Cleveland Drops Rank in Annual ParkScore Rating Despite Range of Improvements

Michael Zone Rec Center, where the city’s 15-year parks plan was debuted to the public, last week. Credit: Mark Oprea

Last week, Mayor Justin Bibb and his team at the Mayor’s Office of Capital Projects kicked off a days-long, citywide tour debuting Cleveland’s first master plan for its park system boasting future plans for improvement for greenspaces and amenities that have long suffered from poor maintenance and lack of new investment.

Despite the future optimism of a 15-year makeover, some not-so-hot news arrived this week as well: The Trust For Public Land released its annual ParkScore rating update and Cleveland’s system dropped from 26th place down to 31st.

Or, what a press release from TPL suggested, a “drop” due mostly due to a nationwide uptick in city and regional park spending. (See: American Rescue Plan Act dollars kicking in.) U.S. cities as a whole spent $16 more per resident on its pools and playgrounds than they did in 2022.

“The city’s slight dip in the rankings resulted primarily,” a statement from TPL read, “from positive moves by other cities, not changes to the local park system.”

Regardless of that rising tide, Cleveland’s ParkScore tally was high as it was for its availability and access to Clevelanders on both sides of the Cuyahoga: 81% of residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. (And 85% of Black Clevelanders.) The country average? Just 76%.

TPL also said the city’s system was hurt due to size: Cleveland’s median park clocks in at about four acres; the national ParkScore median is about five-and-a-half.

As the master plan released last week equally showed, both the planning team at MOCAP and their consultants in Philadelphia have a unique opportunity to bring up Cleveland’s greenspaces and hard courts to the levels of 21st century demand. Pools are underused and scarcely open; dog parks and tennis courts are hard to come by; soccer goalposts are rusted and lacking nets.

But, alas, we rank second nationally for our splashpads—yay—and “other water features.” (Fountains? Showers?)

OLIN, the Philadelphia-based planning firm hired to help the Mayor’s Office drum up that 15-year plan, told Scene that the third and final phase of the study will suggest feasible ways of paying for it.

Both OLIN and Jay Rauschenbach, the parks planner at MOCAP, suggested that the tens of millions needed for a citywide park makeover could use a mixture of state and federal funds, along with a tax levy, á la how the Metroparks gets a huge chunk of funding.

That final phase report should be released to the public this summer.