Providing access to green spaces helps community well-being. Two measures are presented, walking access to green spaces, and green space area per person. For this analysis, green space was limited to local parks to focus on useable, accessible green space.
This analysis uses the frame work from the LEED Cities and Communities Green Spaces credit to determine park access.
This map explores the access for residents to parks within a 10-minute walk. This map also highlights access within an equity focus area, that includes census block groups that have any of the following: greater than 25% low income, greater than 40% persons of color, or greater than 10% zero-car households.
Layers used:
Utah AGRC Local Parks: https://gis.utah.gov/data/recreation/local-parks/
Wasatch Front Regional Council, Equity Focus Area: https://data.wfrc.org/datasets/equity-focus-areas
Wasatch Front Regional Council, Park Accessibility: 10 Minute Walk: https://data.wfrc.org/datasets/park-accessibility-10-minute-walk
Wasatch Front Regional Council, Salt Lake County Land Use Parcel: https://data.wfrc.org/datasets/salt-lake-county-land-use-parcels
Removed all but residential parcels
This map explores the available greenspace acers per 1,000 people within the county. Total available greenspace county wide is sever acres per 1,000. This map splits municpalities into five categories that were created based on recommendations from national organization. From the LEED cities and communities, the minimum recommended acres per 1,000 include two levels, 2.7 and 3.3. Salt Lake County recommend 5 acres per 1,000, and the National Parks and Recreation recommendation is 10 acres per 1,000.
Data used:
Utah AGRC Local Parks: https://gis.utah.gov/data/recreation/local-parks/
LEED Cities and Communities, Green Spaces Credit
Salt Lake County Cities, Salt Lake County Surveyor's Office
United States Census Bureau, Population estimate 2019
Some parks occur in multiple municipalities, or the governing body is different from where the park occurs. Parks were assigned to the municipality where the majority of the spatial landmass of the park occurred. One section of the Jordan River Parkway occurs in multiple municipalities without a clear majority and was excluded from the city-wide analysis, but included at the county level.
This final map shows focus areas that were outlined based on the preceding data.
Areas marking in red are first priority for development. These include areas without walking park access in the equity focus areas that also included residential land.
Areas marked in blue are of secondary priority. These occur in areas that were low in park acreage and also lacked walking access.
Going forward, it is important to create walking access to useable parks and trails, especially for low-income households, those that do not have cars, and other underserved populations who would otherwise lack easy access to greenspace.