PPW Calls for $150 Million Annually in Dedicated Funding for Open Space Partners for Parks and Wildlife Open space is essential to a healthy quality of life in Illinois. It serves important environmental purposes by improving water quality, recharging aquifers, limiting air pollution, maintaining natural systems; it makes economic sense, lowering government expenditures on service infrastructure like sewers lines and roads, and reducing flooding; and even has been proven to reduce stress and lower blood pressure.