A Legacy of Lands and Lives

Ted Lee Eubanks Founder & President

CITIES, PARKS, PLACES, AND SPACES

Metroparks of the Toledo Area

America’s “20 Most Miserable Cities”

• Job growth has been anemic in Toledo and residents are voting with their feet by leaving the city. The net migration rate out of the city was the nation's fourth highest behind Detroit, Flint, and Cleveland…Forbes

• The Weather Channel announced Friday that Toledo’s winter of 2013-14 has been the worst of any major city in the United States this year.

• Cities are under increasing pressure to burnish their identities to remain competitive in an evolving global marketplace.

• High profile projects are often associated with the promotion of a locality to the outside world.

• City administrations use place making and marketing to make their cities attractive as spaces for investment, visitors, and potential residents.

Park Values

• Parks are value-added investments.• Parks provide quality of life services to

residents.• Parks attract visitors and related tourism

revenues.• Parks burnish the brand.

Value-added Parks

• Central Park in NYC• Millennium Park in Chicago• Fairmont Park in Philadelphia• Discovery Green in Houston• Lady Bird Lake and Auditorium Shores in

Austin

City Beautiful

• New urban economic theory and policymakers are coming to see the provision of consumer leisure amenities as a way to attract population, especially the highly skilled and their employers.

• “Beautiful cities” disproportionally attract highly-educated individuals, and experience faster housing price appreciation…

City Beautiful

• Leisure tourists are attracted by an area’s special traits, such as proximity to the ocean, scenic views, and cultural and recreational opportunities--the very characteristics that attract households to cities.

• Local government investments in new public recreational areas are associated with increased city attractiveness.

Soul of the Community

• Drivers that create emotional bonds between people and their community are consistent in virtually every city and can be reduced to just a few categories.

• Interestingly, the usual suspects — jobs, the economy, and safety — are not among the top drivers.

Soul of the Community

• Rather, people consistently give higher ratings for elements that relate directly to their daily quality of life: an area’s physical beauty, opportunities for socializing, and a community’s openness to all people.

Soul of the Community• Social Offerings — Places for people to meet

each other and the feeling that people in the community care about each other.

• Openness — How welcoming the community is to different types of people, including families with young children, minorities, and talented college graduates.

• Aesthetics — The physical beauty of the community including the availability of parks and green spaces.

Rural Growth Trifecta

• Counties with both higher proportions of creative class and richer entrepreneurial contexts, as measured by either the rate of self-employment or the number establishments per job, tended to have greater gains in establishments and jobs during the 1990s than counties with less of this combination.

Rural Growth Trifecta

• The relevance of this synergy was not pervasive across rural areas, however, but contingent on the level of local outdoor amenities.

• Rural places pursuing entrepreneurship as a development strategy need to consider the potential contribution of the outdoors as a means to attract the creative class and recharge knowledge.

Placemaking and the Future of Cities*

Parks and squares reward investment disproportionately. If developed as “places” and planned around major public destinations, they build local economies, civic pride, social connection, and human happiness.

*Placemaking and the Future of Cities

People Places Spaces

People*Resident*Visitor

Metroparks Toledo Region

Place and Brand Linkages

Place – Oak Openings

Space - Metroparks

Space - Toledo

Space – Northwest

Ohio

Space – Ohio

Space - Great Lakes

Benefit Flow Contingencies

• Alignment• Volume of flow• Breadth of flow• Capture Rate• Sustainability of flow

METROPARKS AND THE VALUE OF PLACE

Placemaking and the Future of Cities

…an unknown physical setting is a “blank space” that only becomes a “place” as it is

endowed with meanings through lived experiences.

Place Satisfactiono Once of the factors that can play a role in the formation of place attachment is satisfaction with a place.

o If an individual is satisfied with a park, he or she will likely return to that park if the opportunity presents itself.

o Repeated visits build meanings and values associated with the park.

…individuals who are emotionally, cognitively, or functionally attached to a place will act to

protect that place.

Sense of Place

Affective

CognitiveFunctional

…outside interests have a role in shaping cognition, through shaping the physical landscape, through interpretation of the

landscape…

Richard Stedman 2002

“…to reveal the beautiful truths that

lie behind the appearances.”

Freeman Tilden

A LEGACY OF LANDS AND LIVESThe Metroparks of the Toledo Area

Recreate the Landscape

• Oak Openings• Primary Streams and Waterways of

Maumee Bay• Coastal Plains of Lake Erie

Steward the Stories

• Westward expansion, the Indian Wars, the War of 1812, the Underground Railroad, and the Great Depression are all seminal moments in American history and all are represented within the Metroparks.

Steward the Stories

• Not only is Metroparks charged with protecting these irreplaceable historical resources, but Metroparks staff also steward the resources and interpret these American stories for visitors who may well be unaware of these critical chapters in the America saga.

Steward the Stories

• Among the stories being stewarded by Metroparks are the stories of the park system itself.– Creation in 1928– New Deal– The Creation of Wildwood Preserve Metropark – Land Levy

Provide Places to Play

• Cities around the nation recognize the relationship between quality of life and competitiveness.

• Open space, parks, and outdoor recreation are all key components in the quality of life quotient.

• Metroparks, one of the finest park systems in the nation, should be a critical contributor to the Toledo area’s efforts to restore its competitiveness and vitality.

Most Popular Outdoor ActivitiesParticipation Rate

• Running, Jogging and Trail Running– 20% of Americans Ages 6+, 57.5 million participants

• Road Biking, Mountain Biking and BMX

– 16% of Americans Ages 6+, 46.6 million participants

• Freshwater, Saltwater and Fly Fishing– 16% of Americans Ages 6+, 45.9 million participants

• Car, Backyard, Backpacking and RV Camping

– 14% of Americans Ages 6+, 40.1 million participants

• Hiking– 12% of Americans Ages 6+, 34.4 million participants

Most Popular Outdoor ActivitiesFrequency of Participation

• Running, Jogging and Trail Running– 82 average outings per runner / 4.7 billion total outings

• Road, Mountain and BMX Biking– 58 average outings per cyclist / 2.7 billion total outings

• Birdwatching/Wildlife Viewing– 39 average outings per person / 1.0 billion total outings

• Freshwater, Saltwater and Fly Fishing– 20 average outings per angler / 904.2 million total outings

• Car, Backyard, Backpacking and RV Camping

– 15 average outings per camper / 597.7 million total outings

Legacy of Lands and Lives

• Enhance• Market• Engage

• Parks-to-People• Trails2go• Blend the Boundaries• Connect the Core• Crossover Connections• Profile the Parks• Invest in Strengths• Park Ambassadors

Legacy of Lands and Lives

A legacy is part of the future, not simply a reflection of the past. The past can serve as prologue for the Metroparks of the future.

Legacy of Lands and Lives

The closer to the conjunction of lives and lands Metroparks’ positions marketing and engagement efforts, the more powerful the messages that will emerge.

People

LandLives

Ted Lee Eubanks, Founder and PresidentPO 5485 Austin, Texas 78763-5485(512) 391-0095www.fermatainc.comtedleeeubanks@fermatainc.com

© All Rights Reserved

References

• Carlino, G.A., and A. Saiz. City Beautiful, IZA Discussion Paper No. 3778, October 2008.

• McGranahan, D., T. Wojan, and D. Lambertz. The Rural Growth Trifecta: outdoor amenities, creative class and entrepreneurial context. Journal of Economic Geography (2010) pp. 1–29.

• Soul of the Community. A project of John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, 2010.