Out of 100 Cities Nationwide Mesa Parks Ranked In The Bottom 10

So, how’s our city’s park system, if it’s one of the 100 to appear in the index, rank? Better or worse than you expected? Where was there room for improvement?
Just released is a report for urban park systems in the country per the Trust for Public Land (TPL)’s annual ParkScore rankings, an index that ranks urban recreational spaces belonging to the 100 most populous American cities.
Residents of Mesa will have to scroll way down - to the bottom ten - to see how the city gets ranked.
The ParkScore® index measures how well the 100 largest U.S. cities are meeting the need for parks
http://parkscore.tpl.org/

The ParkScore methodology is based on three key criteria. Park Access uses advanced GIS mapping technology to determine how far a city’s residents must walk to access the nearest public green space. Park Size takes into consideration both the median size of a unit within an individual park system and the total amount of land within a city that’s dedicated to parks.

Finally, the Facilities and Investment category combines both a city's park spending per resident and the availability of a quartet of aforementioned park amenities: dog parks, playgrounds, basketball hoops and recreation/senior centers
.
Take a look at around 7 o'clock - for Mesa it's $28.6 Millions of dollars.

Mesa = 91 out of 100

While it’s true that a low ParkScore may yield a fair amount of hand-wringing for park officials in the cities that place close to the bottom of the list, the TPL sees the rankings — described as “the most comprehensive rating system ever developed to measure how well the 100 most populous U.S. cities are meeting their residents’ need for parks” — as a tool that poorly-ranked cities can use to help better themselves in key areas and, in turn, move up the list.
Link for Mesa >> http://parkscore.tpl.org/city.php?city=Mesa

Explore an interactive map from this link

Park Facts:
Park acreage: 2,521 acres
People served per park acre: 183
Oldest municipal park: Pioneer Park, est. 1947
Largest municipal park: Red Mountain Park, 582 acres
Most-visited municipal park: Riverview Park


City Stats

• City area: 83,578 acres
• Median park size: 2.6 acres
• Park land as % of city area: 3.0 %
• Spending per resident: $69.96
• Basketball Hoops per 10,000: 2.6
• Dog Parks per 100,000 Residents: 0.4
• Playgrounds per 10,000: 1.4
• Recreation / Senior Centers
  per 20,000 Residents: 0.2
• Population density: 5.5 per acre

You can download Maps and tables here >> Access to Parks by Age and Income http://parkscore.tpl.org/ReportImages/Mesa_AZ.pdf

VIEW FULL RANKING ANALYSIS HERE
Using mapping technology and demographic data, we determined how well each city is meeting the need for parks.
You can learn more with in-depth city profiles …
… or compare multiple cities.
We scored cities in three categories. Learn more about the ParkScore^® methodology.

OTHER RESOURCES AND LINKS


New tool: http://gis.mesaaz.gov/ParkFinder/

http://www.mesaaz.gov/things-to-do/parks-recreation-commercial-facilities/parks

http://www.mesaaz.gov/city-hall/office-of-management-budget/major-funds

Dress Codes for The Cubs + On The Bat Here In Mesa > T Shirts, Anyone?

Gotta admit your MesaZona blogger got stumped recently scanning through feeds about Mesa "news" - write about swarms of bees attacking a hiker? Dogs getting killed by Mesa police in someone's backyard [and they accept responsibility] ? A cancer-stricken student denied appearing at his own graduation? An ambulance crash tying up traffic for hours? Someone 'up-skirting" a woman in Walmart not once but twice? . . . no, TY U very much. 
It's summertime! Two stories up on this blog - one about Mesa pride featuring "a mascot", another from Chicago Cubs
Let's take a shallow dive into an item of basic clothing: the T-shirt and have some fun.

This may seem like a stretch, but let's start off from Main Street. With not just one but two silk-screening businesses here on Main Street  in The New Urban DTMesa [both examples of "adaptive re-use" located in historic buildings harking back to the city's mercantile origins], T-shirts = big business > everyone needs more than a few to wear whether for promotions for one thing or another.
Cross-marketing and Cause-related fund-raising have created demands for creative expression.

Out of Milwaukee, Chicago and here in Mesa we get two stories:
Cubs manager Joe Maddon shows off a new pink fundraising T-shirt

Posted 12:02 AM, May 19, 2016, by Larry Hawley, Updated at 02:32pm, May 19, 2016

"Put it on a T-Shirt and raise some money for a good cause.
This philosophy worked well for Joe Maddon when his "Try Not To Suck" slogan was put on a T-Shirt by Korked Baseball. The local business partnered with the Cubs manager to donate a portion of the proceeds to Cubs Charities, Maddon's "Respect 90" foundation and other organizations of his choice. . .
On Wednesday, Maddon surprised reporters in the Cubs' dugout at Miller Park by showing off his latest offering in fundraising apparel-this time it was quite eye-catching.
Maddon sported a pink T-Shirt with his slogan "If You Look Hot, Wear It." The shirt features that phrase in blue with a flamingo on one side of the shirt.
"It's just coming out today," said Maddon, who was eager to show off his newest fashion item . . .
This "Maddonism" was used in Spring Training in Mesa, Arizona by the manager when discussing the team's dress code. It's been reference a couple of times since, especially when the team departed for a road trip in early May by wearing zany suits to Pittsburgh . . . Maddon says each Cubs player will get one of the pink shirts and they'll try to where them when the Cubs travel to San Francisco to play the Giants on Sunday night, a game broadcast nationally by ESPN.

As far at the design of his most visible fundraising efforts, he said is a collaborative effort between Korked Baseball co-founders Jacob Chandler and Joe Ferro . . .

"The thoughts are mine, they design," said Maddon of coming up with the T-Shirts.
[Bigger's Note: with slogans like "Try Not To Suck" and "If You Look Hot, Wear It" ya gotta wonder what's on Maddon's mad mind]

. . . and here in Mesa

A project to sell T-Shirts and raise money by Creative Catalysts who are starting a series of downtown Mesa t-shirts designed by our amazing local artists.

HUGE Props to Mark Matlock for this awesome t-shirt design for Downtown Mesa!

For those of you who haven't heard, we are working on a whole series of Downtown Mesa t-shirts to sell and raise money for public art like murals and installations etc. If you are an artist and you'd like to design one, contact Jen Gastelum or Erica Snyder
Please comment here if you would be interested in a pre-sale order of this shirt. We haven't gotten to cost yet, but they will be somewhere in the range of $22-25 with all proceeds going towards public art.
*Also, for those of you not super familiar with downtown yet, this art depicts our downtown mascot, Batman aka Caitlyn who always is a part of our day to day downtown activities

We are starting a series of downtown Mesa t-shirts designed by our amazing local artists.



This is the first, and holy crap did it surpass expectations, thanks to the amazing Matlock the Artist!
Erica is taking pre-orders, who's interested!? Also, if you're interested in designing one and showing a lil' Mesa pride, let us know!