A nationwide comparison of municipal recreation administration in selected central and suburban cities

Abstract

This study explores, within the limits of the defined Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA's) of the United States in 1965, the comparative relationship of central city and suburban municipal recreation administration. The specific objective of this study is to determine whether or not, within these SMSA's, the suburbs had a disproportionate allocative level of municipal recreation opportunities. The determination of this objective has been effected by an investigation of the traditional administrative components of land, labor and capital. A statistical base for this national study was established by collecting all available data, in both the central cities and the selected related suburbs, relative to these three components of municipal recreation administration. Individual averages for these three components were determined for each of the 152 municipalities studied. Following establishment of these individual averages, overall central city and suburban means per capita for the municipal recreation administration components of labor and capital were determined. The same determination was made for the municipal recreation administration component of land. However, it is expressed on an acres per 1,000 population basis rather than on a per capita basis. This was done in order to make it possible for there to be a comparison between municipal recreation land in the studied municipalities and the traditional recreation and park standard of ten acres per 1,000 population. ...