The document outlines the challenges faced by Toledo, including high migration rates and poor weather, while emphasizing the importance of parks and green spaces in enhancing the city's attractiveness and quality of life. It discusses the emotional connections that residents form with their communities, driven by aesthetics, social opportunities, and openness, rather than just economic factors. Ultimately, it advocates for the strategic investment in parks and recreational amenities as essential for urban competitiveness and community well-being.

1. A Legacy of Lands
and Lives
Ted Lee Eubanks
Founder & President

2. CITIES, PARKS, PLACES, AND SPACES
Metroparks of the Toledo Area

3. America’s “20 Most Miserable Cities”
• Job growth has been anemic in Toledo and
residents are voting with their feet by leaving
the city. The net migration rate out of the city
was the nation's fourth highest behind Detroit,
Flint, and Cleveland…Forbes
• The Weather Channel announced Friday that
Toledo’s winter of 2013-14 has been the worst
of any major city in the United States this year.

4. • Cities are under increasing pressure to
burnish their identities to remain
competitive in an evolving global
marketplace.
• High profile projects are often associated
with the promotion of a locality to the
outside world.
• City administrations use place making and
marketing to make their cities attractive as
spaces for investment, visitors, and
potential residents.

5. Park Values
• Parks are value-added investments.
• Parks provide quality of life services to
residents.
• Parks attract visitors and related tourism
revenues.
• Parks burnish the brand.

6. Value-added Parks
• Central Park in NYC
• Millennium Park in Chicago
• Fairmont Park in Philadelphia
• Discovery Green in Houston
• Lady Bird Lake and Auditorium Shores in
Austin

7. City Beautiful
• New urban economic theory and policymakers
are coming to see the provision of consumer
leisure amenities as a way to attract
population, especially the highly skilled and
their employers.
• “Beautiful cities” disproportionally attract
highly-educated individuals, and experience
faster housing price appreciation…

8. City Beautiful
• Leisure tourists are attracted by an area’s
special traits, such as proximity to the ocean,
scenic views, and cultural and recreational
opportunities--the very characteristics that
attract households to cities.
• Local government investments in new public
recreational areas are associated with
increased city attractiveness.

9. Soul of the Community
• Drivers that create emotional bonds between
people and their community are consistent in
virtually every city and can be reduced to just
a few categories.
• Interestingly, the usual suspects — jobs, the
economy, and safety — are not among the top
drivers.

10. Soul of the Community
• Rather, people consistently give higher ratings
for elements that relate directly to their daily
quality of life: an area’s physical beauty,
opportunities for socializing, and a
community’s openness to all people.

11. Soul of the Community
• Social Offerings — Places for people to meet
each other and the feeling that people in the
community care about each other.
• Openness — How welcoming the community
is to different types of people, including
families with young children, minorities, and
talented college graduates.
• Aesthetics — The physical beauty of the
community including the availability of parks
and green spaces.

12. Rural Growth Trifecta
• Counties with both higher proportions of
creative class and richer entrepreneurial
contexts, as measured by either the rate of
self-employment or the number
establishments per job, tended to have
greater gains in establishments and jobs
during the 1990s than counties with less of
this combination.

13. Rural Growth Trifecta
• The relevance of this synergy was not
pervasive across rural areas, however, but
contingent on the level of local outdoor
amenities.
• Rural places pursuing entrepreneurship as a
development strategy need to consider the
potential contribution of the outdoors as a
means to attract the creative class and
recharge knowledge.

14. Placemaking and the Future of Cities*
Parks and squares reward investment
disproportionately. If developed as “places” and
planned around major public destinations, they
build local economies, civic pride, social
connection, and human happiness.
*Placemaking and the Future of Cities

15. People Places Spaces

16. People
*Resident
*Visitor
Metroparks Toledo Region

17. Place and Brand Linkages
Place – Oak
Openings
Space -
Metroparks
Space -
Toledo
Space –
Northwest
Ohio
Space –
Ohio
Space -
Great Lakes

18. Benefit Flow Contingencies
• Alignment
• Volume of flow
• Breadth of flow
• Capture Rate
• Sustainability of flow

19. METROPARKS AND THE VALUE OF
PLACE
Placemaking and the Future of Cities

20. …an unknown physical setting is a “blank
space” that only becomes a “place” as it is
endowed with meanings through lived
experiences.

21. Place Satisfactiono Once of the factors that can play a role in the
formation of place attachment is satisfaction
with a place.
o If an individual is satisfied with a park, he or
she will likely return to that park if the
opportunity presents itself.
o Repeated visits build meanings and values
associated with the park.

22. …individuals who are emotionally, cognitively,
or functionally attached to a place will act to
protect that place.

24. …outside interests have a role in shaping
cognition, through shaping the physical
landscape, through interpretation of the
landscape…
Richard Stedman 2002

25. “…to reveal the
beautiful truths that
lie behind the
appearances.”
Freeman Tilden

26. A LEGACY OF LANDS AND LIVES
The Metroparks of the Toledo Area

27. Recreate the Landscape
• Oak Openings
• Primary Streams and Waterways of
Maumee Bay
• Coastal Plains of Lake Erie

28. Steward the Stories
• Westward expansion, the Indian Wars, the
War of 1812, the Underground Railroad, and
the Great Depression are all seminal moments
in American history and all are represented
within the Metroparks.

29. Steward the Stories
• Not only is Metroparks charged with
protecting these irreplaceable historical
resources, but Metroparks staff also steward
the resources and interpret these American
stories for visitors who may well be unaware
of these critical chapters in the America saga.

30. Steward the Stories
• Among the stories being stewarded by
Metroparks are the stories of the park system
itself.
– Creation in 1928
– New Deal
– The Creation of Wildwood Preserve Metropark
– Land Levy

31. Provide Places to Play
• Cities around the nation recognize the
relationship between quality of life and
competitiveness.
• Open space, parks, and outdoor recreation are all
key components in the quality of life quotient.
• Metroparks, one of the finest park systems in the
nation, should be a critical contributor to the
Toledo area’s efforts to restore its
competitiveness and vitality.

32. Most Popular Outdoor Activities
Participation Rate
• Running, Jogging and Trail Running
– 20% of Americans Ages 6+, 57.5 million participants
• Road Biking, Mountain Biking and BMX
– 16% of Americans Ages 6+, 46.6 million participants
• Freshwater, Saltwater and Fly Fishing
– 16% of Americans Ages 6+, 45.9 million participants
• Car, Backyard, Backpacking and RV Camping
– 14% of Americans Ages 6+, 40.1 million participants
• Hiking
– 12% of Americans Ages 6+, 34.4 million participants

33. Most Popular Outdoor Activities
Frequency of Participation
• Running, Jogging and Trail Running
– 82 average outings per runner / 4.7 billion total outings
• Road, Mountain and BMX Biking
– 58 average outings per cyclist / 2.7 billion total outings
• Birdwatching/Wildlife Viewing
– 39 average outings per person / 1.0 billion total outings
• Freshwater, Saltwater and Fly Fishing
– 20 average outings per angler / 904.2 million total outings
• Car, Backyard, Backpacking and RV Camping
– 15 average outings per camper / 597.7 million total outings

34. Legacy of Lands and Lives
• Enhance
• Market
• Engage
• Parks-to-People
• Trails2go
• Blend the Boundaries
• Connect the Core
• Crossover Connections
• Profile the Parks
• Invest in Strengths
• Park Ambassadors

35. Legacy of Lands and Lives
A legacy is part of the future, not simply a
reflection of the past. The past can serve as
prologue for the Metroparks of the future.

36. Legacy of Lands and Lives
The closer to the
conjunction of lives
and lands Metroparks’
positions marketing
and engagement
efforts, the more
powerful the messages
that will emerge.
People
LandLives

37. Ted Lee Eubanks, Founder and President
PO 5485
Austin, Texas 78763-5485
(512) 391-0095
www.fermatainc.com
tedleeeubanks@fermatainc.com
© All Rights Reserved

38. References
• Carlino, G.A., and A. Saiz. City Beautiful, IZA
Discussion Paper No. 3778, October 2008.
• McGranahan, D., T. Wojan, and D. Lambertz.
The Rural Growth Trifecta: outdoor amenities,
creative class and entrepreneurial context.
Journal of Economic Geography (2010) pp. 1–
29.
• Soul of the Community. A project of John S.
and James L. Knight Foundation, 2010.