This is part 3/6 in a series overviewing The Normal Requirements of American Towns and Cities in Respect to Public Open Spaces, an article written by Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. and John Nolen that appeared in Charities and the Commons journal of social work in 1906.

III. PLAYGROUNDS

In Olmsted and Nolen’s third category of open space they stress the importance of playgrounds as part of the open space network and describe how different types of playgrounds are required to serve different age groups of users.

Small children

An Oklahoma City “tot-lot” operated by the Parks and Recreation Department in The Greens neighborhood

Whether in connection with school grounds or elsewhere, there should be in each neighborhood, a space not open to the hurly burly of the larger children. where mothers may take little tots, mostly under the school age, to get quiet, out-of-door pleasure and exercise.

Experts recommend that these small playgrounds – or “tot-lots” as they are commonly called – should be available within 800 feet of every home.  In Oklahoma City a number of tot-lots of this size are incorporated into the development of subdivisions and also you will find plenty of back yards with enough area and play equipment to qualify as a suitable tot-lot.  Still, in order to meet this guideline, the city would need thousands of new tot-lots spread through the city’s neighborhoods.


School-aged children

But perhaps the most important playgrounds are for the children of the school age and these can best be arranged and used in connection with the schools.

The purpose…is to give opportunity for exercise and active play near the children’s homes and preferably next to the school, so that it can be used during the recesses as well as after hours.

This seems to be the most typical way in which we think of playgrounds.  The equipment has advanced some over the years, going from a swingset and monkey bars to more elaborate play systems. Of Oklahoma City’s 114 public parks, listed on the Parks and Recreation Department’s website, 97 or approximately 85% have play equipment for school-aged children.   In Oklahoma City they are usually part of the programming offered at a larger neighborhood park, and as mentioned in the article can be found in on the site of a local school.  Unfortunately, newer schools tend to be on larger sites and less accessible to neighbor kids – this is just wasteful and unnecessary development.


Youths and young adults

Grounds of this class should include ball fields, running tracks, places for jumping, vaulting, throwing the hammer and quoits, bowling and the like, and convenient accommodations for bathing and dressing.

Unfortunately many of these sports require considerable area in proportion to the numbers engaged in them and for these the grounds must generally be at a greater distance from the people’s homes than is reasonable for the other playgrounds.

Obviously, the sports have changed some. I don’t many people throwing quoits these days (but I love washers and would like to see some places to play). Ballfields can be found throughout the city, though the majority are baseball fields which are often nothing more than a backstop.  There seems to be a real shortage of public soccer fields – only 15 OKC parks have soccer fields according to the OKC Parks Dept.

And I know that it is really hard to find a public park with a good pick-up basketball game; at least in the north inner-city area.  A couple of years ago I searched in vain for a free place to play, finding that all the public gyms were reserved for youth (which is great for them, but didn’t help me) and that there weren’t many good outdoor courts with lights to be found.  Eventually I ended up spending some money to join the OU Health Sciences Center gym which has great pickup games, but was pretty pricey if you are only using it for basketball.  I have to add, growing up around 50th and Portland I played year after year in a league at the Satellite gym founded by the late Carroll Cornett – Mayor Cornett’s father.  I have many fond memories of playing basketball there and really hope we can make sure kids in every part of the city have a place to be active through the winter.  So my thanks to Mr. Cornett for making this a part of my childhood.

Again, the trends seems to make these facilities more and more segregated from other uses in the city with large specialized facilities.  For instance, instead of creating a plan that would distribute baseball and softball facilities throughout the city – providing a local place to play that is quickly accessible – we have allowed them to be clustered into large facilities like Dolese, Boomtown, Wheeler Park, etc, which almost always require a car to access.

There are some positive trends as well, like the development of parks that support untraditional, yet popular sports – like the Matt Hoffman Skate Park (pictured above). Or the addition of frisbee golf courses within a few existing parks.  Also, the Parks Department has begun adding spray parks and aquatic centers to provide great fun during the hot summers.


Conclusions

On the whole I think this is one category of open space in which Oklahoma City is doing a pretty good job.  Like many other cities that struggle with sprawl, we could do a better job of distributing resources and developing in a manner that allows for facilities to be shared.  School campuses should definitely be more integrated into our playground planning efforts.