Tag Archives: parks

Differentiating between playgrounds and parks in poor versus wealthy neighborhoods

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Researchers in recent years have looked at different amenities in poor versus wealthier neighborhoods, things like pawn shops, payday loan stores, and grocery stores. But what about parks and playgrounds? Here is a summary of a new study:

A recent study, published in the journal Annals of Behavioral Medicine, looked at the amenities in 165 parks in the four-county Kansas City metro region. Low-income neighborhoods actually had more parks per capita (perhaps a result, the authors suggest, of the fact that minority communities in the area are largely located in the older urban core where more parks were once planned into the city’s layout). Parks in predominantly minority communities were also more likely to have basketball courts.

But the researchers also found that these same parks were less likely to have aesthetic features like decorative landscaping, trails and playgrounds. As the authors explain:

These findings are problematic because playgrounds have been shown to promote increased [physical activity] intensity and healthier weight status among children. Areas of low [socioeconomic status] are perhaps the neighborhoods that need playgrounds the most due to the increased likelihood of those areas having a higher prevalence of youth who are overweight or obese.

These findings also suggest one simple strategy (among many needed) to address health disparities in low-income communities in any city: Make sure public parks seem like places a 7-year-old would actually want to spend the day.

Parks are complex spaces. Jane Jacobs discusses them in The Death and Life of Great American Cities and suggests they aren’t necessarily good – like other areas of a neighborhood, they require care and benefit from a mix of uses and people on surrounding streets. Parks can be planned for but also require physical and social maintenance.

I was reminded again of some of these different amenities in a recent visit to a community gym in a nearby community. It was a busy weekday evening with a variety of activities taking place: the large room with aerobic and weight equipment was packed, the gym with gymnastics had a small class in there, and then there was another larger gym space. It was an open night for basketball with two possible courts. However, one court was being used for about 10 ping-pong tables and the other for basketball. In other words, how much are park amenities, like basketball courts or hiking trails, tied to the race and class status of the neighborhood?

Naperville thinking of expanding its Riverwalk

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Naperville’s Riverwalk is often touted as a key feature of the community. Riverwalk officials are now interested in expanding it further south:

Chairman Jeff Havel said an extension would link Edward Hospital and Knoch Park to the downtown.

The idea came up last summer when McDonald’s was looking to open a restaurant at the southeast corner of Hillside Road and Washington Street near the Riverwalk’s current terminus. That plan fell through and the site is still occupied by a Citgo gas station. It is the only piece of land along the proposed extension the city does not currently own.

Havel said the Riverwalk Commission is always looking to complete gaps in the path’s boundaries, update its appearance and improve safety, accessibility and hospitality…

If the plan does move forward as Park District Commissioner Ron Ory hopes it does, he said he would like to see it happen through volunteer efforts and private funding.

I’d say go for it, particularly if the cost could be kept low in the spirit of the original Riverwalk that was first created with donated time and materials from people in the community. The Riverwalk is a unique feature of Naperville; while the DuPage River is not that grand as it winds through the community, it still provides something few suburbs have. For most of its history, the river was not accentuated in the community even though early Naperville featured a mill on the river. Buildings in the downtown that backed up to the river did little to provide an interface between the two places. But, with the first Riverwalk planning beginning in the 1970s and the first section opening on Labor Day in 1981, it has provided a public space and a park right in the middle of downtown.

Also, such a park can continue a process that has been taking in DuPage County over recent decades: using land along waterways as park land or Forest Preserve land. The DuPage County Forest Preserve has bought a lot of land around the branches of the DuPage River and Naperville can contribute to this project with a Riverwalk extension.

A third point: I wonder if this was lurking behind Naperville’s tough questions of the proposed McDonald’s on Washington Street. If the proposed site is the only site along the river the city does not own, this earlier decision makes more sense.

Redesigning the playground to free children and adults

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Here is an interesting example of architecture and design at work: putting together a playground in New York City that will free children and adults rather than burden them.

In Pamela Druckerman’s “Bringing Up Bébé,” the playground forms a fertile backdrop for her pop-sociological observations about child-rearing, French vs. American style. The upper-middle-class Manhattan moms (she can tell by the price of their handbags) follow their kids around the gated toddler playground narrating their activities. The French moms sit on the edge of the sandbox and chat with other adults. The Brooklyn dads follow their children down the slide. The French moms sit on a bench and chat with other adults. Her theory, a bestselling one, is that French parenting consists of more non, more équilibre, and thus more time for adults to be adults.

It never occurs to her that maybe it is the playgrounds that encourage parents to act this way. Most New York playgrounds are designed for the protection of children: padded surfaces, equipment labelled by age appropriateness, and a ban on unaccompanied adults. Frankly, it is hard to see why an adult without a child would want to enter. There’s often little seating, minimal shade, and no place to set down a coffee except in a stroller cup holder. As for those parents who don’t want to helicopter, the perimeter benches can be far from where children play, sight lines blocked by the bulky climbing structures. Standard New York playgrounds are made for a single activity—child’s play—not family socializing or even adult enjoyment.

The planners of New York City’s Governors Island, an ice-cream-cone-shaped piece of land a half mile from the end of Manhattan, see play somewhat differently, and are designing their first thirty acres of park and public space accordingly. “People spend several hours here” on the weekends, says Leslie Koch, president of the Trust for Governors Island. Free ferries from Manhattan and Brooklyn bring visitors in for extended afternoons. “You wander through the island, you have an idea or you may not, the kids run around. There aren’t precedents for that kind of place. It’s different than a beach or an urban park, or even a state park, where you go to barbecue.” She adds, “Early on we said we didn’t want to have playgrounds, but we didn’t say what that meant.”…

“If you create a park-like environment and people feel really free, adults hang out and participate like children do,” Geuze says. Contrast the concept for Liggett Terrace with the experience at Pier 6 at Brooklyn Bridge Park, an access point for the ferry to Governors Island. To date, Pier 6 consists of four landscaped, gated playgrounds, one with swings, one with water, one with sand, and one for climbing. There’s a separate beach-volleyball court, and a separate park building with food. If you aren’t pushing your kid on the swing, narrating every to and fro, the only place to sit is the springy rubber ground.

It would be interesting to hear more about how this new kind of park would change people’s behaviors. The article seems to suggest that certain park designs necessarily lead to certain behaviors; is this always the case? Does it require a critical mass of people

This reminds me of some arguments about parks from earlier days. Take Central Park in New York City as an example. Olmstead and Vaux designed the park to be more natural and take advantage of the natural topography and features. This was contrasted with more formal European parks which often had carefully cultivated gardens and water features. Central Park became beloved even as it is still fairly unusual in big cities as it can be difficult to find that much land and leave it relatively unencumbered.

 

NYC proposal for an underground park

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Parks are often considered places to find open sky and sunshine but a recent proposal from two architects for an underground park in New York City turns these ideas on their head:

The pair want to turn the rundown, graffiti-covered trolley terminal under Delancey Street into an underground park, reports CBS 2?s Don Dahler.

“It’s part historical rediscovery of an amazing space; it’s part science-fiction. And I think it’s part just sort of a green, magical community renewal,” Ramsey said…

The ambitious duo were inspired by the overwhelming success of the “High Line” project, an elevated old train line turned park. The proposed “low line” park would take up three blocks underneath the Lower East Side, and would feature actual trees and greenery, thanks to technology straight out of science fiction…

The proposed park, which would be free to the public, has gotten a positive response from the city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and although the developers aren’t sure yet how much it would cost, they’ve already started raising funds for their subterranean vision of the future.

Sounds pretty interesting to me, particularly in the plans for bringing natural light underground. Some people do have a fascination with being underground – see an earlier posts about a proposed underground skyscaper and an “underground temple” and the tunnels below Paris that have become a big tourist attraction.

If anything, New York City should move forward with this just to promote something that is sure to become a big attraction. The allusion to the “High Line” is telling: these architects want to take another abandoned part of the city and turn it into an attractive public space. I could imagine NYC becoming a unique hub for these sorts of spots, leading the world in redesigning brownfield sites into places not only for tourists but for city dwellers looking for an escape.

The only thing that could really derail this is the cost: who is going to pay for this?

Ten ways to bring about more open/park space to Chicago

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After a report last week that Chicago was lacking in open space compared to other major American cities, architecture critic Blair Kamin proposes ten ways that Chicago could help rectify the problem:

The open space shortage is pervasive, with 32 of 77 community areas, home to half of Chicago’s 2.7 million people, failing to meet the city’s own modest requirement of two acres of open space for every 1,000 residents. And the stakes associated with relieving it are huge. Parks can help the city’s neighborhoods attract and retain residents, promote public health, boost real estate values and draw together people from different walks of life…

Although Emanuel has thrown his support behind a grab bag of open space initiatives, such as boathouses on the Chicago River and a new park in an unused area of Rosehill Cemetery, he has yet to produce the visionary plan he promised in his transition report.

In the absence of such a vision, here are 10 ideas that show what architects and the architects of public policy can do to relieve Chicago’s chronic open space shortage.

There are some interesting ideas here and many sounds relatively simply to institute.

When I saw the earlier story, I had a thought: should people have a right to public space? In the suburbs, perhaps this doesn’t matter as much as the common American goal is to purchase your own land. But in the city, where the population density increases and residents expect to be outside of their dwelling, should people have a guaranteed amount of public space? Do people have a human right to parks, to open land?

This question also is pertinent in light of the Occupy Wall Street protestors in Zuccotti Park in New York City. This is a weird sort of public space: it is privately owned but the owners have an agreement with the city to operate it as public space. This sort of arrangement is spreading to other cities: San Francisco has a number “privately owned public spaces” (POPOS) that few residents or tourists would ever know are actually privately owned. This might be helpful in that cities don’t have to do all the maintenance for these spaces but what happens when the private owners don’t like what is taking place on supposedly public property?

Third place lesson from Borders and Starbucks locations in NYC: they still need to bring in money

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The story that Borders is closing many locations (see earlier posts here, here, and here) is related to news that some Starbucks locations in New York City are going to cover up their electrical outlets to discourage people from staying too long:

Well, now some Starbucks in New York City are reportedly pulling the plug on that idea, actually covering up their electrical outlets to discourage squatters.

“Customers are asking (for it). They just purchased a latte and a pastry and there is nowhere to sit down in some of these high-volume stores,” Starbucks spokesperson Alan Hilowitz said…

It is a move that has some Starbucks regulars saying … it’s about time.

Some, including Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, say these two businesses provide “third places” between home and work. Thus, if the companies do things that inhibit social behavior, such as close locations, the suggestion is that they weaken the social realm as people will then be more isolated. (See a recent example of this argument here.)

But these businesses are not just providing a public good and this is one lesson that joins these two stories: they need to make enough money to keep the third places open. At Starbucks, the people who sat too long and used the free Wi-Fi ended being a nuisance to customers who wanted to pay for coffee, sit down for a short while, and then leave. At Borders, the best way to make sure the locations would stay open was to purchase more. Sure, a book at Borders might cost more but the purchase helps subsidize the cafe and the social life that may come with it.

This leads to a bigger question: would Americans be willing to pay for third places with their consumer dollars? If given the choice between a cheaper book at Amazon.com or a book at the nearby Borders, which would most people choose?

This is also a reminder that these locations are not public spaces: they are privately owned and can set their own priorities and values for the space. There still are public spaces in the United States: public parks like Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia draw attention (in this book – though it also talks about shopping malls and markets, both privately owned). Instead of lamenting the loss of Borders or Starbucks, one could fight instead for taxpayer supported public spaces that should be open to all people.

Replicating New York’s High Line

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New York City’s High Line, a park created out of old elevated railroad structures, has proven quite popular with visitors and with urban commentators. But can it be replicated in other places?

This week the second section of New York’s iconic High Line park opened with almost as much fanfare as the first section got when it opened in June 2009 and drew 2 million visitors in its first 10 months.

What makes the High Line so unique as an urban park is that it rises 30 feet above the street on a 1930s elevated freight line that was slated for destruction after the last train ran on it in 1980. Only the action of neighborhood community groups, committed to preservation of what they regarded as a local landmark, saved the High Line.

High Line concepts are being considered for other cities across the country. And well they should. For the message the High Line sends is: Treat your urban ruins carefully. They may be more valuable than you think.

The difficulty with trying to apply the High Line concept to other cities, as the architectural historian Witold Rybczynski recently observed, is that few cities have New York’s density. The High Line could not, for example, work in an old, industrial area people avoid, or in a neighborhood in which it towered over one- and two-story homes.

The density argument is that this works because there is a large nearby population. Visitors from elsewhere, other neighborhoods of the city or suburbanites or tourists, can also come but the park is sustained by daily visits from nearby residents. Urban amenities from parks to museums to public spaces need a steady population of visitors just to survive, let alone thrive. Just because they are unique or interesting is not a guarantee that visitors will come.

But there is another angle to this as well. In the case of the High Line, we need to hear more about how the neighborhood and the city help make this possible: what is it about this particular social setting that creates an environment where this park can succeed? Witold Rybcynzski makes this argument:

The High Line may be a landscaping project, but a good part of its success is due to its architectural setting, which, like the 12th Arrondissement, is crowded with interesting old and new buildings. The park courses through the meatpacking district and Chelsea, heavily populated, high-energy residential neighborhoods. Very few American cities — and Manhattan is the densest urban area in the country — can offer the same combination of history and density.

Rybcynzski concludes by suggesting that this idea will end up becoming another “failed urban design strateg[y].”

So other cities could move in a couple of directions after this:

1. Try to build their own “High Line” anyway. Since this has gotten so much popular attention, someone is bound to try it. (Outside of Chicago, how many cities have existing elevated railroad structures?)

2. Look to develop their own unique repurposed structure(s). This would likely take different forms in different places but has the advantage of working with existing structures and the existing character of the community.

There must be other cities that have done something like this but how many of them are public spaces? I was thinking of several repurposed museum spaces, like the Tate Modern in London which was a former power station and the Museum of Science and Industry which dates back to the 1893 Columbian Exposition, but these require admission.

Thinking about the lack of outdoor basketball courts, Part 2

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Yesterday, I wrote about a discussion a friend and I had about what we perceive as a lack of decent outdoor basketball courts. Perhaps we aren’t the only ones who think this is an issue. Here are the thoughts of one writer in Burlington, North Carolina:

One thing I’ve noticed as an adult is that there are fewer outdoor courts than there used to be. There’s not a single one in my neighborhood, which does have a pool, tennis courts, fields, walking trails, a lake and a playground. Those portable goals you find along streets in the suburbs don’t count.

I don’t know if residential developers at some point came to see basketball courts as hotbeds for malfeasance, but I think it’s ridiculous that in the middle of one of the three-most basketball-crazed states in the Union I can’t walk to a basketball court from my house.

Here is another example from a writer in Lima, Ohio, though he seems to be referring also to basketball hoops in driveways:

Taking my game to Bradfield was not exactly breaking down a barrier, but it was a difficult step for a 15 year old looking for the best competition in the city. I sat on the sidelines for two days before one of the older players, Cleo Vaughn, picked me for his team. Vaughn, whose own athletic odyssey was stuff of dreams, took me under his wing and I owe much of my own emergence as a player to his guidance. Cleo began picking me up in his car and taking me to courts all over the city. Each one of these basketball courts was unique and presented its own challenges.

Whittier playground offered great full-court games with a colorful and vocal crowd of onlookers but if you lost, you were forced to wait for hours because there were so many young players waiting their turn. The most physical games could be found at Mizpah Mission in the deep south end. There was only a single basket there at the time, but those three-on-three games were the most intense in the city. You could always find a great game at Northside playground but the courts were so long it felt like you had run a marathon when the game ended. And there were many other great outdoor venues, all unique in their own design and makeup.

But my favorite courts remained the outdoor courts at Bradfield Center and the most memorable times were the nights that the flame from the Standard Oil Refinery was turned up full blast and the light it shed was powerful enough to allow us to play late into the evenings and avoid the heat of midday.

Both of these stories talk about particular places and are also tinged with nostalgia. These columnists have good memories of playing on outdoor courts and now see fewer young adults playing on outside courts. The first writer suggests developers may not be interested in building courts while the second suggests kids grow up playing indoors in organized sports rather than free-wheeling games in driveways or neighborhood parks.

Of course, this is anecdotal evidence and these two columnists disagree about the cause of this.

The problem may not just be limited to the United States: here is an online petition signed by 554 people asking for at least one nice outdoor basketball court in all Australian cities:

Kids around Australia, as well as teenagers and young adults, always email us (MSF) and tell us that the new highschool court in their area is closed after school hours… so what’s the point of having a facility when the local youth can’t use it to it’s full potential? Where’s the night lights? Where’s the support for the people who want to play sports instead of hanging out with friends at nightclubs or at home playing video games? not just at night though, we’re talking about during the day also. The youth do not have enough positive recreational facilities to unite at. And if there are a few, the basketball courts are usually ALWAYS the cheapest and worst quality that end up steering kids away. Fact.

Our proposition; on behalf of millions of other Australians; build ONE Superior outdoor basketball court in each Australian City… central to all suburbs. Close to transport. Secure and Safe. Night lights. Open 24 hours. The highest standard of ring systems and surface. And then you will all see; the Domino Effect. These superior outdoor courts will become populated with positivity and energy; believe it. And once it succeeds in one community, other communities and councils will follow in these footsteps.

It is interesting that this petition tries to flip Reason #1 for fewer basketball courts (they create more problems with the people they attract) on its head by suggesting these courts are actually helpful in combating other social problems. If kids play on outdoor courts, they are not just sitting around playing video games and they are not getting into more active trouble elsewhere. If this argument is correct, could this then a NIMBY issue where immediate neighbors don’t want the basketball courts even though the courts would benefit society as a whole? If this is what happens, the neighbors win out, courts can’t be built near where people actually live, and fewer communities decide to build outdoor courts overall. Parks themselves, basketball courts or not, can become NIMBY sites as their public space threatens nearby public space.

(At least New York City claims to have plenty of outdoor courts: “There are hundreds of outdoor courts in New York City. In the basketball capital of the world, it’s possible to find a game within walking distance of any location. Recreation Centers in all five boroughs have indoor courts as well.”)

Thinking about the lack of outdoor basketball courts, Part 1

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While playing basketball during good weather on a popular outdoor court, a friend and I discussed what we perceive to be an issue: a lack of well-built outdoor basketball courts. To be well-built, we don’t ask for much: decent basketball poles and backboards, a decent court surface, and somewhat close to a regulation court size (and I have seen a number of courts that don’t meet one or more of these conditions). While I don’t have hard evidence that there is a lack of basketball courts (outside of personal experience living within a rather populated suburban area), here are some reasons why there may not be very many:

1. Basketball courts attract a certain kind of crowd: young men who can be loud and who might loiter around waiting for a game. This could be problematic for nearby suburban neighbors.

2. Basketball courts could be a liability risk for communities. People can run into poles, hang on the rim, suffer injuries on the concrete, etc. (I suspect this could be a problem for all sorts of outdoor equipment but I’m sure communities are prepared for this.)

3. Basketball courts could be expensive to maintain. The surface has to be pretty good because cracks aren’t great for dribbling. Nice nets would be helpful but these have to be replaced. (I can’t see how this would be that more expensive than maintaining a tennis court, however.)

4. Basketball courts are safer to monitor and maintain inside or in the driveway. Kids can be watched more closely. Indoors, the courts don’t get wet and players can’t loiter or throw litter in the sight of local residents in the same way. (Indoor courts can often require money, particularly if attached to a health club or park district. While these courts are often nicer, there is still something about playing outside – as long as the temperature is reasonable.)

5. There may not be much public outcry for basketball courts. The National Association of Sporting Goods has some numbers about basketball participation in 2010: 26.9 million Americans played more than once and this is 13th on the list of activities (though this includes non-exercise activities such as camping and fishing). According to 2008 figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, of the “16% of persons who engaged in any sports or exercise activity on an average day,” 5.1% played basketball. And in a later chart looking at the same 16%, more 15-24 year-old people engaged in basketball than any other activity.

My friend was firmly for reason #1. Perhaps the closest equivalent I can think of are skate parks. Proposals for these recreational sites often draw interesting public reactions because of the crowd they attract.

Several pieces of data could shed light on whether this hypothesis is correct:

1. It would be interesting to see where basketball courts are typically built. Poorer or richer neighborhoods? Near homes or elsewhere?

2. How does the number of outdoor basketball courts compare to the number of outdoor tennis courts?

3. Who exactly pushes for basketball courts? Are outdoor basketball courts typically included in proposals for parks from developers or municipalities? Do residents have to make a suggestion?

I don’t know if any of this data exists. In Part 2 tomorrow, I will look at a few recent commentators that make their own argument about why there are not many outdoor basketball courts.

County forest preserves benefit from economic downturn as they purchase cheaper land

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The reduction in land values has not been bad for everyone: the Chicago Tribune reports that Chicago area forest preserves have bought up more land than anticipated in the past few years. Among the findings:

Flush with $185 million from a 2008 bond sale, the [Lake County] district went on a buying spree, gobbling up some 3,400 acres of land. The second-largest forest preserve system in the state at 29,300 acres, the 53-year old district has grown by nearly 12 percent since the onset of the recession.

“We spent down the money quicker than we had anticipated, mainly because there were so many good buying opportunities for us in 2009 and 2010, especially,” Hahn said…

Founded in 1971, the McHenry County Conservation District has essentially doubled over the last decade to just less than 25,000 acres…

Though the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County’s biggest growth spurt was in the 1970s, the 25,000-acre district managed to add some 2,400 acres over the last decade…

Racing the clock against development in one of the fastest-growing counties in the country, the Forest Preserve District of Will County has added about 8,300 acres since 1999, increasing its holdings by about two-thirds to nearly 21,000 acres…

The timing has been more fortuitous in Kane County, where the Forest Preserve District has added nearly 12,000 acres since 1999, increasing its holdings by 170 percent.

The only county forest preserve that didn’t add a significant amount of land was Cook County which likely has little available land. There hasn’t been too much news about these acquisitions in the Chicago area, even as these land purchases have been funded by bond sales approved by the public.

Overall, this has presented these districts with an opportunity to purchase land they might not have been able to purchase in better times. Particularly in some of the booming counties, such as Will or McHenry, this opportunity may have been the last one before suburban growth took up too much land.

This does lead to another question: how much land should Forest Preserves aim to have? I know there are recommendations about how much parkland or open space there should be for a set amount of people. Is most of this newly acquired land going to be open space/natural settings or more developed parks and recreation areas? Would there be a point where the Forest Preserves will stop purchasing or will they keep acquiring land forever?