West Chicago Park District is the largest and oldest park districts in the United States. The park district has an annual budget of 385 million dollars. The district is a self-governing taxing authority and is a separate agency of the city of Chicago.

The Chicago park district manages 552 parks that have an area of more than 7,300 acres of parkland including 33 beaches, 16 historic lagoons, 10 bird and wildlife gardens and 9 museums. Most of these are a part of Chicago travel tourism destinations for example Lincoln Park which is Chicagos largest park has over 20 million visitors annually. This park is second only to Central park located in New York City. Along the lakefront of the park district are nine lakefront harbors that are located along a number of parks. They constitute the countrys largest municipal harbor.

Setting of the parks and their development

Some of the parks are located next to several Chicago public schools. This was done so that school students could easily incorporate school assignments and physical activities into a learning experience. There are also public libraries located in the Chicago park district facilities. The park currently has a program that it is running of renovating and beautifying the parks. This is being led by the Tim Mitchell who has been in charge of the park district since 2004.

New parks have also been built in the recent years for example the Ping Tom Memorial Park, Memorial park and Dusable Park. There has also been an effort to return the programming of the parks activities to the neighborhoods. This has led to a lakefront concert venue being created on northerly Island where the former Meigs Field airport used to be. These parks constitute a part of Chicago travel tourism.

Chicago park District-Wikipediat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Park_District

Chicago park District Official websitet

http://www.chicagoparkdistrict.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/root.home/intHomeLink/1/home.cfm