“Parks are dangerous and the sidewalk is closer”: Children's use of neighborhood space in Milwaukee, Wisconsin
In park-poor urban areas, abundant vacant lots and alleyways can be replanned to enhance outdoor play for children
Platt investigates how children use formal and informal outdoor spaces in their neighborhoods for play. Other researchers have found that adults’ fears about the safety of outdoor play severely restricts the range of children, especially in less affluent neighborhoods where the few parks there are the loci of high crime rates. Children themselves, in addition to the threat of crime, may also see these places as dominated by older teenagers or adults who might give them trouble. On the other hand, vacant lots are often abundant in the same neighborhoods, but they are frequently fenced off, and, from a planning perspective, are seen as a source of blight. Platt’s study re-imagines some of these places as play resources for children.
The study was focused on two schools in a predominantly African-American, low-income neighborhood of central Milwaukee. Twenty-one students took part in the study, which consisted of a Diary-Interview Diary-Photograph (DIDP) method followed up with semi-structured interviews. For the DIDP, students were provided with a small pocket diary and a disposable camera and encouraged to document and write about the places where they liked to play.
Participants in the study frequently expressed a fear of safety from crime or from street traffic that restricted where they played. Moreover, Platt found that children often preferred easily accessible alleys, sidewalks, vacant lots, and even the streets surrounding their homes to the urban parks where they feared being impacted by violent crime. Many of them saw parks as being inaccessible not because of their distance but because of their condition, whereas vacant lots were seen not as a source of blight but as places that could be used for play. While “green space” covered in vegetation was not always preferable to asphalt for games like kickball, children tended to gravitate towards social places with lots of activity. Platt concludes that it is critical to include children’s input into the design of neighborhood play spaces because they are the true users of these places. She also suggests that re-design of these nearby environments as safe and natural play areas can directly benefit children, their families and neighborhoods. This study offers an important window into how and where children actually use space.
Citation
Platt, L., (2012). “Parks are dangerous and the sidewalk is closer”: Children's use of neighborhood space in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Children, Youth and Environments, 22(2),
