Long Beach is one of four U.S. cities to improve its ParkScore rating, an index analysis completed by The Trust for Public Land. Long Beach also far surpassed its larger neighbor to the north, Los Angeles, in overall ranking.
Alongside New York City, Atlanta and Fresno, Long Beach was the only other city that expanded local-park access compared to its 2012 analysis, raising its total score to 52.5/100 and placing it in the No. 22 spot overall out of 50.
The increase in rank is largely due to increasing residents’ access to a park within a ten-minute walk by a staggering 8% in a single year. Projects such as the Baker Street Mini Park near the 405 and 710 junction–an area that sadly lacked any green space–helped further the score, and, given the four additional parks planned for those regions of the city deficient in park space, it seems Long Beach is poised to increase its score again next year.
Various factors put Long Beach at the 22nd ranking overall, despite its growing success in creating more park space. For example, Minneapolis, the index’s highest-ranking city, practically doubles all of Long Beach’s stats in regard to median park size (6.5 acres for Minneapolis versus 3.2 acres for Long Beach), park-land acreage as part of city acreage (15.1% versus 9.7%), and playgrounds per 10,000 people (2.9 versus 1.5). Even when compared to the national average–2.05 playgrounds per 10,000 residents and a median park size of 5.1 acres–Long Beach still lags.
The investment put forth by cities toward their residents also is a factor; for example, San Francisco invests some $280 per person (a perfect score in the spending-per-resident index), while Long Beach invests some $125 per person.
Other ranked California cities include Sacramento and San Francisco (tied for No. 3), San Diego (No. 9), San Jose (No. 11), Oakland (No. 18), Los Angeles (No. 34), and Fresno (No. 50).