August 2010 - Parks & Recreation - 35

Private Sector
By Peter Harnik and Elissa Hoagland

I

f you ran a business that controlled hundreds of millions of
dollars worth of prime real estate, scenic walking trails, elegant
gardens, boating basins, ice rinks, outdoor performance venues,

forests and fields, you'd probably want people to know about it. But
scores of institutions with this kind of resource wealth do almost nothing
to promote what they've got. They are America's big-city park-and-

recreation departments-from Boston to Los Angeles to Honolulu.
According to a survey by the Trust for Public Land's Center for City Park Excellence,
almost half of the nation's largest park departments do not spend any money on public outreach. Counting those that do, the average
amount spent on marketing comes to only 46
cents per resident per year.
" Here we've got an obesity crisis of huge
proportions, and we've also got amazing recreational resources right among us in our
cities, yet we aren't aggressively promoting
them to the general public, " says Geof Godbey, emeritus professor of recreation, park
and tourism management at Pennsylvania
State University.

Why the missed opportunity?
For starters, the issue is fraught with confusing political and economic cross-currents. Is it
appropriate to promote parks? Aren't they just
" there " for the using? Aren't some of them already overrun? Is it weird to advertise something that is already perceived as fun? Should
the government be spending taxpayer money telling people what to do? Can an agency

	

justify promoting something that's not an obvious money-maker?
But the economics of park promotion are
subtle and complex, particularly when they intersect with the economics of public health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, 30 percent of Americans are fully
sedentary. They are not all obese, of course,
but lack of exercise is certainly a risk factor
for being overweight. On average, an obese
American racks up nearly $1,500 more per
year in health care costs than an American of
normal weight, for a national total of $147 billion
in direct medical expenses.
Urban park facilities are a resource for
city-dwellers to be active. They can be amplified with programming that increases intensity, maintains continuity, builds a supportive
community of participants, adds a feeling of
safety, and much more. As Jason Cissell, administrator of community relations of Louisville Metro Parks puts it, " we're the largest
gym in the city, and we're free! " But the system only works if people know about it. Although the best vehicle is word-of-mouth, a

www.NRPA .ORG

SEPTEMBER 2010

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August 2010 - Parks & Recreation

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