Measuring the total economic value of a park system to a community

In the political arena, it is almost always advantageous to frame an issue in economic terms when seeking support from a legislative body. This paper describes, measures, and provides illustrative examples for estimating the economic value of 12 benefits associated with urban parks. Seven of these constitute a template for measuring the economic value of an urban parks system that has been developed and refined by empirical studies undertaken in 12 US urban areas by the Trust for Public Land. The remaining five are suggested measures that might be added to the template. The paper concludes by identifying five other park benefits for which no measure of economic value appears to exist at this point.