SitemapGreen spaces not only provide recreation and natural beauty but stabilize property values of nearby neighborhoods. Green spaces like parks offer assets that attract people and development. Hunter Morrison is an urban planner who worked on the Youngstown 2010 plan 20 years ago and still works as a city consultant. As part of the development of the 2010 plan, community members were asked to list community assets. Mill Creek MetroParks topped the list. “It’s an asset from a variety of perspectives,” Morrison says. “It’s quality of life, but it’s also an asset in terms of holding real estate values.”
NEIGHBORHOOD STABILIZATION
A well-maintained park stabilizes the neighborhoods around it, he says. “It’s pretty clear that the West Side neighborhoods in Youngstown are stabilized because of the presence of Mill Creek,” he says. Morrison and John Bralich, the director of the Center for Applied Geographic Information Systems at Youngstown State University, did a study a few years ago of city parks and the areas around them. “The literature suggests that one or two blocks away from the park are the blocks that are stabilized, particularly true in the case of Mill Creek but also Crandall Park on the North Side,” he says. “People like those parks. One of the values of having a legacy park system is that it’s something that is shared, acknowledged as an asset. There’s usually a strong desire to preserve it and enhance it.” It’s an anchor to a neighborhood, a value-generating asset for the community. “In a place like Youngstown, which is 200 years-plus old, it’s a legacy of the urban parks movement,” Morrison says.
Bill Willoughby, an associate professor in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Kent State University, says some people call green space the commons. During the pandemic, for example, green spaces became psychological respites from being inside, he says. “I think that green space is expressive of a social life,” he says. “I think it takes on many forms.” There can be active spaces for sports and physical fitness, social spaces for outdoor activities including theater or music performances. “One example in Warren is the amphitheater which is clearly that,” Willoughby says. Passive spaces, like parks or walking paths through green spaces, also fill another category. Passive green spaces require less maintenance and therefore lower costs “but I think that they’re worthwhile and vital to making a community or a region more accessible.” Mill Creek was the first metropolitan park district in Ohio, established in 1891. “When you build housing, start with where your assets are,” Morrison says. “Do your infill where you’ve got something to work with.”
VALUE OF GREENSPACE
The Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. followed that idea, renovating homes on the east side of Mill Creek Park in the Idora neighborhood.
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