I grew up in Battle Creek (Lakeview), Michigan. It was a smaller sized city. The cool thing was where ever you lived you were no more than a walk or bike ride away from a playground. Every elementary school had huge land for their playgrounds. These school were our city parks. They had the greatest playground equipment: swings, giant metal slides, monkey bars, that octogonal climbing thung that looks like Epoct Center, merry-go-rounds, springy ride on animals, tire swing, and lots of open land for soccor or football.
That was back when people didn't sue schools and parks for their kids getting hurt. Parents then knew that getting hurt was a right of passage. Now days most school have hardly any playground to speak of (no time for play when testing is on the way). Mostly they have one of those all-in-one sets so the kids are crammed among each other insted of the spread out eqipment. Plus they are made of plastic so most of the stuff is easily broken. There isn't lots of empty land for running or playing because that would cost too much to fence in. That is one of my biggest complaints, schools are no longer the neighborhood's park. The school play grounds are fenced in like, locked up. It is this private institution that is only open from 7-4. My tax dollars are going to build that little crappy playground the least they could do if make it available to me at all times.
I don't know about my home town anymore, but in my current town, this is the case. Besides the school playgrounds that are off limits, we have only 3 playgrounds in the entire city. The best one is at the state park, which isn't really convient for anyone. Plus it costs to get in and in Florida that isn't cheep ($4 a car or $1 a bike). One is downtown, in a nice park setting...perfect...if you live downtown (that is a ten minute drive for me). The closet one for me is also on the lake, however the up keep of this one is horrible. Just the other day we tried going there but I don't think they have mowed the grass in a month and there wre fire ants all around the toddler playset. Plus, it is so close to the lake the bugs are awful.
That is it, those are my options. I know I am not the only person around here faced with this delemma. I recently heard about an organization that help everyday people organize and fund playgrounds in their communities. Kaboom!, suplies you with all the information you get the project off the ground. They believe that every child should have a playground in safe walking distance from their house. I want so desprately to do this but with my job I just don't have the energy or drive to take it on. Maybe someday when I quit my life-sucking job I will go on my playground crusade.
In the mean time, if you have the same playground problems as I do in your community, check out this site and rally your own neighborhood playground.
www.kaboom.org
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