On April 22, 2022, the Committee on Parks and Recreation, chaired by Council Member Shekar Krishnan, held a remote oversight hearing entitled “The Effect of COVID-19 on Park Equity.”

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted both the tremendous benefits offered by parks and the inequities that still limit the ability of many New Yorkers to easily access and fully enjoy quality parks.

Recent reports by various advocacy groups have highlighted the inequities faced by the parks system. Specifically, in lower income neighborhoods, where the COVID infection rates were high have been shown to be without quality access to open space when compared to neighborhoods with higher average incomes and lower COVID rates.

Report by the Trust for Public Land found that parks in low-income and minority neighborhoods across the city are often smaller, making it more difficult to spread out and keep a distance from others.

Our analysis of the data revealed the following:

• Many New Yorkers are still without adequate park access highlighted by the cluster in Queens that includes Elmhurst & Jackson Heights.
• Lower income areas in NYC have higher COVID-19 death rates. Fifty-five percent of areas with high covid rates have low park access. Adequate park access is crucial for these communities.

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The Effect of COVID-19 on Park Equity

Read Committee Report (DOCX)

Data Team Home

Zip Code Park Access & Equity Measures

Zip codes in New York City vary in their COVID-19 death rates, household income, race composition, percentage of foreign born residents, and amount of park access within a 10-minute walk.

Often the disparities and relationships between these zip code characteristics reveal underlying inequities in the City.

The following maps and charts below highlight these disparities.

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Park Access Across the City

Click on a zipcode to learn more about that neighborhood’s population, median income, percent non-white, percent foreign-born, and total average park maintenance hours worked.

The map to the left illustrates the amount of functional park acreage per 100,000 residents that exists in each zip code throughout the entire City.

Zip codes are colored in varying shades of green with darker areas indicating greater amounts of park acreage compared to lighter shaded areas.

The purple outline indicates zip codes in the bottom 25% of park access in the City. Park access is the amount of functional park acreage available to a resident within a 10 minute walk.

While each borough has at least two zip codes in the bottom 25% of park access, the cluster of zip codes in Queens that includes Elmhurst and Jackson Heights stands out.

The map below illustrates the number of COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people, the median household income, and the percentage of non-Hispanic white residents that live in each zip code throughout the entire City (click the buttons on the top right of the map to view each).

Darker areas indicate higher levels of that characteristics compared to lighter shaded areas. The red outline indicates that the zip code is in the bottom 25% of park access in the City.

Several zip codes with higher COVID-19 death rates, lower median household incomes, and lower rates of non-Hispanic white residents also are in the bottom 25% of park access.

Jackson Heights has the 16th highest COVID-19 death rate at 699 deaths per 100,000 and the 4th lowest park access at 5 acres per 100,000 residents.

Residents in Morris Heights / Mount Hope / University Heights have a median household income of $29,136 and access to 22.8 acres per 100,000 residents.

3.7% of the residents in East Flatbush are non-Hispanic white and they have access to 6.8 acres per 100,000 residents.

Click on a zip code to get detailed park equity measures like COVID-19 death rate, median household income, and percent of resident who are non-Hispanic white.

Relationship between Park Access & Equity Measures

 

The chart to the left indicates COVID-19 death rates, functional park acreage per capita and median household incomes in each zip code.
 
Click on a zipcode to learn more about that neighborhood’s population, median income, percent non-white, percent foreign-born, and total average park maintenance hours worked.

Zip codes with lower incomes are red and zip codes with higher incomes are blue. A darker shade of blue or red indicates the zip code is further from the average. The dashed vertical line marks the median park acreage per capita, where zip codes to the right of the line have more park acreage per capita than the median and zip codes to the left have less park acreage per capita than the median.

The horizontal line marks the median COVID-19 death rate in the City with zip codes above the line have a higher COVID-19 death rate than the median and zip codes below the line have a lower COVID-19 death rate than the City. The four quadrants of the plot denote whether a zip code located in it has low (or high) park access and a low (or high) COVID-19 death rate.

It is notable that most zip codes with a below average household income have an above average COVID-19 death rate (the top half of the graph is mostly red.) In addition, there is a slight negative relationship between COVID-19 death rate and park acreage per capita.

The lower right quadrant, which contains zip codes with high park access and a low COVID-19 death rate, is denser and contains a higher proportion of blue zip codes than the lower left quadrant, which contain zip codes with low park access and a low COVID-19 death rate.

The chart to the right displays the relationship between median household income and COVID-19 death rate.

There is a distinct relationship revealing lower income zip codes tend to have the highest COVID-19 death rates and higher income zip codes have the lowest COVID-19 death rates.

While median income and COVID death rates show a clear negative relationship, the chart to the left has a less clear but very slight upward trend. It compares park acreage per capita to the percentage of non-Hispanic white residents.

It shows zip codes with the lowest park acreage per capita have a slightly lower percentage of non-Hispanic white residents compared to zip codes with the highest park acreage per capita.

This bill would require the Department of Parks and Recreation to issue a report to the Mayor and Council that would identify parks and playgrounds under its jurisdiction that have routinely failed DPR inspections and submit a plan to the Council on how the issues at such parks and playgrounds will be corrected.

Read the Bill: Int 0173-2022

Parks department shall submit a report to the mayor and the council regarding park features under the jurisdiction of the department that were found to receive an unacceptable rating three or more times during a six month period, resulting from inspections conducted by the department:

• The date and location of each inspection performed by the department of a park feature of a park, playground, pool, beach or recreation center, where such park feature was issued an unacceptable rating during such inspection three or more times during a six-month period;
• For each such park feature, a description of the condition that resulted in an unacceptable rating being issued;
• A plan that describes the work deemed necessary by the department to be performed in order to bring such feature into a condition where it would be rated as acceptable pursuant to an inspection performed by the department; and
• An estimate of the cost and timeframe required to complete such work.