What makes a good playground
One of the things that I like best about blogging is the ability to pull together different conversation strands.
Via Jackie’s blog, I ran across Yes! Magazine, and this article about the characteristics of great public spaces. I was still mulling that over when I ran across Toronto Mama’s post about empty suburban playgrounds. So I’ve been thinking about what makes some playgrounds successful.
Obviously, geography writ large is an important factor. Manhattan playgrounds are always busy, even when it’s bitterly cold out, because apartment dwellers are desperate to let their kids burn off some energy. Playgrounds in neighborhoods with mostly working parents are likely to be empty during the workweek. But there are also lots of other factors at play.
We live about 2 blocks from the playground of our local elementary school, so we go there fairly often. We’re often the only ones there, and there are rarely more than a handful of kids, except on Saturday mornings when the soccer league is using the adjacent field. Why isn’t it more popular? It’s not available during school days, for one thing, and doesn’t have any swings. I also think a lot of parents of toddlers and preschoolers are scared off by the middle-school aged kids who sometimes hang out there. There’s also a critical mass problem — because it’s lightly used, we often go to other more distant playgrounds because the chances are better of finding kids to play with.
The Yes! article says that public spaces are best when they’re visible and accessible. I’m not sure that’s always true — the playground in the area that’s most popular with parents of toddlers is set back from the street. Parents like it because it’s fully enclosed, so kids can’t wander off easily, and shaded. And it’s just a few blocks from the all-important Starbucks.
On the other hand, we’re not the only ones who bring our kids in the evenings to play on the "stage" in the plaza in front of City Hall. Yes! would approve of the plaza, which usually has a mixture of tourists, couples, parents and kids, homeless people, dogwalkers, skater-punk teens, and people who have business to do at City Hall. The stage is just a raised platform, with a ramp on one side and steps on the other, but my kids will run around on it for hours.
June 14th, 2005 at 1:53 am
Before my first child was born, I took an urban planning class just for fun. What I learned (or what I remember) was a little different. Successful public places need to be 100% accessible — by car, bus, tram, bike, foot, etc. — and they need to be human sized. They can cover a lot of space (vertical or horizontal) but if so they need nooks and crannies. People are intimidated by too much open space; we like to have our backs against a wall.
The parks in my small town (Bend, OR) are well-used — to different degrees, of course; but they are all used. Bend is an outdoor town, it’s a draw for people who like to hike, bike, ski, etc, and I wonder if that’s a factor in their success.
June 14th, 2005 at 3:58 am
I think a bit about this as well, as my husband is on our local council, elected on a child-friendly platform.
The answer is quite different for older and younger kids, I think. Our local area is great for the under 5s, but not so good for the school-agers, who need a bit more risk and space for their play.
We had an idyllic afternoon at our local playground on the weekend. It’s fenced, but includes a big grassy area enclosed by a hill (so ball kicking and climbing up and down hills could be done, including the 6 year olds). It’s got an imaginative play area with a pretend shop and gas station, which everyone loves. And it’s in a catchment with quite a few apartments, which gives it enough critical mass that there is nearly always someone there if you go. It’s got some shade and some sunshine, so works on most days of the year. Only downside is no coffee nearby.
Bit of a ramble, I’m afraid, but an interesting question.
(another) Jennifer
June 14th, 2005 at 7:13 am
In Arlington, the Parks and Rec people seem to have some kind of allergy to fencing kid parks. A fenced park is great – I can station myself at the bench by the gate and toddlers can explore without my having to be on them all the time. Open, they can wander off, and do. One thing they do get right is to have two big play structures, one for 4-10 yo kids, with greater heights, monkey bars, etc, and the other for toddlers, with less challenging slides.
June 14th, 2005 at 9:59 am
The Fairfax County parks folks are also good about having multiple play structures for different age groups. Additionally, we’re excited that this weekend marks the start of the free Arts in the Park shows. It’s free shows for children on Saturdays at 10am at selected parks. They’re great half hour shows with puppets, music, or variety acts, all geared towards kids. We took our daughter last summer when she was about 9 months-1 year and she loved it. There’s always a guarantee that we’ll find lots of other kids to play with on the playground afterwards.
June 14th, 2005 at 6:27 pm
glad you liked the link!
i think about this too, because there’s a new playground near our house that is very nice and interesting, etc– but there’s no open space, it’s not that accessible, and i too get scared off by older kids playing tag on the larger structures and not looking out for the younger kids.
there’s another open space around the corner, and it gets much more use– there’s more green space, so older kids play with balls, etc, and there’s only swings and two are for toddlers, so the ages stay safe from each other. Also, it’s very accessible.
June 15th, 2005 at 7:32 am
Just a quick comment on fencing playgrounds.
It’s ideological (believe it or not). At least here in Australia, councils think that fencing playgrounds is a bad thing, because if you do it, then parents will not play with their kids, they’ll sit and read the paper, or gossip with other parents, or some other bad bad thing.
Never mind that parents with more than one child might be glad of a little artificial help to keep them enclosed. No, we want to make the playground deliberately unsafe to make sure that parents pay proper attention to their children.