Agenda - Parks and Recreation Commission - 02/08/2018

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2000 2010 2040 Population 2,642,062 2,849,567 3,673,660 Households 1,021,456 1,117,749 1,509,170 Employment 1,606,263 1,543,872 2,094,380 In addition, our population is changing in ways that will influence how we develop and redevelop: • Our region is aging rapidly. More than one in five residents will be age 65 and older in 2040, compared to one in nine in 2010. • The region will gain 391,000 new households by 2040. • By 2040, 40% of the population will be people of color, compared to 24% in 2010. The share of people of color increases among younger age groups; 54% of residents under age 18 will be people of color in 2040. While the rich and growing racial and ethnic diversity is an asset to our continued economic vitality, our region has some of the largest disparities by race and ethnicity of any large metropolitan area in the nation. Importantly, these disparities and shifting demographics have implications for nature -based outdoor recreation providers. Broad based trends consistently indicate that recreation participation is far greater for white and/or non -Hispanic populations within the state and the nation than for people of color. [see Minnesota's State Comprehensive Outdoor Recreation Plan (SCORP), 2014]. In addition, SCORP cites several studies showing that involvement in nature -based outdoor recreation among young adults and their children has decreased since the 1990s. The relative participation of different segments of the population in nature -based outdoor recreation, together with their respective population growth rates, create significant challenges ahead in terms of park and trail utilization, as well as maintaining broad -based public support for park and trail investments. To this end, the 2040 Regional Parks Policy Plan incorporates specific aims to strengthen equitable usage of our regional parks and trails by all our region's residents. Community Designations The seven -county region contains a wide range of communities, from agricultural townships to densely developed downtown neighborhoods. Recognizing that one size does not fit all, the Council uses community designations to group communities with similar characteristics in order to implement regional policy at the local level through comprehensive plans (See Figure 1-1). Community designations fall within two main categories, the Metropolitan Urban Service Area and the Rural Service Area. Metropolitan Urban Service Area The Metropolitan Urban Service Area constitutes about half of the land in the region, but accounts for more than 90% of the region's population. The Council supports the Metropolitan Urban Service Area