One of the kinds of infrastructure we commonly ignore is parks -- though Tim DeChant, author of "Per Square Mile," one of my favorite blogs, notes that he became highly aware of their importance when he moved to Berkeley. It's worth noting that according to his data, Raleigh has more parkland per square person than any of the cities he checked except Albuquerque. In Raleigh we appreciate our parks, though we could do a better job of funding them.  Other high-park-area-per-person cities were Portland, Phoenix, Houston, and Lincoln, Nebraska.