GENERAL PLANNING OF A PARK SYSTEM 29 



and states its purpose is "for the active adults and young people over 

 twelve years of age. It offers natural advantages for some park effects, 

 especially where connecting with or touching main streets. To do this 

 playgrounds must be large enough for a generous layout of games such as 

 baseball, football, tennis and camp athletics and yet offer park develop- 

 ments with one or more small group of trees. They must be capable of use 

 for picnics, field days and national celebrations for the district without 

 crowding the regular games fields. The size should be from ten to twenty- 

 four acres. There should be one such playground for every ten or twelve 

 thousand inhabitants. Another good guide is to figure one for every five 

 hundred children of high school age. The most effective radius is one-half 

 to one mile." 



Another authority suggests that five per cent of every square mile of 

 inhabited area of the city should be set aside for this type of recreation 

 area. 



The term playfield-park is used in this manual to designate the type 

 of property under consideration for the reason that even in minimum size 

 this area should be large enough to allow some genuine parklike treat- 

 ment while at the same time permitting its major area to be developed for 

 active recreations. As it is increased in size above the minimum there are 

 greater possibilities for multiplying its parklike features, and the more 

 nearly ideal area would be of sufficient size to permit of the development 

 of a neighborhood park together with all the necessary active recreation 

 features for the people within its radius of influence. Any area so small 

 as to make exceedingly difficult or impossible a parklike treatment of at 

 least the border should be considered an inferior and undesirable specimen 

 of this type of property in a park system. 



As a practical principle in planning a community park system it 

 appears desirable to limit the standard types of properties for active recre- 

 ations to two children's playgrounds (children from five to fourteen inclu- 

 sive) and neighborhood playfield-parks. Special conditions in communities 

 may make a greater differentiation in these two types, and there will, of 

 course, be special areas for active recreation such as stadiums, athletic 

 fields, golf courses, swimming centers and similar facilities. Just as it has 

 been suggested that children's playgrounds areas should be thought of as 

 providing opportunities for the active play of all the children within its 

 radius of influence up to and including fourteen years of age, so the neigh- 

 borhood playfield-park should be thought of primarily as providing active 

 recreation opportunities for all ages above fourteen years and in many 

 instances as including a children's playground. It appears undesirable and 

 unnecessary, except in special circumstances, to attempt to provide an 



