Carol and I were very fortunate to meet Temple Grandin last week when she spoke at the National Recreation and Park Association’s Conference in Phoenix.
Dr. Grandin is a gifted animal scientist who has designed one-third of all the livestock-handling facilities in the United States. In 2010, Time Magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people.
She is also autistic and a strong advocate for those who think differently from most of the rest of the world. We have learned from her since our son was first diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome as he entered junior high school.
Temple spoke of her personal experiences navigating life experiences, and about the strength that diversity of perspectives and abilities brings to park planning—as well as all of life.
Her collaboration with the playground design firm Play & Park Structures is one of the first to address the needs of neurodivergent individuals and those with different minds who have different play needs and styles.
America’s first fully mobile environmental education facility
On this date 35 years ago I founded The Roving Nature Center, America’s first fully mobile environmental education facility. It conducted environmental education programs at all kinds of indoor and outdoor sites from Boston to Erie to Virginia Beach. It won national recognition in the Take Pride in America Awards program for its “commitment and exceptional contribution to the stewardship of America’s natural and cultural resources.” It provided jobs to nearly 400 people and sustained my family for 18 years before I sold the company in 2005. I remain very grateful to for the unique opportunities and blessings it provided me.
When planners and developers fail to account for gender, public spaces become male spaces by default.
My daughter strongly recommended I read the bestselling book Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men, by Caroline Criado Perez. She helpfully loaned me her electronic copy, and I learned so much from it I bought my own copy. And in turn, I recommend it to you.
Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez
In its pages, the author argues that the gender gap is both a cause and a consequence of the type of unthinking that conceives of humanity as almost exclusively male. It was surprising to me (being exclusively male since birth), how widely and how often this bias crops up, and how it distorts the supposedly objective data that increasingly governs our lives.
She covers a lot of territory. The book’s six parts cover Daily Life, The Workplace, Design, Going to the Doctor, Public Life, and When it Goes Wrong; and includes such intriguing chapters as Can Snow-Clearing be Sexist, Gender Neutral With Urinals, and One-Size-Fits Men.
Of particular interest to park and recreation professionals is a section addressing city and park planning and use. She cites a 2016 article in The Guardian that asked why we aren’t designing places “that work for women, not just men” and cautions that the limited datasets that track and trend data on gender make it hard to develop programs and infrastructure that factor in and meet women’s needs.
For example, planners in Vienna found that the presence of girls in parks and public playgrounds decreased after the age of 10. They subsequently found, through collecting pertinent data, that single large open spaces were the problem, because they forced girls to compete with boys for space—who largely chose not to. But when the developers subdivided the parks into smaller areas, the female dropoff was reversed.
They also addressed the park’s sport facilities. “Originally these spaces were encased in wire fencing on all sides, with only a single entrance area—around which groups of boys would congregate. And the girls, unwilling to run the gauntlet, simply weren’t going in.” The simple solution? More and wider entrances. They also subdivided the open areas and sport courts. Formal sports like basketball were kept intact, but they also provided space for more informal activities, in which girls were more likely to engage.
In another example, Malmos, Sweden, discovered a similar male bias in the way they’d traditionally been planning urban recreation for youth. “The usual procedure was to create spaces for skating, climbing and painting graffiti. The trouble was, it wasn’t ‘youth’ as a whole that was participating… It was almost exclusively boys, with girls making up only 10-20 percent of those who used the city’s youth-directed leisure spaces and facilities.” So they began asking what the girls wanted—and the resultant new areas are well-lit and split into a range of different-sized spaces on different levels.
Such a gender-equitable approach doesn’t just benefit females alone, but extends to the economy. When sports funding goes mainly to organized sports, which is dominated by boys, that which was meant to benefit everyone equally, simply doesn’t. Sometimes girls’ sports aren’t provided for at all, which means girls must pay for them privately, or not participate at all. Such detrimental consequences then ripple into the present and future health of half the population, and the overall economy. One study concluded that a certain increase in the city’s support for girls’ sports could “lead to a 14 percent reduction in future fractures due to osteoporosis, and the investment will have paid for itself.”
Perez concludes that when planners, developers and programmers “fail to account for gender, public spaces become male spaces by default.” This is not a niche concern: “if public spaces are truly to be for everyone, we have to start accounting for the lives of the other half of the world.” It’s not just a matter of justice: it’s also a matter of personal health, welcoming placemaking, social equity, and simple economics. And it starts with collecting meaningful gender-sensitive data.
Are we purposefully collaborating with experts from other disciplines in meeting people’s needs? And are we measuring what truly matters?
credit: Visit Philadelphia
Part of why recreation and parks doesn’t receive more of the rave respect it deserves, in my opinion, is because most people notice programs far more than the objectives behind them.
That’s not surprising. It’s always easier to focus on outward expressions than on internal improvements of the mind, body and soul.
But that’s where the common disconnect begins, I believe.
When we providers declare that recreation and parks are essential community services, what does that mean to our constituents? What is our bottom-line purpose of enabling quality leisure experiences? And are we cognizant enough of it?
• Is it just a walk in the park—or is it physical exercise, stress relief and mental rejuvenation?
• Is it merely a Paint With Me class (with wine!)—is it or stretching skills and enriching relationships?
• Is soccer practice just about scoring a trophy—or is it developing fine motor skills, building teamwork, modeling good sportsmanship, and growing cooperative social interactions among diverse teens, teams and talents?
• Is it merely an object of public art—or is it celebrating a cultural heritage, invigorating a downtown district, connecting destinations, and attracting visitors, tourists and new businesses?
• Is it just an evening activity—or is it character development, anti-ganging intervention, and preventative treatment for abusive and addictive behaviors?
Are we strategically planning with such measurable outcomes in mind, or are we satisfied that it was “fun”?
Here’s the crux: Are we building people—or just running programs? Are we purposefully collaborating with experts from other disciplines in meeting people’s needs? And are we measuring what truly matters?
Because here’s the other just-as-important part of our jobs: we must show it.
Moving beyond ROIs, attendees, and social media stats, are we documenting personal and social good in our value statements? Can we point to specific cases of cleaner resources, less waste, crises averted, problems solved, and healthier lifestyles? Are we enriching our neighbors’ lives, improving the livability of our cities, and ensuring a more equitable future?
If we are to convince a wider audience of the great worth of our indispensable services (and, in turn, influence higher funding and priorities by decision makers), we must deliver whole goods. We can’t merely insist that recreation and parks are essential, we must intentionally demonstrate it—and prove it!
