Quietly Awesome

One of the most under-appreciated things about Baltimore is out park system.  Baltimore was on the leading edge of the urban parks movement in the 19th century and it shows today. However, many of these beautiful parks were a little too “urban” for the middle class at the beginning part of this decade.  The gentrification in Canton led to the rediscovery of Patterson Park as “Baltimore's Backyard.” In South Baltimore, Riverside Park is now a popular dog-walking location in the evenings – a far cry from the drugs and crime that troubled the South Baltimore area 10-15 years ago.  Still, if your world revolves around communities that border on the harbor, you're only seeing a fraction of the green space that Baltimore has to offer.

I think that most people have noticed that Baltimore has some pretty big parks.  However, I also think that a lot of people don't spend a lot of time exploring in Baltimore.  Yes, it's a slightly dangerous city, but large swathes are safe for exploring.  I recommend bicycling around the city more, it's a great way to learn where streets go and explore neighborhoods.

Still, I didn't realize how much Baltimore doesn't suck at public parks until I spent some time on the website of The Trust for Public Land.  They have a lot of facts and reports about the state of public parks in America.  What I found interesting is that for cities with a high population density, Baltimore ranks #3 in acres of parkland per resident. Here's the top ten list:

Park Acres per 1,000 Residents
(City Population Density: High)
#1 – Washington, DC – 13.1
#2 – Boston, MA – 8.5
#3 – Baltimore, MD – 7.7
#4 – Philadelphia, PA – 7.6
#5 – San Francisco, CA – 7.2
#6 – Jersey City, NJ – 6.8
#7 – Los Angeles, CA – 6.2
#8 – Long Beach, CA – 6.1
#9 – New York City, NY – 4.6
#10 – Chicago, IL – 4.2

Now, obviously, there are two factors in this equation. The total number of park acres and the total number of city residents. In Baltimore, park acres are fairly constant (except for when some vacant lot is deeded over to the Department of Parks & Recreation by another city agency). The fact that Baltimore has lost a lot of city residents over the last couple of decades really helps bring that number up. I might be crazy, but I am anticipating that the population of Baltimore is about to stabilize and turn around. If we want to stay ahead of Philadelphia we might want to consider building some new parks. Next time we redevelop something like Harbor East, let's set aside a few acres for a park.

One factor that I think is good is that Baltimore gets on the list of park acres per 1,000 residents with a lot of smaller parks, not one large park. Baltimore barely cracks the top 100 on largest city parks (#89 – Gwynn Falls / Leakin Park). That's good because it means that the city parks are spread across the city and more people therefore have access.

Finally, Baltimore has two of the oldest city-run parks in America:

23rd Oldest Public Park – Patterson Park, 1827
55th Oldest Public Park – Druid Hill Park, 1860

So, if you haven't checked out some of these parks, I highly recommend that you do some exploring.   There are some really great parks in parts of the city that you normally don't go. Carroll Park, Lake Montibello (with a great bike loop around the lake), and even Middle Branch Park are great places to go and just be outside on a nice summer day.

Once you visit those parks, you'll probably ask yourself the same question I did - “How did we not screw this up?”  The answer actually lies pretty far back in history.  In 1859 the mayor of Baltimore decreed that no railroad would be given franchise to operate in Baltimore unless they paid 20% of gross income to the city for park building.  That's an incredibly high tax, but railroads paid it because Baltimore was such an important port at the time.  So from 1859 until the 1940's, the parks had this incredible source of income for operating costs and capital improvements.

All that history can be found in a really interesting report from the Baltimore Parks and People organization.  It's called "Discovering Baltimore's Parks" - if you're at all curious about parks in the city of Baltimore and their histories (collective and individual), then you should check out that report.