THE WHY OF PARKS 7 



PARKS INCREASE NEIGHBORLINESS 



For nearly two hundred years America may be said to have been com- 

 prised largely of communities of neighbors. Up to 1880 over seventy per 

 cent of the people lived in rural communities, where they were drawn 

 together not only by their natural instincts for companionship but by 

 their dependence on each other in carrying on their daily acts of living. 

 They helped each other in clearing the land, in erecting their homes, in 

 planting and in harvest. They fished and hunted and played together. 

 With the invention and perfection of machine tools, making it unneces- 

 sary for people to depend so largely on one another, neighborliness began 

 to decline; quilting parties went out of fashion; spinning bees were no 

 longer the occasion of gatherings of the housewives; the harvesting of 

 hay and wheat, always a cooperative undertaking, began to be done by 

 different types of machines; community recreations were largely destroyed; 

 old folk dances and dancing parties gave way to modern dancing and 

 commercial dance halls, and old-fashioned home parties and community 

 picnics began to disappear. To crown all these social disintegrating forces 

 the lines of social contact were broken everywhere throughout rural Amer- 

 ica by migrations of large numbers of the people, especially the younger 

 people, to the places where machines and capital were being amassed. 



The inevitable result of the present-day system of working and liv- 

 ing, making as it does for individualism, has been a distinct loss in the old 

 spirit of neighborliness and cooperation. Out of the leisure of the people 

 comes the only hope for them to build a community life in which neigh- 

 borliness will thrive. 



But leisure itself is not enough. There must be numerous opportuni- 

 ties for people to use this leisure in a way which will promote mutual 

 acquaintanceship, friendship and good will, through all manner of activi- 

 ties which they enjoy together. The facilities and leadership furnished by 

 park authorities which bring people together in their leisure time are steps 

 in the direction of providing opportunity for people to create communities 

 in which the spirit of neighborliness will predominate. It is not too much 

 to say that park and recreation planners and executives and the citizens 

 who are giving thought to the recreational needs of the people are perhaps 

 the chief agents in restoring to modern American community life the 

 spirit which made earlier life in America wholesome and desirable. 



THE CONTRIBUTION OF PARKS TO HAPPINESS 



Delight in life, or spontaneous happiness, is the thing most desired 

 by all people. In a large sense the end and aim of all city planning and 



