THE PLANK AUGUST 7, 2009
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Matt Yglesias makes it:
It seems to me that human beings have some kind of psychological tick that leads them to overestimate the amount of time they’re going to want to spend engaged in outdoor recreating. It’s one thing if you live in California, where the weather’s nice all of the time, but here in the Northeast how much use do we really get out of parks? People don’t go to the park at night, or during the winter, or when it’s raining. Compare that to, say, an apartment building with some retail on the ground floor. People go to stores all the time. Obviously, that’s not to say that an ideal city would have zero parkland—parks are nice. But it’s not clear to me that we’re suffering from a park shortage. And in environmental terms, it’s much better for the planet to construct additional housing units in already-urbanized areas than to pack a bit more green space in the city and have more people living in sprawling exurbs.
I have a hunch his thinking might change if/when he has a kid.
--Jason Zengerle
14 comments
When did the over-proliferation of parkland become an issue confronting America? Trust me, nobody's moving to the exurbs because cities have run out of hapitable space - they move there because they specifically don't want to live in a densely populated space. Making the area they're already rejecting less pretty and more dense isn't going to have exurbanites flocking back in droves.
- adaglas
August 7, 2009 at 9:34am
A kid? Hell, what about a dog?
- benjamin81
August 7, 2009 at 10:11am
Yes, we need more housing capacity. There just haven't been enough new condos built lately...
- jamie322
August 7, 2009 at 10:47am
I am on vacation and nearly every day I am taking my kids to parks or playgrounds, I sure as hell can not afford to take them to Six flags or Dorney every day, and they certainly don't want to walk around in Malls (unless there is a chuckie cheese there). And I have to say there are a great many nice parks even in a close proximity of where I am staying. I took them to a zoo and animal reserve at the lehigh valley zoo, to Jacobsburg park, which has miles of trails and an old ironworks and gun works colonial village tucked away inside it. to Hugh Moore park which has a canal ride on the Lehigh Canal, the Louise Moore Park is great for kite flying and has playgrounds and nature walks with labelled trees from all over. Yglesias obviously doesn't have kids (or is one hell of a lousy father) but even without them before I got married I spent at least one weekend day a month year round on hiking in the North east. (yes, even in the winter, it was invigorating, stark, and beautiful) I lived in northern NJ and there are a ton of parks and trails. Yglesias seems to think because he doesn't do it no one does,
- blackton
August 7, 2009 at 11:06am
This was a great response on that thread:
# Petey Says:
August 7th, 2009 at 8:37 am
“Part of the issue I that I think there’s not enough “in it” for the local community to allow development as opposed to park creation.”
How true!
Between local officials lining their pockets with donations from Big Park and all the political activism from trees and blades of grass, it’s a wonder that cities have any concrete in them at all.
—–
Did Matthew have some horrible experience in Washington Square as a child?
This has got to be one of his weirdest posts of all time.
- blackton
August 7, 2009 at 11:12am
The fact that over half of Americans are overweight and that 25 percent are obese is a primary reason why parks should be utilized more. Not that they will be, though. I commend to readers the excellent Becker-Posner blog, co-written by the Nobel Prize-winning economist Gary Becker and the federal appellate court judge, Richard Posner. Their latest blog entries are on the increasing paunchiness of Americans, on the reasons for this trend, on the medical costs, and on what might be dine about it.
- liberal reformer
August 7, 2009 at 11:16am
Matt lives in my neighborhood so this feels a bit personal. I have a kid and I play sports outdoors. We use our local parks quite a bit. So do the nearby charter schools who do not have enough facilities funding to build their own green spaces for children to play in. There is a tempting thing I want to say about Matt's physique and the benefits of these open spaces but I'll go with Jason's answer. Wait til you have kids, Mr. Y.
PS Parks in DC get use all year round.
- stgla
August 7, 2009 at 11:19am
Ygelsias muddies the issue by stating it as whether "we're suffering from a park shortage" or not. Who's "we"? There is wide variety among US cities when it comes to parkland per capita or per total land area. The Urban Land Institute and the Trust for Public Land did athorough study of this issue in 2000 - well worth ordering for anyone interested in city parks.
For instance, my city, Atlanta, ranked very low in both parkland per capita and as a % of city area. The good news since then from my perspective is that our current mayor made new parkland acquisition a priority; the Beltline project (if you're curious, see beltline.org) is one of the most exciting initiatives of this nature in the country. (I'm lucky - I live in one of the few parts of the city with wonderful old parks, including the city's jewel, Piedmont Park. And yes, we have kids & dogs and enjoy these parks often.)
But the notion that we face a zero-sum choice between either building more urban housing units or more city parks is laughable. Perhaps Manhattan and San Francisco face such choices, but most US cities, Atlanta included, have large swaths of underused or abandoned land intown. There are warehouse districts which almost or entirely empty, there are entire city blocks used as surface parking lots, there are "brownfields", etc. In most US cities, there are plenty of opportunities to fill in such eyesores with parks and medium-density housing. (There are several recent examples of such in Atlanta - myfavorite is Glenwood Park.)
The larger problem with Yglesias's argument is that he really doesn't appear to get the various roles of city parks in enhancing urban life. Read Olmstead. The ULI book mentioned above is a good source as well. And then, just go for a walk in any good park, and observe.
- baxterjones
August 7, 2009 at 12:50pm
"Big Park"...<snicker>
- cspencef
August 7, 2009 at 1:16pm
I disagree with human impersonator Matt Yglesias on this one. I have neither child nor dog nor dog-child, but I loves my parks. Near my apartment, we've got a large park with a free zoo in it, so that when I get a hankering to see a mob of meerkats or a giraffe family -- I call them the Robinsons -- I can just hop on over to the park to say hi. Then, I can stop by the conservatory -- also in the park -- to check out the palms and orchids. I might enjoy a good book in the formal gardens, lorded over by a statue of Friedrich Schiller, or instead might take a stroll around the Goethe monument. I mean, has Yglesias even considered where to put statues of German poets? Some street corner next to a dry cleaners? I don't think so. Then you've got your Caldwell lily pool, which transports you to a prairie stream far away and long ago, as well as your ponds and trees and general soul-refreshing paradise. I agree with baxter. Yglesias should visit a park and take better note of how actual people behave before betraying his true origin with so absurd a post!
- jhildner
August 7, 2009 at 1:24pm
Ii just re-read Matt's post and he's talking about repurposing DC public schools buildings that are going unfilled due to declining enrollments. Well stop right there. THe need for these school buildings never went away, they just moved to the charter school sector. The buildings should be handed over to charters. The playgrounds can stay where they are, but no need to demolish buildings.
- stgla
August 7, 2009 at 1:32pm
Their latest blog entries are on the increasing paunchiness of Americans, on the reasons for this trend, on the medical costs, and on what might be dine about it.
I ask you, ladies and gentlemen, "dine about it."
- henson1d
August 7, 2009 at 5:55pm
I just noticed that I wrote "dine about it", before seeing a poster who caught my error. I proofread my post but obviously not well enough. Mea maxima culpa. My wife Sheena said I made a Freudian slip, a thought I had just before I mentioned my error to her.
- liberal reformer
August 7, 2009 at 6:05pm
Matt Yglesias responds to my observation that his visceral hatred of parks might lessen if/when he has
- Anonymous
August 10, 2009 at 9:58am