Parks and Social Capital: An Analysis of the 100 Most Populous U.S. Cities

In recent years, much attention has focused on strategies to reverse the decline of social capital in the United States. Increased social capital, which includes both intergroup contact and civic engagement, has many important benefits. For low-income individuals, friendships with high-income individuals (“economic connectedness”, a measure of inter-group contact) are one of the strongest predictors of their ability to escape poverty and gain increased life opportunities. Volunteering, a measure of civic engagement, is hypothesized to be key in building trust among neighbors. Urban parks are often thought to be a ‘third place’ that may increase social capital within a community through both increased ‘mixing and mingling’ and increased civic engagement. This study finds that residents of cities with better quality park systems (as measured by the ParkScore Index) are more socially connected and engaged with their neighbors (as measured by the Social Capital Atlas) than are residents of cities with lower-ranking park systems. Relative to the bottom 25 ranked cities, the top 25 ParkScore cities had 26% more social connections between different income groups, 61% more volunteers per capita, and 45% more civic organizations per capita. These patterns held after controlling for other factors such as education, race/ethnicity, poverty, and family structure. These ‘other’ factors often had stronger associations with the social capital indicators, suggesting park systems are an important, but not primary, driver of a community’s social capital. People living in cities with more parks and recreational opportunities may be more likely to realize these important benefits.