St. Pete slips in park rankings as other cities accelerate investment

St. Petersburg’s park system remains among the nation’s best, but the city dropped five spots in the latest Trust for Public Land ParkScore Index as peer cities accelerated investment and expansion efforts.

The 2026 rankings place St. Pete 19th nationally, down from 14th last year. Tampa also slipped slightly, falling from 43rd to 46th. According to Trust for Public Land, the movement reflects gains elsewhere rather than deterioration locally.

“The rest of the country is catching on,” said Will Klein, Director of Parks Research at Trust for Public Land. “Even though St. Pete continued to increase its park investment this year, other cities did so more.”

The annual ParkScore Index evaluates the 100 most populous U.S. cities across five categories: access, equity, acreage, investment and amenities.

St. Pete continues to score well in several of them. According to the report, 78% of residents live within a 10-minute walk of a park, slightly above the national average of 76%. The city also spends $222 per resident on parks, significantly above the national average of $154.

But while St. Pete has steadily improved access over the past decade, Klein said other cities have moved faster through aggressive park expansion strategies.

“Cities such as Atlanta and Dallas have made dramatic improvements,” he said, pointing to approaches like opening schoolyards for public use after hours, building greenways and converting underutilized public land into parks.

One category continuing to constrain St. Pete’s ranking is park size. The city’s median park measures 3.5 acres, below the national average of 5.4 acres, a common challenge for dense, built-out cities with limited remaining open land.

“Finding opportunities to open new large parks is a challenge in built-out cities across the nation,” Klein said. “Cities are seeing the most success through creation of greenways, which provide more adaptability in their locations as opportunities arise.”

That dynamic could soon shift locally through the Booker Creek Rail Trail project. The city is expected to finalize acquisition of the CSX rail corridor this summer as part of the larger Florida Gulf Coast Trail, a planned 420 mile regional trail network spanning seven coastal counties.

Klein said trail projects increasingly function as more than recreational amenities. “Rails to trails is one of the most important movements in recreation over the past 50 years,” he declared.

Trust for Public Land also released a companion economic report alongside the rankings titled The Undeniable ROI of Parks, concluding that parks generate roughly $3 in economic benefit for every $1 invested.

The report cites benefits tied to public health, flood mitigation and free recreational access, framing parks less as optional amenities and more as long-term civic infrastructure.

For St. Pete, where resiliency and flooding remain central policy issues, that argument carries particular relevance.

The city remains one of the highest ranked park systems in Florida and continues to outperform national averages in several categories.