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Old 10-05-2015, 07:13 PM
 
Location: Greater Orlampa CSA
5,005 posts, read 5,601,218 times
Reputation: 3924

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I created this and figured I'd leave here for those of us that are fascinated not only by cities, but by our nation's "best idea", the National Parks, as well as distances and geography. Perhaps it will help some in making decisions, but it is really just meant to be fun. I should add that it is mentioning the closest "Big League City", according to driving distance without traffic from Google Maps. Measured from their CBD. How is a "Big League City" defined? As having at least one of the "Big 5" sports franchises there (MLS, NBA, NHL, NFL, MLB). So, as you can see, there are asterisks around some of the parks, these are ones that would have at least a chance of flipping to Vegas being the closest big league city, if they do happen to obtain an NHL, or some other pro sports franchise in the next few years. The ^ symbol was for places that were lower 48 national parks, but were isolated from land, so the distance was taken to the point where one would get another mode of transportation in order to get there. Some of these were common sense, but not all may be accurate, particularly the Green Bay one for Isle Royale, given the fact that Google Assumed that there was a launch point from Copper Harbor to there, but not Thunder Bay or Duluth. Anyways, hope you enjoy, I wonder if there will be any surprises for anyone else? I was surprised by a few. Obviously, a place doesn't "have" to be a National Park to be an excellent recreational asset, but it certainly doesn't hurt either.

1. Arches Salt Lake City: 3:50*
2. Acadia Boston: 4:20
3. Badlands Denver: 5:46
4. Big Bend San Antonio: 5:31
5. Biscayne Miami: 0:52^
6. Black Canyon of the Gunnison Denver: 4:35
7. Bryce Canyon Salt Lake City: 3:53*
8. Canyonlands Salt Lake City: 3:39*
9. Capitol Reef Salt Lake City: 3:14*
10. Carlsbad Caverns San Antonio: 6:11
11. Channel Islands Los Angeles: 1:33^
12. Congaree Charlotte 1:54
13. Crater Lake Portland 3:44
14. Cuyahoga Valley Cleveland 0:26
15. Death Valley Los Angeles 4:21*
16. Dry Tortugas Miami 3:18^
17. Everglades Miami 0:47
18. Glacier Calgary 2:46
19. Grand Canyon Phoenix 3:11*
20. Grand Teton Salt Lake City 4:28
21. Great Basin Salt Lake City 3:30*
22. Great Sand Dunes Denver 3:37
23. Great Smoky Mountains Atlanta 2:44
24. Guadalupe Mountains San Antonio 6:14
25. Hot Springs Memphis 2:45
26. Isle Royale Green Bay 4:37
27. Joshua Tree Anaheim 1:57*
28. Kings Canyon San Jose 3:19
29. Lassen Volcanic Sacramento 2:42
30. Mammoth Cave Nashville 1:18
31. Mesa Verde Salt Lake City 5:30
32. Mount Rainier Seattle 1:46
33. North Cascades Seattle 1:55
34. Olympic Seattle 2:11
35. Petrified Forest Phoenix 3:21
36. Pinnacles San Jose 1:21
37. Redwood Oakland 5:09
38. Rocky Mountain Denver 1:30
39. Saguaro Phoenix 1:42
40. Sequoia Los Angeles 3:16
41. Shenandoah Washington, DC 1:25
42. Theodore Roosevelt Winnipeg 6:50
43. Voyageurs Minneapolis 4:03
44. Wind Cave Denver 5:00
45. Yellowstone Salt Lake City 4:30
46. Yosemite Sacramento 2:31
47. Zion Salt Lake City 4:14*

Closest: Cuyahoga Valley National Park to Cleveland
Furthest: Theodore Roosevelt National Park to Winnipeg
Greatest Number of Parks Access:
1. Salt Lake City: 9
2. Denver 5
3. Greater LA 4
4. Bay Area 3
5. Miami 3
6. San Antonio 3
7. Seattle 3
National Park Closest to Largest Population Swath: Shenandoah (Within 5 hours of New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Richmond, Virginia Beach, Raleigh, Charlotte, Akron, Knoxville, Charleston, Dover, Trenton etc.)
National Park Greatest Distance from Other Parks: Acadia (12 hrs. from nearest)
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Old 10-05-2015, 08:06 PM
 
1,461 posts, read 2,096,349 times
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Cool.
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Old 10-05-2015, 08:06 PM
 
1,150 posts, read 1,641,610 times
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The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial in downtown St. Louis, also known as the Gateway Arch grounds, is a national park, currently undergoing a $600 million dollar expansion/improvements.

http://www.nps.gov/jeff/learn/upload...Map_022315.pdf
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Old 10-05-2015, 08:11 PM
 
1,461 posts, read 2,096,349 times
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Yeah, I'm not really sure what the criteria was for this thread (I suppose it excludes designated NP's in city proper's?) but:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ncisco#Federal
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Old 10-05-2015, 09:08 PM
 
Location: Los Altos Hills, CA
36,631 posts, read 67,207,834 times
Reputation: 21169
GGNRA is partially in SF itself.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold...ecreation_Area
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Old 10-06-2015, 07:29 AM
 
Location: Greater Orlampa CSA
5,005 posts, read 5,601,218 times
Reputation: 3924
Yeah that was where it got more technical. IDK specifically how they constitute the difference between a National Recreation Area (Golden Gate, Columbia River Gorge) a National Historic Park, like the French Quarter and Jefferson Expansion, and just plain national parks. I wonder if there are certain things the parks have to do to gain National Park status, I know in CVNP's case it involved mass eminent domain of some homes and businesses in the area in order to create the park. I also wonder what benefits being an official nat'l park has over a state or Nat'l rec area, other than the attention. While I think the Cleveland area wanted to be able to say it had a nat'l park next door for tourism/sales purposes, I think the people of Portland or SF might've vetoed as they might not have wanted it to be overrun or just wanted it (somewhat) to themselves. Just my thought though I'm not really sure. I also know that the CVNP kinda serves as the parks "baby" for showing what conservation can do, based on how industrial much of that area was a few decades ago.

If someone has more info on those differences I'd be interested to hear it.

Edit:

Here is a list of what are considered "National Parks" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._United_States

And here is a list of areas that happen to fall under the ownership of the NPS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...al_Park_System

Generally, while these might have a visitor center or something, they generally offer less programming, staff, budget, etc., except in major cases. Also, while I would like one, I haven't yet seen a book that happened to have all 408 NPS areas, generally the ones they advertise quite a bit more in their videos/pamphlets/maps/advertisements/books whether associated with them or not, are the 59 NPs.

Last edited by theurbanfiles; 10-06-2015 at 07:39 AM..
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Old 10-06-2015, 07:38 AM
 
Location: Raleigh, NC
1,098 posts, read 1,535,998 times
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Virginia Beach has a National Wildlife Refuge (that doubles as a park) within its borders.
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