We're not quite sure why this is a story again six weeks later, but we'll bite: the Trust for Public Land has released its ParkScore rankings, and as various media outlets are reporting, Atlanta came in at #26. While city boosters would probably prefer to be inside the Top 20, it is worth noting that the ATL bests Southeastern neighbors like Nashville (#29) and Jacksonville (#34) and outright trounces our primary regional competitor Charlotte who comes in at #39. It is worth getting past the horse race aspect of the list and playing around with the interactive features of the ParkScore website. In addition to presenting the data used to determine the rankings (total park acreage, spending per resident on parks), there's an excellent map component. Of course the entire exercise is flawed in the usual way: by limiting itself to Atlanta's city limits, it omits a tremendous amount of land and parks many would include in a broad definition of Atlanta, as well as more than 4.5 million people who consider themselves Atlantans. For those still despairing over the results, cheer up...we'd expect this little project to give the city a nice boost in the future.
· ParkScore [Trust for Public Land]
· Atlanta parks get low marks in national survey [11Alive.com]