D.C. has the best urban park system in the country, according to the latest ParkScore ratings from the nonprofit Trust for Public Land. It’s the third year in a row, and a fourth time in the past 5 years D.C. has been honored with the top spot among big cities in the U.S. But some in the District say the top ranking obscures major problems with equity and access in local parks.

The rankings are intended to shine a light on the importance of urban parks and encourage a little friendly rivalry among cities.

Will Klein, associate director of parks research with the Trust for Public Land, says city parks play a critical and sometimes under-appreciated role. “I like to call it a superpower in addressing the health and climate needs of cities,” says Klein.

This year, D.C. scored 84.9 out of 100 possible points. St. Paul and Minneapolis were runners up, with 80.8 and 80.4 points respectively. Arlington was number 5 this year, down from number 3 last year.

A recent report from George Washington University argued that D.C.’s metrics are skewed — while the District’s park system looks great on paper, the authors argue, that doesn’t match the experience of many residents trying to enjoy the parks.

For example, D.C. gets a perfect score in the park investment metric, according to the ParkScore rankings, spending $259 per resident on parks. This is more than double the national median spending of $108 per resident.

On closer inspection though, a huge portion of that money is spent on the National Mall, which has a budget 80 times greater, per acre, compared to neighborhood parks in predominantly Black neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River.

Another example: the ParkScore’s access metric, which ranks cities based on what percentage of residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park. Again, D.C. gets a near perfect score on this metric.

Rachel Clark, one of the authors of the GW report, says it is technically accurate that almost everyone in D.C. lives near a park.

“Almost 100% of Washingtonians live within a 10-minute walk of a park, and that’s true across all different types of neighborhoods,” Clark says. “But that doesn’t take into account the quality of the park, and it doesn’t really take into account whether the park is actually accessible.”

For example, some of the large forested parks east of the Anacostia River have no trails or amenities whatsoever, and no way for residents to enjoy them. Dozens of D.C.’s parks don’t even have a bench.

At the root of the problem, Clark says, is the fact that the federal government owns and operates roughly 90% of the park land in the District. The National Park Service is not accountable to local voters, Clark says, and its preservation-focused mission is not a good match for a lively, densely populated metropolis. Plus, NPS is underfunded, with a $1.9 billion maintenance backlog in D.C. alone, according to a Department of Interior estimate.

After the GW report was published, a group of more than 70 advisory neighborhood commissioners — the most local level of elected official in the city — signed on to a letter urging the National Park Service to transfer some of its parks to the District government.

Zach Ammerman, an ANC commissioner in Ward 5’s Riggs Park / Fort Totten area, organized the letter.

“If it were local control, even though the D.C. government is not perfect — by all means, I’m the first to tell you the D.C. government has flaws — there at least is political pressure on them to try to do a good job,” Ammerman says.

For example, Ammerman lives across the street from a large park, part of the Fort Circle Parks owned by the National Park Service.

“It’s just an empty field that has so much potential — it could have soccer fields, a baseball diamond. And it’s just empty. It just sits there empty. It’s because the National Park Service doesn’t have funding and I don’t think prioritizes our local parks very much.”

Klein acknowledges the issues raised by Ammerman and Clark, and says the Trust has been tweaking the metrics to try to more accurately assess city parks across the country. For example, three years ago, they added a new equity metric, which compares park access in predominantly white neighborhoods versus communities of color, and high income and low income neighborhoods.

D.C. gets excellent scores in the equity metric — neighborhoods of color have 13% more park acreage than white neighborhoods. That’s a very different from the landscape in most of the cities ranked by the Trust.

“In about 70 of the 100 cities we see significantly less park space in neighborhoods of color relative to white neighborhoods, and same for low versus high income,” says Klein.

The Trust has offices around the country, but Klein lives and works in D.C., so he has first-hand knowledge of the District’s parks. He says he came to appreciate them more than ever during the pandemic.

“The park system in D.C. was really what got me through COVID. For example, you know, take a Saturday and that first summer meeting up with friends, all of a sudden we found ourselves walking for 12 miles and we were in wooded, natural areas the entire time, except for maybe a half mile. How many cities can you experience that?” Klein says.

Klein says the GW report highlights the fact that sort of experience is not “shared by everyone throughout the city.”

And he says while the ParkScore’s equity metric attempts to capture that disparity, it’s hard to assess more qualitative measures of a city’s park system that the GW authors raised concerns about.

“We were just able to look at the distribution of park space. What they’re raising — the issue of quality of that space and ability to actually engage politically — are both really important measures of a park system that we haven’t been able to incorporate.”

Clark says she thinks the ParkScore rankings can be really valuable to many cities — showing what they’re doing well, compared to other cities, and where they need more work. But in D.C., she says, the rankings have the opposite effect.

“For D.C., having a number one ranking over and over again actually is doing a disservice to the city because it’s giving us something to celebrate and hiding a lot of the real problems. So it might be preventing progress in the city rather than providing a roadmap for where to change,” Clark says.

Here are the top ten urban park systems in the country this year, according to the ParkScore rankings, with their scores (out of 100):

1. Washington, D.C., 84.9

2. St. Paul, Minn., 80.8

3. Minneapolis, Minn., 80.4

4. Irvine, Calif., 80.0

5. Arlington, Va., 78.9

6. Cincinnati, Ohio, 76.9

7. San Francisco, Calif., 76.4

8. Seattle, Wash., 74.7

9. Portland, Ore., 73.7

10. New York, N.Y. tied with Boston, Mass., 72.7