{"id":278031,"date":"2026-05-20T12:46:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T12:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/278031\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T12:46:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T12:46:40","slug":"heres-how-st-petersburg-tampa-parks-rank-against-other-major-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/278031\/","title":{"rendered":"Here\u2019s how St. Petersburg, Tampa parks rank against other major cities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Trust for Public Land released its annual ParkScore index Wednesday, which ranks local park systems across the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">St. Petersburg and Tampa cracked the list\u2019s top 50 \u2014 though they fell some spots from the previous year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The nonprofit\u2019s report revealed that St. Petersburg placed 19th on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tpl.org\/parkscore\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"elm:link;elmt:article_link;slk:2026 ParkScore Index;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;2026 ParkScore Index&quot;}\" class=\"link \">2026 ParkScore Index<\/a>, down five spots from last year. Tampa also dipped slightly from 43rd to 46th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">ParkScore rankings are based on five factors: access, equity, acreage, investment and amenities.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Seventy-eight percent of St. Petersburg residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park, just above the national ParkScore average of 76%. Tampa offers 64% of its residents 10-minute walk access.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">When it comes to park investment, St. Petersburg outperformed, spending $222 per person on its park system, well above the average of $154. In Tampa, the city invests $145 per person.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Both cities also outperformed for park amenities and park equity, but their ParkScore rankings were limited by small median park size.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">St. Petersburg\u2019s median park size is 3.5 acres and Tampa\u2019s is 4.2. Both measures trail the national ParkScore average of 5.4.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Why the change? The dips for both cities were caused by positive moves by other locations, not by changes to the local park system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Washington, D.C. was rated the best big-city park system for the sixth consecutive year.<\/p>\n<p>The 10 highest-ranking park systems<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Trust for Public Land released its annual ParkScore index Wednesday, which ranks local park systems across the country.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":278032,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[118681,118678,118679,118680,202,204,203,199,201,200,135],"class_list":["post-278031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-local-park-systems","tag-park-amenities","tag-park-system","tag-park-systems","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=278031"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/278031\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/278032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=278031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=278031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=278031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}