Local governments provide several valuable services to their constituents. Parks and recreation services are often considered an amenity compared to other essential services such as education, public safety, public infrastructure, and sanitation; however, parks and recreation offer a wide variety of activities at indoor and outdoor facilities for constituents to enjoy. Based on the characteristics of local communities, I evaluate the socioeconomic determinants of local government parks and recreation spending. Applying the conceptual framework of the Median Voter Theorem, where majority rule voting selects the outcome preferred by the median voter, I examine a range of economic, demographic and institutional factors that influence how local communities determine appropriate spending for local parks. To my knowledge there are no empirical studies that evaluate the provision of this service based on community socioeconomic determinants. Using county level data from 1972-2012 across the United States, I find that increasing income and population results in increased parks and recreation spending; increases in the poverty rate and the female household rate, and the declining percentage of the Caucasian population, results in decreased parks and recreation spending. I also evaluate how these factors influence the composition of local government parks and recreation service funding: user fee charge revenue, operating expenditures, and capital outlay expenditures.
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