Economic Impacts of Parks, Rivers, Trails and Greenways

that do require storm water management).3. This process can be repeated for other public services such as sanitary sewers, citywater, roads, and natural gas.The second, less complicated method is to treat all itemized public costs as a “basket” orservices that are approximated by the general fund of the municipality:1. Divide the total amount of funding required by the park by its total land area.2. Compare that number to the general operating budget per acre of the nearestmunicipality.The cost savings from air pollution reduction are more difficult to estimate because varioustree types sequester different air pollutants in different ways:1. An inventory of GGNRA’s trees and forests, which may already be available, isnecessary. Key data include an estimate of total area covered by trees, as well as anestimate of the number, type and average age of trees in the recreation area.2. Data for the sequestration capacity of the different trees in the park should besought. The USDA and the USFS estimated that 610,000 trees in Brooklyn, NYsequestered 2,500 metric tons of Carbon and 254 metric tons of air pollution peryear, representing values of $51,000 and $1.3 million per year respectively. It maybe worth partnering with academics or another agency to develop similar estimates.OutcomesBased on public services avoided and value added from pollution reduction, it may bepossible to develop very specific monetary estimates for the extent to which GGNRAreduces public costs for local municipalities. However, it may be problematic to estimatethe economic benefit of commuters who walk in GGNRA as a part of their commute. Thisis probably best documented through a survey of weekday morning and evening walkers inlikely places such as the Presidio.3.8.12 Corporate Relocation and RetentionThe academic literature on the factors influencing corporate location decisions is clear:companies do not choose their location for one reason. Rather they make decisions on thebasis of a variety of factors that include proximity to customers, quality of workforce andcost and quality of living for employees among other things. Therefore it is difficult todetermine how many companies relocate for a particular amenity such as a park.Survey data does suggest, however, that certain companies are much more likely to relocatefor recreation opportunities generally and parks specifically. A recent study of companies inColorado found that decision makers for small businesses rated recreation, parks and open141