Summary:
Open Space Enhances Home Values.
- Open space adds $16.3 billion to the value of southeastern Pennsylvania’s housing stock.
- Protected open space generates $240 million annually in property tax revenues to support county and municipal governments and local school districts
Open Space Protects property, filters drinking water, and cleans the air.
- Southeastern Pennsylvania realizes nearly $61 million in annual cost savings from protected open spaces’ ability to naturally filter out pollutants and replenish water supply
- The total annual benefit generated by natural flood mitigation services is more than $37 million
- Trees on protected open space are estimated to provide $17 million in annual air pollution removal and carbon sequestration services
Open space furnishes low - or no cost recreation that saves money and improves health.
- Responses to the 2009 statewide outdoor recreation survey indicate that, on average, 41% of moderate or strenuous physical exercise is performed in a park or on a trail
- Nearly $577 million in benefits accrue annually to residents who participate in recreational activities on protected open space within southeastern Pennsylvania
- Each household in the region saves $392 per year by having open space available for recreation and exercise
- The health-related cost savings resulting from physical activity on protected open space amount to $1.3 billion per year including avoided workers’ compensation costs and avoided productivity losses
- $795 million of those health-related cost savings are medical cost savings
Open space creates jobs and attracts people who spend in our communities.
- Economic activity associated with protected open space in southeastern Pennsylvania results in more than 6,900 jobs and $299 million in annual earnings
- Total annual expenditures in the five-county region associated with protected open space equal $566 million . Specifically $174 million , or 31% , is attributable to spending associated with the management and maintenance of publicly protected open space; $206 million, or 36%, accounts for agricultural sales associated with preserved farmland; and $187 million , or 33% , is generated through tourist activity associated with protected open space
- Agricultural jobs associated with protected farmland make up 45% of employment related to protected open space in southeastern Pennsylvania, totaling 3,100 jobs
- Economic activity associated with protected open space generates $30 million per year in state and local tax revenue
