City park facts: Everything you've ever needed to know about urban park systems' acreage, facilities and usership

The 100 largest U.S. cities collectively contain more than 1.3 million acres of parkland, as well as many of thousands of recreational facilities, from playgrounds to ballfields to bike trails. This vast park estate can potentially serve as an unparalleled space for obesity-reducing and health-enhancing physical activity. However, for reasons that are not clear, not all citizens get the same benefits from their parks. Obesity continues to rise steeply, and many parks are noticeably underused. There are health researchers throughout the nation attempting to study what factors – distance, acreage, facilities, design, marketing, climate, signage, spending, or something else – influence people to be or not to be active. The Center for City Park Excellence, which has the nation's best compendium of urban park and recreation data, will explain to researchers and policy analysts what information is available, what form it is in, and how to access it. The Center will report that it is anxious to share this information and to partner with health researchers in getting the greatest amount of public benefit from its analysis and use. The Center will also report how its data – from swimming pools to recreation centers to skate parks to basketball hoops to miles of trail to numbers of employees -- has already been used by American health researchers.