him future projects with fewer apartments may require surface parking, which would eat into the amount of open park space. The fight is nothing new in Orlando, where pedestrian and park access are frequently overlooked as city leaders seek to welcome new residents while appeasing anti-growth constituents.

Many cities struggle to fully grasp how much various parks within their community are being used. This new study presents a novel approach to the problem using cell phone data from SafeGraph, then matching it Trust for Public Land (TPL) park designations.  SafeGraph data is frequently used in the private sector, including by investment groups looking to understand how popular an attraction or business is. Still, this study is one of the first to use it to review community-based points of interest.
While useful, there’s a lot of room for future research regarding park use, as this study  was forced to omit many parks due to data issues.

As more community leaders grasp with how to ensure more equitable access, the study also provides a new tool in understanding how racial disparities impact the use of community amenities. But in a place like Orlando, where more parks have been proposed, the approach used in this study can allow for community leaders to understand which parks are most overburdened and where future parks are needed.

In the meantime, Orlando leaders are hard at work on new parks in the Packing District and underneath Interstate 4 in downtown Orlando. The Trust for Public Land will be releasing its 2021 ParkScore Index on May 27.