In a city with a national reputation for the number and variety of dog parks it operates, plans have been announced for the development and construction of 18 more such spaces.
“Albuquerque is a dog-friendly city,” Mayor Tim Keller said in announcing the plans, which he said will provide additional “safe, fun connection points” in the city.
Beginning more than two decades ago, Albuquerque undertook an ambitious initiative to build dog parks in every section of the city. Those fenced-in parks are nicely landscaped affairs with small hills, trees, grass, and gravel space, and segregated sections for smaller canines.
The parks are oftentimes also expensive undertakings, costing millions of dollars to plan, design, build, and maintain.
As overseen by the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, the new dog parks project will see the building of seven standard-sized parks of up to two acres, along with nearly a dozen smaller dog parks of substantially less acreage, between now and 2025.
The effort is being undertaken just as the city has completed some $270,000 in renovation work to the Rio Grande Triangle Park in the downtown area, one of the oldest mainstays in the city’s dog park system.
Expansion of the city’s dog park system is being paid for by up to $2 million in set aside city funds in the 2023 fiscal year budget.
Last month, Albuquerque was listed at number 11 for cities with the best dog parks in America, coming in ahead of more than 85 other parks.
The list was compiled by the company Lawn Starter, which is based in Austin and manages and surveys public and private green space.
Dog parks have increasingly become a part of the nation’s urban environment. According to the Smithsonian, one of the very first such parks, laid out over a subway tunnel, was opened in Berkeley, California in 1983.
In the following decade at least 25 other dog parks were opened across the country, with many regarded as evidence of a thriving neighborhood.
Some studies have even suggested that dog parks are even good for fighting crime. The site Healthypaws has noted that “when a vacant space, especially if it was previously crime-ridden, is transformed into a dog park, there’s a correlated reduction in crime levels.”
Today, according to the National Recreation and Park Association, there are more than 2,200 dog parks in urban, suburban, and even rural areas of the country.
By Garry Boulard
