National Park Service: Recreational Use of Land in the United States ()

Five years later the number of counties having one or more parks had increased to 74, with a total park area of 108,484.94 acres, or an increase of approximately 60 percent. The number of counties having county parks had increased approximately 52.7 percent.

Reports received by the Recreation Section of the National Resources Board, 1934, shows the number of counties having one or more parks to be 113, with a total of 121,957.6 acres, an increase of 12.4 percent over the acreage in 1930.¹¹

¹¹ Report Recreation Division, National Resources Board; Recreational Use of Lands in the United States. 1934.

As has been shown in discussion of metropolitan parks, page 94, the majority of the county parks and park systems are in counties within the metropolitan regions of cities. This is because of the increasing desire of the people in cities to seek their outdoor recreation outside the congested city, and because the county is a practical, political unit to acquire, develop, and administer areas which the central city and the smaller municipalities in the county would find difficult to provide for themselves. It is reasonable to expect, therefore, a continuance of the development of county parks and park systems in metropolitan regions. Moreover, the county is probably the most practical political agency of local government to provide some of the necessary recreation areas for the rural population of the Nation and for the urban places up to 8,000 or 10,000 inhabitants outside of metropolitan areas of cities.

The recreation services provided in county parks are in many systems, especially in the metropolitan regions of cities, almost identical with services rendered in park recreation systems in cities. These include children's playgrounds, playflelds, swimming pools, bathing beaches, golf courses, shooting ranges, riding and hiking trails, athletic fields, floral displays, picnic facilities, boating and canoeing, tennis, and many other games and sports facilities. Many county parks are also as carefully designed from a landscape viewpoint as are city parks. In general, however, the greater portion of the acreage in county parks is in large areas, kept in a more or less naturalistic condition, and developed only to the extent necessary to enhance the natural condition of the areas, and to provide active recreation opportunities which readily fit into a naturalistic landscape. These include hiking and riding trails, streams and lakes for boating and canoeing, fishing, skating, picnic sites, organized camp areas, nature study centers comprising nature trails and trailside museums, skiing, sliding, and tobogganing centers.

A prominent feature of the larger county park systems is the parkway. Parkways are really elongated naturalistic parks with a pleasure driveway running through their entire length, but they not infrequently provide some of the recreational features of the large naturalistic park areas, such as hiking and riding trails, picnic sites, fishing in streams, and similar facilities.

Township Recreation Areas

Outside of New England the township is a comparatively unimportant unit in planning the utilization of land for recreation purposes. In New England the town recreation areas are, as a rule, not considered for statistical purposes separately from municipal recreational systems. Throughout the remainder of the United States examples of recreational areas owned and administered by townships are few, although the laws of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and some other States specifically authorize township officials to acquire, develop, and administer park or other recreation areas. A large park of approximately 1,800 acres, owned and administered by a township park board near Youngstown, Ohio, and another large park administered by a township park board near Hammond, Ind., are the two outstanding examples in the United States (except New England) of effective recreation service by townships. These areas provide such services as golf, picnicking, hiking, riding, motoring, nature study, and opportunities for rest, relaxation, and enjoyment of beauty of a natural environment; in short, the combined services ordinarily provided in large parks in cities and in the larger metropolitan parks.

The tendency toward a decrease of the powers of townships throughout approximately all the United States, except New England, indicates that this type of local government will never become an important agency in the utilization of land for recreation.

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Last Modified: Fri, Sep. 5, 2003 10:32:22 am PDT
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