A Review of the Economic Data Emanating from the Development of Central Park and Its Influence on the Construction of Early Urban Parks in the United States

Abstract

Financing Central Park by general taxation was controversial and precedent setting. It was justified by rationalizing that increases in property values around the Park would generate sufficient annual revenues to cover all the Park’s capital costs. Accordingly, the Central Park Commissioners provided data as “evidence” to support the success of this vehicle in their annual reports. This article shows these data were flawed. Notwithstanding their egregious inaccuracy, these Central Park data were ubiquitously reiterated in arguments to support urban parks in cities throughout the United States for eighty years from the 1860s until World War II.