Municipal recreation and park standards in the United States: Central cities and suburbs, 1975–1980

This article is a replicative follow‐up to the first nationwide assessment of the comparative relationship of central city and suburban municipal recreation in the United States that appeared in Volume 2, Numbers 3/4 of Leisure Sciences. By reapplying three traditionally developed standards to these municipal situations, a longitudinal research base is established that advances and amplifies the initial study and makes it now possible to more positively describe the central city and suburban municipal recreation relationship and situation. Key research results reveal the entire municipal recreation situation to have experienced a real and significant growth with the municipal recreation land situation having stabilized in the central cities and deteriorated in the suburbs. The substantial 1975 municipal recreation operating advantage that the central cities had over the suburbs was, by 1980, reduced to its 1965 allocative level.