Arlington Near Top of Public Parks Rankings

ARLINGTON, VA — It's no secret that Arlington has some of the best public parks in the nation, so the only surprise in a recent ranking of the top 100 cities in terms of their public parks was that Arlington wasn't No. 1.

Arlington came in No. 6. and DC came in the fourth spot, according to the non-profit Trust for Public Land's 2017 ParkScore city rankings list that was just released.

So what cities placed in the top three? That'd be Minneapolis, Mi.; St. Paul, Mi. and San Francisco, Ca.

The ranking system involved analyzing the 100 largest U.S. cities and using mapping technology and demographic data to determine how well each city meets the need for parks. The cities were ranked in three categories: acreage, or what is the total overall park space in a city; investments and amenities, or how much spending there is per resident and what kind of amenities there are at these parks; and access, or what percentage of the population live within a half mile of a public park.

Minneapolis scored an 87.5 to top the list, followed by St. Paul across the Mississippi River at 82.5. Washington, D.C. scored an 79, followed by Portland at 77.5 and Arlington at 76.5.

According to the rankings, Arlington's median park size is 2.5 acres. About 11 percent of the city's area is parkland, and the most-visited municipal park is Long Bridge Park. The index also shows that 98 percent of residents live near a park.

See the rankings here.

Image via Ken Lund, Flickr