Illinoistocht

I admit at first I felt a little schadenfreude, a German word for pleasure taken from observing the misery of another, about the Blago drama given his hostility to the Hennepin and I&M (see the blog posts from earlier this year).   But upon further reflection I had a realization that park funding is in jeopardy everywhere.  

In late May, 2008, the National Trust for Historic Preservation named the entire 278-park California State Park system as one of its 11 Most Endangered Historic Places.  Earlier that month, Governor Schwarzenegger had to cut the budget and would have closed 48 of the parks, but then funding was restored on May 14.  However, as the National Trust put it, “the budget for the Department of Parks and Recreation is woefully inadequate to support day-to-day parks operations, much less to address the $1.2 billion deferred maintenance bill that has accumulated through years of chronic underinvestment.”  Two big differences in my perceptions about the governors in California and Illinois were that in California the park funds were quickly restored and the Governator’s ethics compared to Blago’s.  Even though he doesn’t live in the state mansion and commutes weekly (and sometimes daily) back-and-forth to LA, Arnold uses either his own money or his own campaign funds and not the funds of cash-strapped California for the jetting.   And one also presumes that he and his Kennedy-clan wife aren’t desperately trying to figure out schemes to make more money. 

The California drama took place in May which seems like an eternity ago in the world of money—in the stock market, in the economy, and most importantly in local, state and federal budgets.  If early 2008 presented a problem for state parks, what will California do in 2009 with an unprecedented $40 billion budget deficit looming in the next 18 months?  Or how about Illinois?   The nation’s parks may be fighting an uphill battle—while on the one hand the current economic climate is going to result in pressures on government funding, on the other hand, the public seems less supportive of the outdoors in general.  If less people are interested in outdoor activity and fewer people patronize the park systems then they may become less supportive of funding parks with tax revenues.  

By many measurements, there seems to be a decline in many outdoor pursuits.  The Economist recently reported that “…despite an explosion in the deer population, the number of hunters fell from 19.1m to 12.5m between 1975 and 2006.  Fishing has declined more steeply, particularly among the young.”   (Jul 10, 2008).  Fishing has declined in spite of the endless proliferation of bass-fishing shows on cable television while, despite the fact that nearly every mall in America has a store where one can buy Ansel Adams posters, visits to Yosemite National Park have dropped for 9 out of the past 13 years with the number of visitors down nearly 20% over the period.  There are a variety of causes to be sure and any discussion brings out the amateur sociologist in us all—whether its video games or demographics or something else. 

While some parks are maybe seeing more use there are others, like Yosemite, which is seeing less use.  In many places park funding is under siege, whether at the national, state, or local level.   Let’s all hope the parks can come through this new austere budget era unscathed.

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