Photo by dangerbird

Photo by dangerbird

This morning, Slate Moneybox blogger Matthew Yglesias tweeted:

Apparently he wasn’t the only one in the district who noticed. Last August, Greater Greater Washington published a letter from Chinatown resident Caroline Armijo:

“I was warned that the lack of playgrounds, not the dismal schools, is the primary reason that young families move away from downtown…Long story short, my husband walks to work and we drive to playgrounds,” she wrote. Armijo is the spokeswoman for the recently created website DowntownDCKids.org.

The Trust For Public Lands’ 2011 Park Facts notes there are 101 playgrounds on 7,464 acres of park land in Washington. That’s 1.7 per 10,000 residents. However, only about 11 of those playgrounds are located on the 7,000 acres controlled by the National Park Service.

Though the number of playgrounds may seem low, D.C. still comes in ahead of New York, Los Angeles and Philadelphia in terms of playgrounds per capita. Washington also spent more money on parks and recreation—$375 per resident—than any other major city.

While playgrounds may be an important aspect of play for children, the 19 percent of D.C. comprised of parklands provides a myriad of wide open spaces for residents young and old to stretch their legs and imaginations.

Filed Under: national park service, playgrounds, trust for public land,