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When Bridgeport wanted to know the economic
value of the city’s parks, they turned to Dina
Franceschi’s economics class
(http://blog.fairfield.edu/magazine/?p=3161)
Published: December 8, 2014Posted in: FeaturesTags: winter 2014 (http://blog.fairfield.edu/magazine/?
tag=winter-2014)
The City of Bridgeport, Fairfield’s neighbor to the north, is justifiably proud of its nickname, “The Park City” —
1,356 acres of its 16 square miles are devoted to parkland.
But while Mayor Bill Finch has made the environment one of his priorities, spending money to improve those
parks can be controversial in a climate of tough budget challenges.
Showcasing those benefits became even more important when Bridgeport decided to reopen a beloved
landmark, Pleasure Beach, a 71-acre barrier island on a peninsula that joins Stratford, that had been
inaccessible since 1996, when the bridge leading out to it burned down.
When the city was in its heyday, Pleasure Beach was one of its jewels. The city of Bridgeport annexed Pleasure
Beach from Stratford in 1889 and made it into a tourist attraction. The Chicago Cubs once played a game on
the site. Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave a speech there in 1932 when he was governor of New York. A go-to
summer destination for locals as well as New Yorkers, Pleasure Beach used to boast a roller coaster, bumper
cars, carousel, and summer theatre. At mid-century, thousands flocked to “the largest ballroom in New
England” to see Jazz-era greats like Artie Shaw, Glenn Miller, and Gene Krupa.
The amusement park on the beach closed in 1966, and the area fell into neglect before the bridge burned down
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2. and sealed it off from the city.
In the years since, the houses dotting the property have been razed and the playhouse burned down, leaving
the area sad and desolate. Recently, armed with a federal grant, the city has cleaned up the property, built
boardwalks, and re-opened the beach, ferrying people to the island via a quick boat ride.
When Dr. Dina Franceschi of the College of Arts and Sciences’ Department of Economics saw that the city was
looking for help in assessing the value of the parks in terms of their impact on property values, health and
welfare, and the environment — part of an effort to make an argument for bringing Pleasure Beach back to life
and connecting it back to the city — she jumped at the chance to involve her upper-level environmental
economics class in the semester-long project.
Dr. Franceschi’s class project is one of the many examples of service learning at Fairfield, where professors and
students engage in work outside of campus — in literacy assistance, statistical study, tax preparation,
mentoring, and so on. By far, the University’s most important partner in these experiences is the City of
Bridgeport. As President Jeffrey P. von Arx, S.J., has noted, “Fairfield University is proud to be a part of the
fabric of the Bridgeport community — after all, nearly 100 of our faculty and staff live and raise their families in
Bridgeport, and there are over 11,000 graduates who hail from Bridgeport. So in every important aspect the
health and vibrancy of the city and the health and vibrancy of our University go hand-in-hand.”
Throughout the spring 2013 semester, the class worked in teams of two to three students, with each examining
a different area of potential benefit of parks to the community — air or water quality, property values, level of
community engagement, and so on.
“My team examined the value of properties in the vicinity of the parks, comparing them to the values of
properties farther away,” explained Emily DeLuca ’13, who has since graduated and is now working for an
investment bank in New York. “We found that, on average, residential properties within a tenth of a mile of a
park were worth eight percent more than those in the next tenth of a mile.”
Commercial properties within close proximity to a park fared even greater; their values were 11 percent higher.
For the city as a whole, Bridgeport’s parks added an increased value of $200 million to the city’s properties,
according to the team’s report.
Property values were the most easily quantifiable benefits the class examined. Slightly trickier was quantifying
the health and economic benefits to those using the parks. How much would community members have to pay
for similar recreational facilities, say, if they didn’t have a free park available?
“Ultimately, our goal was to indicate that free parks would benefit Bridgeport residents by saving them money,”
explained Alex Fylpovych ’14, who graduated with a double major in journalism and environmental studies.
“The park system, based on calculations from 12 of the parks, has an annual direct use value of $46,350,387,
plus an additional $1,834,996 in direct use value from Fairchild Wheeler Golf Course.”
Other than the golf course, it’s worth noting that Bridgeport’s 46 parks include 19 playgrounds, 24 tennis courts,
11 basketball courts, 25 baseball fields, 20 acres of beach, and eight miles of trails.
The parks study project took most of the semester. The research was boiled down to a report, “The Valuation of
Bridgeport Parks,” which was released to the public early this October.
“Mayor Finch believes strongly that growing our city’s economy and creating jobs is directly linked to growing
our parkland,” said Davey Ives, an environmental projects coordinator for the city. “This study is a clear
indicator that investing in parkland will help Bridgeport move toward a more prosperous future.”
Ives also noted the importance of student involvement in putting together the study. “The students who helped
put this study together were eager to learn, and dug up all sorts of statistics in their research,” he said. “They
found that there’s a triple bottom line when it comes to the parks: economics, environment, and social fairness.”
As for Pleasure Beach, the city has plans to reopen the beach pavilion and develop walking trails.
“It won’t be the Pleasure Beach of years past, but a more natural environment,” said Ives. Piping plovers,
osprey, and native cacti will be protected, and the land will be kept in a more natural state, providing a buffer to
the South End of the city during severe storms.
Dr. Franceschi said the research was a great learning experience for her students: “The students love the real-
world stuff. They can feel how impactful it is, and it’s so meaningful for them to do a study that will actually be
used. It legitimizes their academic studies.”
Spending time touring the city parks and doing research within various city departments had an upside, too.
“Bridgeport really surprised the students,” said Dr. Franceschi. “They were very impressed with all the concerts,
plays, and the thriving art scene. On the whole, I think they were very surprised by all the positives the city has
to offer.”
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