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Continuing a multi-year climb through the rankings, Dallas holds the title of Texas’s second-best city for parks in 2025.
Dallas ranks 34th out of the 100 most populous cities in the United States for park access, equity, amenities, investment and acreage, the annual park score index released by Trust for Public Land announced Wednesday. Dallas’ score has improved every year since 2020; this year’s 34th-place rating is a four-spot increase from the 2024 rankings.
Arlington, Garland and Fort Worth also improved their 2024 scores, with Arlington ranking the highest of the three cities at 47. Plano continues to be Texas’s highest-rated city at 17, a slight fall from last year’s 16th spot. Frisco, ranked at 37th, was included in the survey for the first time this year because of population growth.
According to Molly Morgan, Texas state director of the Trust for Public Land, the recent gains made in park access across North Texas reflect a post-COVID cultural shift in the way people are increasingly seeking out outdoor spaces.
“People got used to experiencing that and what it meant for communities, and I think that now what we’re seeing is that continued investment in looking at parks and green spaces as a true quality of life metric,” Morgan told the Observer. “There’s a little bit of healthy competition across the Metroplex to make green space investments, and I think it reflects the greater desire of constituents and people who live in these cities that want to be able to take their kids to a park close to home after school, to take a walk when they’ve had a long day.”
Following a billion-dollar city bond that included $345 million for parks projects, Dallas has increased the amount of money spent on parks per resident. Whereas last year’s budget allowed for $140 per resident, that number has increased to $155 in 2025. The national average is $133.
Dallas is getting outspent by Plano, Frisco and Garland, though. The three cities spend $198, $258 and $205 per resident on parks, respectively.
Where Dallas makes up for that spending gap is gains in park access across the city. In 2017, Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings was one of the first mayors in the U.S. to pledge support for the Trust for Public Land’s “10-minute Walk to a Park” campaign. At that time, just over half of Dallas residents lived within a 10-minute walk of a park.
Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson has continued Rawlings’ momentum by naming parks one of his top priorities as city leader. The ensuing park blitz has brought 81% of Dallas residents within a 10-minute walk of a park as of 2025. While Plano ties Dallas in that measurement, no other Texas city is doing better.
While some of the increases in park access come from major projects, most of the groundwork is being made up by smaller endeavors, like the pocket park in North Oak Cliff approved by the City Council in January or the Texas Trees Foundation’s “Cool Schools” program, which helps school playgrounds open to the public after hours and on weekends.
“I think Dallas is thinking outside of the box, thinking of alternative ways to bring more park access to people,” Morgan said. “To continue to support that innovation, I think, is going to continue to raise their access score [in future years].”
