The City of Fresno once again remains near the bottom in terms of park access, according to the latest ranking of the nation’s largest cities.
This year, the Trust for Public Land ranked Fresno 92 out of 97 cities for its parks -- that’s up two notches from last year’s score of 94, but hardly worth celebrating, says Elliott Balch with the Central Valley Community Foundation.
“For eight years running in this park score, we’ve been in the bottom tenth of cities, and that’s just not good enough,” says Balch.
The Foundation is part of a coalition behind Measure P, a sales tax initiative that failed at the ballot last November, and would have raised money for parks and arts.
In a statement, the Trust for Public Land says Fresno scored poorly for its overall park acreage but does have an above-average number of basketball hoops.