Introduction

Parks are the lungs of urban neighbourhoods. They are invariably the major public spaces and act as social magnets for children and their parents. They are an essential safety valve in a pressurised environment. Open spaces capture neighbourhood conditions and often reflect clearly the standard of neighbourhood services. Therefore, in this chapter, we explore in depth what families think of their public environment, using this as a litmus test of how we manage cities and their neighbourhoods (Greenhalgh and Worpole,1995; Gehl, 1996).

Particularly for families without gardens or with small gardens, living in traffic-filled streets, or unable to afford modern leisure centre activities, parks and open spaces play a crucial part in children's play, and ultimately in a families’ desire to stay put or to move. They provide a place for people to meet informally and for children to mix. In this way they can contribute to the social links on which the community spirit, so important to the families, is built.

Yet the neighbourhood problems discussed in the previous chapter – such as high levels of vandalism, graffiti, dog mess, and rubbish dumping – all impact negatively on neighbourhood environments and public spaces. The problems are not necessarily intrinsic to the spaces themselves; rather the open spaces suffer most conspicuously from the wider problems of poorly run and disorderly neighbourhoods.