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NICK’S VIEW - For years, I have advocated for parks and green space in Los Angeles. Parks build community, strengthen resilience to heat, protect young people, and shape neighborhood identity. In a megacity, they are as essential as roads and water.
My concern deepened when I learned that Los Angeles now ranks 93rd out of 100 U.S. cities in the Trust for Public Land’s ParkScore index, reflecting consistent shortcomings in the five measures of a strong park system: acreage, access, investment, amenities, and equity. And the blame rests squarely on the city leadership`s shoulders!
A shortage of parks creates clear, measurable inequities across social, environmental, and health outcomes. Research consistently shows that when cities lack enough parks—or distribute them unevenly—the greatest burdens fall on low‑income, Black, Latino, and other historically marginalized communities.
Los Angeles has become inequitable because everyday conditions—safety, health, mobility, climate exposure, and access to public parks—vary sharply by neighborhood. This is not just a social issue; it reflects a broader structural failure across multiple urban systems.
In many ways, parks are Los Angeles’s clearest equity failure—and one of the easiest to fix.
Confronted with these inequities, City Hall is considering a November 2026 ballot measure to amend the city charter and double the department’s minimum funding over four years. The proposal would neither create a new tax nor raise property tax rates. Instead, it would increase the share of city revenue guaranteed for parks under a formula tied to assessed property values, raising the department’s minimum allocation from about $292 million to roughly $584 million at current assessed values.
As expected, the debate is already underway. Supporters argue that Los Angeles has let its park system decline for years and now needs dedicated funding to restore it. Critics counter that the city is asking residents to make another major financial commitment while basic services remain strained. Today the city is in a serious fiscal stress period marked by falling revenues, rising liabilities, shrinking reserves, and a negative outlook from credit rating agencies.
The park system has declined in part because city leaders have long treated it as a lesser priority rather than as a full department. I came to understand the depth of the Recreation and Parks Department’s neglect during the 10 years my wife, Sylvia, served as president of the commission. In every budget cycle, its funding was cut sharply. Commissioners repeatedly had to appeal to the mayor and Budget Committee to restore money so parks could maintain staffing, provide safety and basic upkeep.
Until recently, the department did not pay for water usage to keep our parks green and healthy. City Hall now directs those DWP "newfound" funds to other projects, directly or indirectly—another sign that city officials speak about supporting the environment, clean air, and programs for seniors and youth, but fail to back those words with action.
In the 1990s, I read articles on greenways that reminded me of adventure of my youth along the railroad tracks and inspired me to advocate for greenways along Los Angeles County rail corridors. Those ideas shaped the conceptual greenways I advanced within the Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. By the mid-1990s, greenways and bikeways had been incorporated into Metro’s countywide Transportation Improvement Plans.
One clear voice on health and transportation came from the University of California, Los Angeles, professor Dr. Richard Jackson of the Fielding School of Public Health. Independent of Metro’s interest, Dr. Jackson was in the process of detailing the health effects of the quality and design of a child’s physical environment. His advocacy identified how the built environment can cause or prevent illness, disability, and injury; therefore, a high-quality environment is essential for children to achieve optimal health and development.
Other researchers found that increasing park acreage could raise life expectancy in Los Angeles County neighborhoods with below-median tree cover and vegetation. They also found that census tracts with less tree cover were often park-poor, disproportionately low income, and primarily home to people of color. Real estate data likewise show that parks, trails, and bikeways tend to increase property values, reinforcing a cycle in which health-promoting amenities raise housing costs. By contrast, when economic pressures displace lower-income residents to areas with fewer environmental benefits, life expectancy declines.
Few public investments deliver benefits as broad and well documented as parks. In larger, denser cities, those benefits are even greater.
Indeed, parks improve physical health. They are public‑health infrastructure, not amenities. Studies prove that people living near parks are 33–47% more physically active, and that children near parks are up to five times more likely to maintain a healthy weight. Seniors benefit from parks because they are safe places to walk, stretch, and stay mobile.
Since classical days, we know that movement is medicine. They help reduce the risk of heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. And stress, anxiety, and depression are also reduced from the existence of greenspace.
Parks shield people from extreme heat, with shade and vegetation cooling neighborhoods by 5–15 degrees Fahrenheit. They also improve air quality by filtering particulate matter, absorbing pollutants, reducing asthma triggers, and supporting respiratory health—benefits that are especially important in neighborhoods near freeways or industrial zones.
Parks are among the clearest, most measurable signs of whether a city distributes public goods fairly.
American naturalist John Muir, known as the father of national parks, believed that access to nature is a universal human right, not a privilege. He said, “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread… where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.”
(Nick Patsaouras is an electrical engineer, civic leader, and a longtime public advocate. He ran for Mayor in 1993 with a focus on rebuilding L.A. through transportation after the 1992 civil unrest. He has served on major public boards, including the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Metro, and the Board of Zoning Appeals, helping guide infrastructure and planning policy in Los Angeles. He is the author of the book "The Making of Modern Los Angeles.")
