GENERAL PLANNING OF A PARK SYSTEM 33 



organized form which certain games and sports have taken among high 

 schools the athletic field or stadium is becoming more and more a perma- 

 nent equipment of senior high schools throughout the nation. While these 

 to some extent may serve the athletic needs of the general community, as 

 a general rule it is likely to be more satisfactory in communities of from 

 forty thousand to one hundred thousand inhabitants to have at least one 

 municipal athletic field or stadium. 



In order to provide a proper landscape area, automobile parking area 

 and ample site for athletic building, seats for spectators, and field for play- 

 ing, the size of the athletic field or stadium site should be at least fifteen 

 acres, and ranging from this minimum upwards to twenty or thirty acres 

 in other words, about the desirable average size of the neighborhood 

 playfield-park. 



No general principle has yet been evolved as to the desirable number 

 of such highly developed areas in communities of different sizes. One 

 authority estimates that every city of fifty thousand should have at least 

 one athletic field or stadium. 1 



4. Municipal Camp Sites. These are areas designed primarily to 

 provide summer outing facilities for boys and girls and, in some instances, 

 for entire families. Because a reasonable degree of isolation and entire 

 change of environment are primary considerations in selecting camp sites, 

 they are usually located outside the city limits, the distance ranging from 

 a few miles to over three hundred miles. A few camp sites conducted by 

 park and recreation systems in this country are located within the city 

 limits, but as a general rule this is undesirable, defeating the very pur- 

 poses for which camping is organized and conducted. 



Municipal camp sites may be owned directly by the municipal park 

 or recreation department as in Detroit; Fort Worth, Texas; Bronx Park 

 Department, New York City; or located in county park reservations as in 

 Cook County, Illinois; Westchester County, New York; or in state parks as in 

 Pennsylvania and New York and other states; or in Federal Forest Reserva- 

 tions as in California (Los Angeles, Oakland, Berkeley, and other cities), or 

 private property may be rented or leased or loaned for such purpose. 



It is not desirable to have a camp site of less than a minimum of ten 

 or twenty acres. A study of two hundred and twenty-six private and com- 

 munity organized camps in 1922 showed that the average size of the imme- 

 diate camp sites was approximately twenty-five acres and that the gross 

 average acreage was one hundred and five acres. 2 Numbers of camps 

 occupy sites of several hundreds of acres. 



1 Mr. George Ford, Technical Advisory Corporation, New York City. Address, National Recreation 

 Congress, Atlantic City, 1922. 



2 " Camping Out, A Manual on Organized Camping," The Macmillan Company, New York, 1922, pp. 23-24. 



