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Good Places
A closer look at the four cornerstones of a good place: uses & activities, access & linkage, comfort & image - and perhaps most important - sociability. From Park Talk, the newsletter of the Urban Parks Institute.
Recently there is increasing talk about the importance of rediscovering a sense of community that we somehow lost when we gave up
time-honored habits and stopped frequenting the
vital meeting places, the "good
places," in our neighborhoods. From downtown
management organizations to city commissions to
transportation agencies, people are discovering
that unique places once integral to people's
everyday lives are slowly but surely
disappearing. Parks are no exception. Through our
research at the Urban Parks Institute, we
are learning that many parks no longer function
as important places that capture the hearts of
local residents.
It was not always like this. Both
landscape historian J.B. Jackson and
architect/writer Galen Cranz write about the
history and changing role of parks in people's
everyday lives. They describe a time when city
residents, on their days off, left their
"noisy, dirty day-to-day world in search of
nature, "but it was nature both connected to
a recreational destination and with social
activities. For example in Europe, many
city-dwellers headed out for country walks on
their day off to the 'volksgarten' (literally,
"people's garden") which was a path
lined with boisterous entertainment, including
merry-go-rounds, dance music, and refreshment
booths, leading to a larger recreational
destination at the end. Artists of that period,
like Impressionist painter Georges Seurat, showed
people swimming while others walked along the
promenade on the Grand Jatte, an island outside
Paris -- illustrating the popular intermingling
of social activity with recreation.
In the United
States, the promenades of seaside resorts and
beaches such as Coney Island in Brooklyn, New
York and Hoboken, New Jersey were lined with
popular attractions such as food sellers,
shooting matches, and horseshoe pitching. This
focus on social and recreational activities and
amusement in parks was supplanted by the great
picturesque parks designed by Frederick Law
Olmsted and others that still frame what people
think of as parks. According to Cranz, park
officials discouraged loud activities in favor of
leisurely strolls and appreciation of the
beauties of nature in order to elevate people of
'lower classes' to imitate the behavior of their
fellow 'middle class' park users.
Unfortunately, many of these same
parks -- and their descendants -- are not well
used today. In addition to the obvious lack of
maintenance and funding, parks often lack the
right combination of physical amenities and
activities that make the park a magnet and an
important place within a particular community. In
his book A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time, J.B.
Jackson describes the loss of community in
America and its impact on parks. As people spend
more and more time at work, at indoor health
spas, and at malls, he writes, they also share
less time and fewer activities with their fellow
residents and neighbors -- resulting in the loss
of a sense of community. With more people seeking
recreational activities in malls and sports
arenas -- self-contained structures, largely
privately owned with ties only to their
neighboring parking lots -- parks have been left
behind.
How can today's parks once again
become important places in communities? Can -- or
should -- the vitality of parks of the past be
revived? We know that parks can provide serenity,
calm vistas and an experience of nature, but
shouldn't they also provide places for social
activities? New York's Central Park and San
Francisco's Golden Gate Park, both examples of
the 19th century picturesque park, have evolved
into very actively used parks and continue to
attract people today. Last year alone, these two
parks hosted roughly 30 million visitors who
participated in a variety of activities ranging
from jogging on trails, to bird-watching, to
eating lunch and having a cup of coffee, to just
doing nothing. Parks such as these have by no
means stopped offering opportunities to
contemplate natural beauty, but passive uses are
balanced with areas that buzz with social
activity.
To help other communities have
similar successes attracting people, Project for
Public Spaces has researched what attributes most
social places share. We found that a good place
provides a range of things to do ("uses and
activities"); is easy to get to and
connected to the surrounding community
("access"); is safe, clean, and
attractive ("comfort and image"); and,
perhaps, most important, is a place to meet other
people ("sociability"). This model also
provides a useful framework both for describing
existing research and writing and for evaluating
parks as places.
Activities and Uses
What types of activities make parks community
magnets? When a park provides a place for people
to ice skate and also an area nearby where people
can sit and talk, get warm and get something to
eat or drink, its chances of becoming a good
place are increased, simply because there are
numerous things to do, attracting many different
people. A good place should be regularly
available so that people can rely on it when the
chatting whim strikes. The Great Good Place by
Ray Oldenburg identifies neighborhood spots that
act as the glue of their communities, drawing
people to them for companionship and relaxation.
Examples might be a neighborhood bocce court in a
park, a corner bar, a coffeehouse or a playground
-- all are places characterized by popular
informality. Their users can anticipate lively
conversations with the 'regulars,' 'characters,'
and other neighbors. According to Oldenburg, in
good places every person is known for their
social self, not as an employee or family member
-- roles, he says, that can make people feel like
they are in straightjackets from which they long
to escape. A good place also encourages people to
'sit and set a spell.' Being able to sit,
converse or just look at passersby is key.
Comfort and Image
Good details can tantalize -- they signal that
someone took the time and energy to design
amenities that welcome, intrigue, or help. City
Comforts: How to Build an Urban Village by
planner/developer David Sucher and People Places:
Design Guidelines for Urban Open Spaces, edited
by Clare Cooper Marcus and Carolyn Francis, are
packed with thoughtful design ideas including
community bulletin boards, restrooms, shade
trees, child-friendly niches and bike racks.
Author and urbanologist William Whyte talks about
the importance of movable seating in his book,
City: Rediscovering the Center. Today two
thousand movable chairs are scattered on the lawn
of Bryant Park in New York, transforming the park
from a drug infested public space to a popular
mid-town haven.
Access and Linkage
A good place is easy to see and easy to get to --
people want to see that there is something to do,
that others have been successfully enticed to
enter. On the other hand, if a park is not
visible from the street or the street is too
dangerous for older people and children to cross,
the park won't be used. The more successful a
place is, the more the success will feed upon
itself. Sometimes, if a place is really good,
people will walk through it even if they were
headed somewhere else. Tony Hiss' book, The
Experience of Place explores how people look
ahead to orient themselves: "We let the
layout of a place give us an advance reading on
such things as whether we can linger there or
need to keep on moving" -- if your visual
signals are blocked you won't proceed.
Sociability
A sociable place is one where people want to go
to observe the passing scene, meet friends, and
celebrate interaction with a wide range of people
that are different from themselves. Have you ever
noticed how many enjoyable conversations you can
have at a farmers' market or a flea market?
Psychologist Robert Sommer's research says that
people tend to have four and a half times more
sociable talks with people in a market versus a
supermarket. How can the builders and managers of
today's parks learn more from other places such
as markets about where and how social activity
occurs?
In Conclusion
A good place is refreshing and rejuvenating;
after you leave it, you feel better for having
been there. Sometimes you can't miss a good place
when you stumble upon it - for it has great
beauty to beguile and recharge you; or you don't
miss it because it possesses the siren call of
thoughtful design touches that say someone wanted
you to feel welcome there. At other times, a good
place works well not because of an aesthetic
appeal but because it is neighborly - it draws
people in and enables them to relax
companionably. It might not look like much, but
it knits its residents together as they wile away
time together and it is seen as the place to be!
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