The Midsummer Classic is over, and the dog days of summer are looming. Not every team has a chance at October baseball, but some still offer a lot to love in the neighborhood outside the ballpark.
Anyone who has trekked across parking lots to get to parking lots in Los Angeles, Anaheim, or Oakland knows that not all ballparks were designed to integrate into the neighborhood. Go to the North Side of Chicago or Yawkey Way in Boston and you'll see the benefits of ballpark planning before car-centric planning was a thing.
A Chicago Tribune team has created an unscientific ranking of the neighborhoods outside the ballparks of the 30 teams in Major League Baseball, with somewhat predictable results at the top: Fenway Park in Boston at number one and Wrigley Field in Chicago at number two. Petco Park in San Diego might surprise some at number three. Most likely to be controversial, however, is the new suburban ballpark for the Atlanta Braves, SunTrust Park in Cobb County, which comes in at number four.
FULL STORY: Ranking all 30 MLB ballpark neighborhoods
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City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research