32 PARKS 



courses; central location, as in the case of stadiums and fully developed 

 athletic fields, are determining factors. Due regard is given in every case 

 to accessibility, nearness to street railway or traction lines and automobile 

 traffic ways. The park system adapts itself to them and not they to the 

 park system. Among such types of properties may be distinguished the 

 following: 



1. Bathing Beaches on river, lake or ocean. They may be found in a 

 large park or in a neighborhood playfield-park, but very often they repre- 

 sent distinct units of the system of recreation, selected because of the pecul- 

 iar advantages for the one form of recreation. No general principle governs 

 their size or their location. 



2. Golf Course Areas. It is becoming more and more the practice 

 to secure specific areas for municipal golf courses, and to avoid locating 

 them in already existing large landscape parks. This is a highly desirable 

 tendency for the reason that the large landscape park has functions pecul- 

 iarly different from that of a golf park and vice versa. It may be true, 

 of course, that a golf course may be laid out in very large landscaped parks 

 or public reservations, in parks, for example, of from five hundred acres and 

 upwards, without interfering seriously with the primary functions of such 

 areas; but as a general rule it is more desirable to secure areas devoted 

 exclusively to this game. 



The size of golf parks may range from forty acres as an absolute min- 

 imum for a nine-hole course to one hundred or one hundred and fifty for 

 an eighteen-hole course. 



3. Athletic Fields and Stadiums. Both the athletic field and the sta- 

 dium are types of the neighborhood playfield-park but distinguished from 

 it by a much more highly developed equipment, by their comparatively 

 limited use as to the types of games and sports, and by the fact that they 

 are enclosed, and by their greatly reduced numbers in any community. 

 They are designed primarily for highly organized competitive games and 

 sports, to which as a general rule an admission fee is charged. Extensive 

 provisions are made for spectators. 



In their location, accessibility from all parts of the community is a 

 primary consideration. Another important consideration in the develop- 

 ment of athletic fields and stadiums is the reservation of a large area out- 

 side of the enclosed space for parking automobiles. A parked area entirely 

 around the athletic field site is another desirable feature. 



The athletic field or the stadium may be located in a large landscaped 

 park or in a large neighborhood playfield-park, if these happen to be prop- 

 erly located with respect to accessibility to all parts of the city or to those 

 parts of a large city they are designed to serve. As a result of the highly 



