296 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Classification 

 of Outdoor 

 Recreation 

 Areas 



will differ as men differ, but as all city dwellers are alike in suffering, 

 each in his degree, from the restriction and crowding of the city, so they 

 are alike in needing some recreation which will offset this restriction.* 

 A complete antithesis to city conditions, and so an effective relief from 

 them when they become oppressive, is to be found in the country or 

 in wilder nature. f So long as rural or natural landscape lies close 

 about a town, and every man can seek it for himself, no public provision 

 is necessary in this regard, but such a condition is plainly impossible 

 in a city of any size, and it has long been the case % that cities have 

 reserved and developed certain large open areas for this public use. 

 These areas were acquired in many different and often fortuitous ways, 

 and used for many different purposes. They had little in common except 

 that they were open to the public and not built upon, and the term 

 "public park" which we came loosely to apply to them had, and un- 

 fortunately in many places still has, little meaning more definite than 

 this. It is obvious, however, that there are many different kinds of 

 outdoor recreation, each good in itself, each necessary to be somewhere 

 provided for, but not all capable of being carried on in the same place 

 at the same time. It has come about therefore that where the prob- 

 lem of outdoor recreation areas has been studied by our modern cities, 

 there has been an attempt to segregate these areas and to develop 

 them, each for .its own function, so that in the aggregate as an organized 

 whole they may best provide all the forms of recreation which the 

 community owes to its members. 



No hard and fast classification is possible, for the needs and the 

 opportunities of our communities vary, but in a rough way we may 

 differentiate for modern American cities the following types of recre- 

 ation areas according to their functions § : 



The playground, including: the children's playground, for boys 

 and girls under twelve; the girls' outdoor gymnasium, for intensive 



* Cf. Chapter V. 



t Cf. the footnote reference to F. L. Olmsted, Sr.'s, paper on Public Parks, on p. 18. 



I The purchase of the area for Central Park was completed in 1856. 



§ Cf. the classification given in The Size and Distribution of Playgrounds in Ameri- 

 can Cities, paper by Henry V. Hubbard before the National Conference on City Plan- 

 ning, with discussion. <Proceedings, 1914, p. 265-304.) 



