From the lobbies of fast-food restaurants to the backyards of day-care centers, the past decade has witnessed a national boom in playground construction.
But how good are these modern playgrounds? Experts fear the answer may be, not very, and they fret that the value of play in a public park or playground is being badly undervalued by parents. "It's an awful situation," says Philip C. Myrick, manager of the Project for Public Spaces, a New York-based nonprofit that studies urban parks. "And most people aren't even aware of the possibilities that exist."
Myrick and others complain that playgrounds have become unimaginative and boring. They believe there are too few playgrounds generally, and far too few good ones, particularly in the nation's urban centers.
Fears about safety, liability and rising costs caused many jurisdictions to close playgrounds in the '80s and '90s. And even those municipalities that have replaced old playgrounds have sometimes been too zealous in their pursuit of safety, critics claim. "Kids aren't being challenged by new playgrounds because the challenge has been taken out," says Kevin Owens, chief designer for Playworld Systems, a Lewisburg, Pa., play equipment manufacturer. "There are a lot of things battling against making playgrounds fun."
Safe but boring
Playground safety standards are set by the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission and the American Society for Testing and Materials. While those national standards are voluntary (although a handful of states have actually mandated them, including California and Texas), most manufacturers adhere to them closely.
No one objects to safer playgrounds, of course, but when manufacturers merely make swings shorter, slides less steep and elevations lower, they make playgrounds less fun. And they don't necessarily make their playgrounds safer if children react to boring activities by using a playground improperly -- say, jumping off a 10-foot roof rather than a 2-foot platform.
"We could do a much better job in design," says Susan D. Hudson of the National Program for Playground Safety, a University of Northern Iowa-based nonprofit that serves as a national clearinghouse for playground safety information. "Certainly you can design a safe playground that doesn't have high play value. That happens."
The rise of organized sports has put playgrounds at a disadvantage, too. Parents are more inclined to lobby local government for ball fields than playgrounds, and it can strain recreation department budgets to accommodate both.
