Saffron: Caring for city’s parks is serious business

The Inquirer’s Inga Saffron writes that the city’s parks, which rely heavily on support from neighborhood benefactors who are struggling because of the weak economy, need a financial transformation. “Philadelphia’s operating budget for parks this year … is $12.6 million,” she writes, for 9,200 acres of land, with an additional 500 acres on the way under the merged Parks and Recreation department. Chicago’s park system spends $392 million on 7,200 acres, while New York’s four-acre Bryant Park raises $8 million a year from private donors, Saffron reports.