NEWARK -- Jersey City and Newark both slipped in a ranking of parks among the nation's 100 largest cities conducted every year by the non-profit Trust for Public Land.

Once again, Jersey City ranked above average in the land trust's annual survey, which is based on factors including the amount of park acreage and spending per capita, average proximity to a park for residents and park amenities like basketball courts and senior centers. But the city slipped form 36th in 2016 to 40th this year, tied with Tampa, Fla.

Newark again finished below average in the survey, which takes into account municipal, county, state and even federal parkland within a city's borders. Newark fell to 81st on the list, tied with with Houston, Tex., and Witchita, Kan., from 75th last year.

"Newark's biggest [factor] was in spending, which has always been pretty low," said Alexandra Hiple, a researcher with the Trust for Public Land. "It's not easy asking a city to spend more money on parks."

Three cities tied for the top ranking, including the twin cities of Minneapolis and St.Paul, both in Minnesota, and Washington, D.C., which enjoys an abundance of federal park and monument space. New York City ranked seventh on the list, known as ParkScore, while Loredo, Tex., was the most park-starved of the nation's 100 most populous cities.

Details of the rankings are available at the ParkScore web page.

Hiple, who grew up in the Hunterdon County borough of Stockton and now works at the trust's Center for City Park Excellence in Boston, said Jersey City's slip in the rankings was due more to improvements by other cities than to any real decline in spending, quality or quantity of parkland in Jersey City, which opened a new 17-acre park last year.

Jersey City's relatively high marks for parks remains attributable largely to 1,212-acre Liberty State Park, which is operated by the New Jersey Division of Parks and Forestry on the city's southern waterfront, opposite Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty.

Newark, in turn, is home to a pair of noteworthy Essex County parks, Branch Brook and Weequahic, which lay claim to the world's largest collection of cherry blossoms and one of the nation's oldest public golf courses, respectively.

Hiple stressed that the annual ranking, known as ParkScore, is not meant to criticize or praise municipalities, but rather to be used by officials on all levels of government to help decide how best to serve city residents' recreational and open space needs.

"The trust for public land wants Park Score to be used as a tool for thinking about the way parks should serve a city," she said.

Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop said his administration has invested $6 million in park rehabilitation in the last couple of years, in addition to last year's opening of the new 17.5-acre Berry Lane Park, and plans for a new 5-acre park at the southern end of the city.

"Our goal is to not only expand access to open space, but to create active and passive recreational areas for residents of all ages and to build community engagement around our park system by working closely with our parks conservancies and community groups," Fulup said in a statement.

Newark is also in the midst of several park projects, including a recent overhaul of Military Park, a downtown expanse surrounded by several ongoing real estate developments.

Next month Mayor Ras Baraka will break ground on a new downtown park to be known as Mulberry Commons, intended to anchor commercial and residential development of an area near the Prudential Center arena.

"In addition," Baraka said in a statement, "proposed initiatives such as the Open Space Trust Fund, the Cities of Service Prepared Together Project, which brings citizen volunteers together to plant trees and install green infrastructure project, and the Adopt-A-Lot program that increases access to vacant lots for use as community gardens, demonstrate our commitment to our green spaces and to ensuring healthy, livable communities for Newark residents."

Steve Strunsky may be reached at sstrunsky@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @SteveStrunsky. Find NJ.com on Facebook.