Am loving this book, full of photos of play structures, from the close up to the cityscape. Reassuring to know that Rotterdam has some terrible playgrounds too - though it has 1200 in total, from corner climbing frames to big parks, with 6307 registered pieces of play equipment. - ThreadSky

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alisonstenning.bsky.social • 20 days ago

Am loving this book, full of photos of play structures, from the close up to the cityscape.

Reassuring to know that Rotterdam has some terrible playgrounds too - though it has 1200 in total, from corner climbing frames to big parks, with 6307 registered pieces of play equipment.

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alisonstenning.bsky.social•20 days ago

The book narrates a recent history of play that echoes ours - playground design by committee, big commercial manufacturers, limited public funding & pressures on public land. But also tells new stories of play space and climate adaptation, and a renewed commitment to the social value of play space.

alisonstenning.bsky.social•20 days ago

And I particularly enjoyed this paralleling (literally) of cycle parking and tumble bars. Any parent will have witnessed this IRL. As the caption suggests, reappropriation works both ways.

alisonstenning.bsky.social•20 days ago

By way of contrast, Detroit (which has a similar population to Rotterdam ~ 640,000) has 305 park playground sites and is the third best served city in the US.

I can't find city figures for the UK, probably because no one cares enough to keep them.

https://www.playgroundequipment.com/us-cities-with-the-most-playgrounds-per-capita/

alisonstenning.bsky.social•20 days ago

It's a difficult comparison to make though, as what often marks out Dutch cities is the incidental slides or climbing frames on street corners, or the small playgrounds in woonerven, and these will make up many of the 1200, I imagine.

alisonstenning.bsky.social•20 days ago

Of course, the play - and social - value of the tiny doorstep play spaces, in my view, is disproportionate to their size, and exceeds the bigger playspaces which dominate in the UK and US.

internet-inspired.com•19 days ago

We had the exact same, left side, deathtrap where I grew up!

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