Go Play Outside

Fiona Reynolds, writing for The Guardian, on getting kids outside:

No one organisation, or even one sector, can alone reconnect children with nature. Education policy, urban design, health provision, insurance provision, retailers, naturalists and more all have their part to play, working together. We need the right public policies, but no less important is the creativity and resources of the private sector. A shared commitment to solving a shared problem.

One of the paradoxes of compact settlement patterns is that access to truly wild nature (or artificially wild like large scale parks) can actually improve over suburban sprawl. Suburbia privatizes natural space so that each residence has its tiny slice of nature that is often nearly identical to the neighbor’s yard. Because everyone already has a yard, parks aren’t seen as necessary - at least to the same degree as in more compact patterns. This means that natural variety is almost nonexistent and kids have a very limited scope of exploration.

In traditional development patterns there is a greater emphasis on good public open space. There is opportunity for large parks that incorporate lots of variety and curated nature as well as regularly spaced and readily accessible smaller parks, playgrounds, and athletic facilities. Combined these create a rich network of nature in various forms that is accessible to all. In addition, compact settlement patterns concentrate population on a smaller footprint which results in more true nature preserved and better proximity to nature for a lot of people.