Beautiful outdoor spaces are easy on the eyes, but it’s not all about looks. Investing in beautiful, purposeful, and well-thought-out outdoor spaces can provide an economic boost whose return on investment exceeds initial costs. Community planners, developers, and local officials should prioritize outdoor investments in their growth initiatives and remove barriers restricting investments. Updated zoning rules, plan review protocols, and enhanced requirements encouraging outdoor investments and amenities offer fiscal and societal benefits.
1. Quality of Life Increases
There’s a reason communities want to be on the best places to live lists — named communities get an extra boost. Businesses considering expansion look for communities whose infrastructure, quality of life, and workforce match their needs. A healthy community is a successful community, and outdoor spaces play a vital role in community health. Outdoor spaces can support community health initiatives and ultimately result in lower mortality rates and an attractive business climate.
Outdoor spaces like parks, playgrounds, and walking paths give the public access to areas that boost social cohesion. In today’s society, people maintain a smaller social circle, opting for digital connections and work or school-based friendships. However, real life happens outside the laptop, and your community’s outdoor spaces can encourage real-life connections to people and nature. Include plans for playgrounds outside a popular gathering space or new multi-use development. Families will stop by to play or they’ll pass the time while they wait for their table at a restaurant.
For a relatively low investment, equipment like slides, swing sets, and benches enhance would-be unused space. You can even opt for equipment to match the aesthetic of your space. Log-like stepping stones fit in with a natural setting while colorful, modern designs function as art you can play on. No matter your styling, these outdoor amenities add green space, increase access to leisure areas, and can boost property values.
Green spaces are beautiful, but they also add to the local ecology. Pocket parks provide a home to native plantings and wildlife, and can even mitigate urban heat island effects. High concentrations of concrete and asphalt can result in scorching temperatures, changing the local ecology and damaging quality of life. By incorporating more green space and amenities, communities can ensure theirs is a great place to live, work, and play.
2. Placemaking Draws Supportive Businesses
There’s a lot of thought that goes into creating a space where people want to be. This movement, often referred to as placemaking, is a strategic approach to creating a sense of place where it’s lacking. Take an open field, restored industrial site, or aimlessly designed main street and reconsider what could be there. Community planners assess spaces like these and identify ways to make sense of them that are useful and attractive. When placemaking is successful, it draws private investments, new tenants, and independent businesses in droves.
When a place draws great foot traffic, it signals to businesses that a potential audience is waiting for their offerings. A community splash pad will draw kids and their caretakers during the summer months. An ice cream shop scouting for a new location might look for a space within walking distance. A children’s clothing boutique might want to be nearby, and their window displays are in prime view of parents with each visit. A coffee shop would have a captive audience of patrons, gaining regulars in and out of splash pad season.
Businesses that support outdoor resources will pop up, too. If your community installs a trail system, shops that provide necessities for trail users will invest alongside it. A microbrewery will beg for trailside tables and offer a refreshing stop for trail-goers. A bicycle shop can offer free air for tire refills and offer an array of gear and bikes for sale. Runners can pop into a shop specializing in outfitting athletes, even using the trail as a proving ground for try-ons.
3. Jobs Are Created
The outdoor economy is booming, and building spaces that promote outdoor leisure and activities can unlock widespread economic growth. According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, outdoor recreation topped $1 trillion in 2022. Visitors flocking to outdoor amenities seek out new sights to conquer, participate in races in beautiful spaces, and attend festivals. These visitors represent dollars spent in restaurants, shops, and hotels in addition to the price paid to partake in events.
These businesses will need to hire workers to support the demand for outdoor tourism too, increasing employment opportunities and variety. Seasonal work boosts options for younger workers, who otherwise might opt out of working while on school breaks. Restaurant shifts provide variable work hours for those who need it and the opportunity to benefit from high-volume customers.
Outdoor spaces will come with added maintenance requirements, but they’ll also create jobs for workers. Cities might expand their public works crews or they can contract maintenance work out to entrepreneurs. The demand for permits will increase workloads for city officials, but the revenue will support city budgets. Festival organizers will collect fees from vendors and ticket sales. Some revenue will be spent to hire support staff for the event like security, ecology, and logistics.
An Investment Outdoors Knows No Bounds
When you invest in outdoor spaces, everyone wins. Communities flourish, residents stay and grow, and quality local businesses set deep roots that attract additional developments. As you prepare your next set of building plans, think outside the floor plan and expand your amenities offerings. Investing in outdoor spaces will differentiate your build, add to the community, and spark economic growth and well-being.
