Economic Impacts of Parks, Rivers, Trails and Greenways

1 IntroductionParks, rivers, trails, and greenways (linear open spaces connecting recreational, cultural andnatural areas) are traditionally recognized for their environmental protection, recreationopportunities, and aesthetic values. These parks and corridors also have the potential tocreate jobs, enhance property values, expand local businesses, attract new or relocatingbusinesses, increase local tax revenues, decrease local government expenditures, improvehealth and enhance a local community, among other benefits.The Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance (RTCA) program of the National ParkService authored and published a resource book to help planners, park and recreationadministrators, citizen activists, and non-profit groups understand and communicate thepotential economic impacts of their proposed or existing corridor projects. The aims of thispublication were to: Encourage professionals and citizens to use economic concepts as part of their effort toprotect and promote greenways Provide examples of how greenways and parks have benefited local and regionaleconomies Demonstrate how to determine the potential economic impacts of river, trail, andgreenway projects Suggest other sources of information.The idea for the resource book was conceived by Ray Murray, currently PartnershipsProgram Chief of the Pacific West Region of the National Park Service (NPS), and by 1995four editions of the handbook had been published. The 1995 revision, entitled EconomicImpacts of Protecting Rivers, Trails and Greenway Corridors, was intended to be acompilation of the most recent information on this subject area and it, as well as previouseditions, were well received. There is broad interest, both nationally and internationally, inthis kind of information to assist in guiding public investment decisions, and the book hadbeen widely cited in other publications and on the websites of various organizations.However, by 2004, much of the information was becoming outdated and there wasburgeoning interest nationally in applying economic rationales to support park andgreenway protection efforts.Thus, in 2004, as part of the Domestic Corps program supported by the Ross School ofBusiness at the University of Michigan, I undertook a summer internship to update the NPSpublication. This entailed reviewing the 1995 publication, determining which new chaptersshould be included in the 2004 version and what the best organization was for the bookoverall. It also included researching the topic of each chapter and synthesizing the data toprovide the most current information on the subject area and to update the examples andcase studies.Finally, the proposed framework was applied to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.An economic analysis profile was developed to provide a comprehensive view of GoldenGate National Recreation Area’s impacts in particular as an application of the updated1