Jacksonville's Parks Ranked 44th of 50 in the Nation

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But the ParkScore doesn't factor into account the subjective and "see it in person" aspects of a city's park system.

For instance:

Boone Park - basically just a plot of land with a plasticky playground and some tennis courts.
Central Park in Riverside - not maintained at all, basically just land with basketball courts
Memorial Park - it's "ok" and this is basically the best Jax has to offer
Riverside Park - see above, it's typically in poorly maintained shape (it's so bad the city has to take drastic measures every 5-10 years)

Emerald Necklace north of DT - whoa
The green areas around the streams in San Marco - basically just land around some streams
Any of the parks in Ortega - basically just land with trees set aside for public use and the two best maintained parks in the whole city, which were redone at the private funding of local residents, not the city (frankly the city's wealthy need to step up even more for central parks such as the riverwalk and the Emerald Necklace)

The large greenspace in front of Everbank stadium - really?  LoL that's pretty much a joke
Southbank Riverwalk - you risk your own life on it
Friendship Fountain/Park - recently nicely redone, but the city has a track record of simply not maintaining the park/fountain at all


The list goes on, but the state of Jacksonville parks is pretty dismal.  Also, per capita spending certainly does nothing to help these rankings, and won't change no matter how much we shrink the city limits.

And any of the great cities have great parks to point to as destinations for residents and visitors alike.  Charlotte realized this and has recently set about creating a couple of really nice, really large urban parks.  Greenville has long realized this.  Nashville does a little better in this category than Jax (though IMO while I love the city I think it also lacks in this).