thicket: the numbers behind it

Last reviewed: August 2026

We cite a few statistics about parks on this site. This page shows every one of them with its source, so you can check our work rather than take our word for it. Where sources disagree, we say so.

How much people actually use local parks

82% visited a local park in the past year Equivalent to more than 276 million people in the United States, between June 2023 and July 2024. Sixty-one percent had visited within the past month. On average, people visited 23 times across the year. NRPA, 2024 Engagement With Parks Report. Survey of 1,000 US adults, 24 June – 7 July 2024, ±3.1% at 95% confidence.
91% say parks are an important local service Agreement that parks and recreation is an important service provided by their local government. The most-cited reason for going is being with family or friends (58%), ahead of exercise (52%). NRPA, 2024 Engagement With Parks Report.

This sets the terms of the problem. Local parks are not neglected because people don’t want them. They are used heavily and valued almost universally.

Who can actually reach one

27% have no walkable park — about 90 million people Seventy-three percent of US residents report living within walking distance of at least one park or recreation facility. The rest do not. NRPA, 2024 Engagement With Parks Report (self-reported).
100 million lack easy walking access A separate, measured estimate. ASCE puts median walkability at 55% nationally — roughly half of residents are within a ten-minute walk of a park. The two figures differ because one asks people and the other maps them. We quote both rather than pick the friendlier one. ASCE, 2025 Infrastructure Report Card — Public Parks.
Access is uneven, and not randomly Reported walkable access runs 85% for Gen Z against 61% for baby boomers, 88% for Hispanic respondents against 70% for non-Hispanic, and 81% for parents against 69% for non-parents. By region the South is lowest at 66%, against 79% in the Northeast. NRPA, 2024 Engagement With Parks Report.
The age gap is 24 points Reported walkable access is 85% among Gen Z and 61% among baby boomers. We looked for a matching gap in actual visitation by age and could not find a reliable US figure — the academic literature is small-sample and contradictory, with estimates ranging from “under 10% of park visitors are older adults” to “62% of older adults visit weekly.” So we cite the access gap, which is measured, rather than a usage gap, which isn’t. NRPA, 2024 Engagement With Parks Report.
1 in 6 simply don’t know what is there Sixty-seven percent of adults report at least one barrier that kept them from using parks as much as they would have liked. Lack of time leads at 39%. But 16% name being unaware of the location or offerings — roughly one in six people, for whom the obstacle is information rather than distance, money or time. NRPA, 2024 Engagement With Parks Report.

That last figure is the one thicket is built around. We cannot widen a park or shorten anyone’s commute. We can make it obvious what is already in reach.

Used more, funded less

Visits up 25.6%, funding down 31% A study of all 50 state park systems from 1984 to 2017 found annual attendance rose to 807 million visits, while state appropriations for running those parks fell from $3.74 billion to $2.59 billion in inflation-adjusted terms — a real cut of about $1.15 billion. State parks receive an average of 0.16% of state operating budgets. Smith, Wilkins & Leung (2019), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116(26), 12775–12780. Longitudinal panel of all 50 state park systems, 1984–2017.

This is the clearest evidence we found that the funding problem is structural rather than a matter of demonstrating demand. More people came, and the money fell by roughly a third. Note the scope: this is state park systems. It is not a measurement of city or county park budgets, and we don’t present it as one.

What parks cost, and who pays

Public parks score a C− ASCE’s 2025 Infrastructure Report Card grade for public parks. ASCE, 2025 Infrastructure Report Card — Public Parks.
About 90% of city park spending is local City parks are funded overwhelmingly from municipal budgets. By contrast, about 0.2% of the federal budget goes to outdoor recreation. The 100 most populous cities spent $11.2 billion on their parks in 2023. ASCE, 2025 Infrastructure Report Card — Public Parks.
$65 billion in deferred maintenance on city parks A 2022 estimate across the largest 100 cities. State parks carry a further $15.9 billion (2024, averaging $354 million per state), and the National Park System $23.3 billion as of the end of FY2023. ASCE, 2025 Infrastructure Report Card — Public Parks.

The federal picture

The Park Service has lost nearly 25% of its permanent workforce Since January 2025. National Parks Conservation Association, Inside the FY26 National Park Service Budget.
A record cut was proposed, and rejected The FY26 budget proposal sought a $900 million reduction — more than 31% of national park operations, and the largest cut ever proposed in the Park Service’s history. Congress did not enact it, approving flat funding of $2.88 billion instead. National Parks Conservation Association, Inside the FY26 National Park Service Budget.

Both halves of that last one matter. It is wrong to say the cut happened, and we will not say so. But a reduction of that size being formally proposed — the largest in the agency’s history, enough by NPCA’s reckoning to strip funding from roughly 350 park sites — tells you how secure this funding is from one year to the next. It was rejected this time. It was still attempted.

What we don’t claim

An earlier version of this site said that the parks which go unused are the first ones cut. We removed it. It sounds obviously true, and we could not find evidence that funding or closure decisions track usage data in that way. If you know of research that establishes it, we would genuinely like to see it.

We also don’t claim local parks are broadly closing. The picture the data actually supports is different, and less dramatic: parks are heavily used, widely valued, funded almost entirely from strained local budgets, carrying a large maintenance backlog — and unevenly known about by the people living nearest to them.

Sources

Found an error, or a figure that has gone out of date? Tell us at hello@getthicket.app and we will correct it.

Back to thicket

Where our figures come from.