NEIGHBOURHOOD PARKS 



appeal to the residents of its own neighbourhood. These objects may 

 l)e acconiphshed in somewhat different ways in each neighbourhood, 

 the modus operandi to depend upon the modus Vivendi, but the gen- 

 eral principles of development to be much the same. 



THOSE IN THE POORER DISTRICTS 



Neighbourhood parks in tenement districts should be kept ex- 

 tremely simple in design, of the sort that will stand harsh treatment 

 and not require a maximum of maintenance. Tenement dwellers 

 usually have not reached the point of recognising property rights, 

 either private or public. They appreciate in a subconscious way the 

 civic advantages given them and make the most of opjDortunities 

 offered, but they do not appreciate that proper regard on their part 

 will make the continuance of such advantages possible and bring 

 additional ones as well. The main idea of the design should be to 

 provide ample room for circulation and opportunity for the natural 

 playing about of children. As expressed in the chapter. Playgrounds 

 in Parks, tenement districts are ideal and necessary locations for play- 

 grounds, which will in large part take care of the children, but the 

 neighbourhood parks in these districts should also provide for their 

 presence and not exclude them. With ample accommodation of space 

 alone, w^hich means to them opportunity of getting out into the open 

 air in the neighbourhood of their homes, the tenement dwellers will, in 

 the main, feel that a city is bestowing upon them a bountiful gift. 



The planting in parks of this sort should be confined mostly to trees 

 for the sake of the shade w^hich they will give, of strong-growing 

 varieties that will thrive even with the soil trampled hard about their 

 roots, and varieties that will not invite depredation on account of their 

 flowers or fruit, as for example, catalpas or horse-chestnuts. Quick- 

 growing varieties should be given the preference, as it is always more 

 or less of a problem in a park where the trees are submitted to hard 



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