Dallas slides in green space rankings as city considers cuts to parks

Dallas has fallen in national park rankings while city leaders consider significant departmental cuts.

After five consecutive years of gains in the Trust for Public Lands’ (TPL) park score rankings of the 100 most populous U.S. cities, Dallas fell by four spots in 2026 to No. 38. Dallas has also been overtaken by Frisco (No. 30) as the second-highest-ranked Texas city in its second year in the rankings, with both still trailing Plano (No. 13), another Collin County suburb.

The rankings were released last week and use a matrix of data points to evaluate cities based on five population-weighted factors: park access, equity, amenities, investment and acreage. Arlington climbed 24 spots from last year to be ranked No.45, while Fort Worth (No. 58), Garland (No.64) and Irving (No.71) all rose in the rankings.

Dallas did fare especially well in park space equity and access. Compared to around half the population in 2017, 81% of Dallasites live within a 10-minute walk to a park, the most of any North Texas city outside of Plano, while that number is only slightly lower in low-income and minority neighborhoods. Dallas officials, including Mayor Eric Johnson, have championed park access over the last decade, with initiatives such as TPL’s “10-minute Walk to a Park” campaign helping to bridge gaps.

Where the city has fallen behind some suburbs is in investment. While Dallas increased its per-capita parks spending from $155 to $170 per resident in 2026, that total still lags behind cities like Plano ($228 per resident), Frisco ($304 per resident) and Garland ($270 per resident).

Molly Morgan, the state director of TPL, said investment in parks has driven suburban gains and is essential for residents’ quality of life.

“A healthy, well-funded Park system means that residents have access to everyday green space that is going to help them be healthier, happier and more connected to their neighbors,” Morgan said. “We know that having a park nearby and just spending 20 minutes outside a day can reduce cortisol levels. It encourages greater physical activity in residents.”

As the city grapples with soaring police spending and employee health insurance payments while sales tax returns fall short, Dallas officials have asked the park and recreation department to reduce its funding by roughly $14 million ahead of the next fiscal year. The decrease could force the department to close four community centers, cut aquatic center hours and reduce funding for litter pickup and mowing.

Community centers and aquatics are both considered in the amenities metric of the parkscore. Dallas scored near the national average in that regard, although it was the city’s lowest-rated metric, and the amenities score falls behind Plano’s and Arlington’s grades.

Morgan said she is concerned about the cuts and encouraged residents to advocate for their parks ahead of the budgeting process. She also said funding cuts would likely lead to a further decrease in the city’s ranking.

“I will say that it will impact it,” she said. “We don’t know what percentage amount at this point with how peers will change, but it’ll definitely impact the overall score.”

‘Better off in the suburbs’

Rudy Karimi, who represents neighborhoods in downtown and Lakewood on the Park and Recreation Board, said the TPL report wasn’t especially surprising.

“The fall in the rankings is typical for where we’re weak,” Karimi said. “We’re weak in the investment area, in the amenities area, things that we could always do better if we had more time, more money, more resources to invest in these spaces and introduce new amenities that would naturally improve our score, where we do well.”

Karimi, along with the majority of the park board, pushed back on the proposed cuts at a meeting last week. District 2 representative Fonya Mondell called many of the proposed cuts “non-negotiable” at the meeting and asked, “Where do you expect these people to go” with programs slashed.

The department has identified $4.5 million in efficiencies and new revenue streams, staff told the board, but may still have to cut $8.9 million from the operating budget to align with City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert’s suggested 15% departmental budget decrease. To bridge the gap, staff have suggested that the Arcadia, Marcus Annex, Teen Tech Center and Umphress community centers may close.

With the cuts presented by staff, remaining recreation centers may be limited to 40 operational hours a week, programming for Dallas ISD students would be slimmed down and four aquatic centers would only be open a few days each week. Mowing and litter cleanup would also happen less frequently.

“It’s going to be a significant impact, because these are fixed costs,” Karimi said. “We can’t stop grass from growing, we can’t stop litter from showing up in our parks… these things have to be taken care of, and if they’re not taken care of as often, that’s a significant impact to everybody.”

At the meeting, Park and Recreation Director John Jenkins said that the service cuts follow years of staff reductions and budgetary constraints, adding that service cuts may now be unavoidable. “I don’t want anyone to have the false assumption that I’m able to find you $15 million, $14 million in cuts without service cuts,” Jenkins said.

The director also told the board that the department will need to decrease its dependence on the city’s growingly constrained general fund, which is currently tied down by Texas’ cap on property tax revenues and a voter-approved mandate that 50% of new city revenue be directed toward police funding. To help generate new revenue, staff floated the idea of parks selling billboard space.

“That makes sense near the Dallas Zoo or Fair Park or perhaps even on the outskirts of White Rock Lake and Bachmann, but it does not make sense for the smaller parks,” Karimi said. “We don’t want to do that in the smaller neighborhood parks, because these are places where people feel a sense of ownership. It feels like it’s theirs, they’re safe there.”

“These parks are accessible; it’s the one last thing they want to give up to commercialization or privatization or just any kind of revenue generation. We have to be very, very careful how we approach this.”

Part of the $2.5 million in efficiencies included in the proposed cuts comes from the proposed privatizations of the Cedar Crest Golf Course and Southern Skates skating center.

Board members also pushed back on the cuts’ impact on southern Dallas, which they said is disproportionate. Southern Dallas board member Grady McGahan said the proposed aquatics cuts especially “sting” in light of the recent closure of nine city-owned pools, the majority of which were south of downtown. Karimi said the pools were well past their effective lifespan and should have been closed well before last year, although he did say that cuts to services will “unfairly impact the folks who need them the most.”

He said he feels confident that the department will find a way to avoid some cuts after discussions with the city manager’s office, which, he added, are necessary to avoid losing more people to Collin County.

“The number right now is just staggering,” Karimi said. “If nothing changes, and if we do hit this doomsday scenario, I’ve said it before, the city manager is basically telling us we’re better off in the suburbs.”