dan fumano: making vancouver playgrounds a little less safe, for the kids' sake
opinion: playgrounds since the 1990s might have actually been too safe, research suggests. a bit of risk — and the occasional scraped knee — makes kids more resilient.
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layla humayun, 10, left, helps cousin francesca fumano, 2, climb a rope ladder while they play at rainbow park in vancouver on dec. 28.
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the spaces where vancouver’s children play might be getting less safe, reversing a trend — but that might not be a bad thing.
kids need safe places to play. but if you ask them, a playground that’s too safe is a boring playground, says susan herrington, a professor in the university of b.c.’s school of architecture and landscape architecture who researches and designs children’s play areas.
and, she says, liability-averse canadian cities, including vancouver, moved too far away from risk in their playground design in recent decades.
a trampoline above a steep cliff is probably a bad idea. but letting children grapple with challenging obstacles — even if it produces a few tears and scraped knees — could help them develop and become more resilient.
“there’s a big difference between dangerous and risky,” says herrington.
no one wants kids to be maimed while playing — but a growing international body of research touts the benefits of what experts call “risky play.” injury prevention is important, but many children’s health experts now say the goal should be keeping children “as safe as necessary” — not “as safe as possible.”
layla humayun, 10, left, and sister georgia, 7, play at sθәqәlxenәm ts’exwts’áxwi7, also known as rainbow park, in vancouver on wednesday.
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in 2007, herrington published an article in the academic journal critical social policy, which began: “over the past decade the outdoor spaces designed for children in canada have largely been shaped by fear and profit, rather than by what we know about children’s play and development.”
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the article, co-authored with ubc grad student jamie nicholls, described the growing role played by the canadian standards association, or csa, in this transformation of kids’ play spaces since the 1980s. historically, the csa regulated industrial and commercial projects like mechanical refrigeration and gas equipment, thereby enabling international trade, herrington wrote, but “their extension of influence to early childhood is problematic.”
a highly precautionary approach “may make sense for the gas and elevator equipment industry,” herrington wrote, but “it’s an inadequate principle for children’s outdoor play spaces.”
in 2000, the city of toronto spent $6.3 million to remove playgrounds at 172 schools and child-care centres, on the basis of csa inspections, without public warning or community consultation, herrington’s article said. a third of the schools received “no new equipment at all, leaving play spaces with only fenced-off holes and flat grass,” the article said, making it likely that “these spaces will witness increased aggression among children, thereby increasing injuries.”
(“ironically,” the article notes, a comparative study later found the toronto schools that did receive new, csa-approved equipment actually recorded injuries at slightly higher rates than those with old equipment.)
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“children need to take risks in order to develop,” herrington’s article said. “if children are prevented from learning that they need to modify their behaviours in different environments, thus learning in and through an environment, when will they learn?”
a 2012 article in the international journal of environmental research and public health cited research describing “a risk-deprived child as more prone to problems such as obesity, mental-health concerns, lack of independence, and a decrease in learning, perception and judgment skills.”
georgia humayun, 7, and francesca fumano, daughter of columnist dan fumano, play at sθәqәlxenәm ts’exwts’áxwi7, also known as rainbow park, in vancouver.
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however, herrington said recently that the trend seems to be reversing, after years of research and greater understanding of risky play’s benefits. some of metro vancouver’s newer public park designs incorporate innovative, risky elements, she said, citing richmond’s terra nova park and vancouver’s newest park, sθәqәlxenәm ts’exwts’áxwi7.
the new downtown park sθәqәlxenәm ts’exwts’áxwi7, also known as rainbow park, is vancouver’s first park given a name by the musqueam, squamish and tsleil-waututh nations, and opened to the public earlier this year on a former parking lot at smithe and richards streets.
it doesn’t look like a typical park. there are no swings and almost no grass. not everyone was instantly a big fan of the design, with some residents complaining about all the big, tall structures and lack of picnic space. in 2019, when city council approved the $14 million contract for the park’s construction and $500,000 in annual maintenance, vancouver green coun. pete fry told cbc news reporter justin mcelroy he was “not crazy about the design” and it seemed “a bit of an overspend.”
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before the new downtown park’s construction, some observers thought the design renderings seemed strange. i was one of them. there’s obviously demand for more public parks in that part of downtown, where more residents, including kids, are living without private outdoor space. but i didn’t understand the elevated walkways and weird-looking vertical towers in the designs — it looked like an expensive, elaborate, massive public art piece, not like a park.
leo fumano, 2, emerges from a covered slide with mom megan fumano at sθәqәlxenәm ts’exwts’áxwi7 in vancouver.
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this year, when we brought our twin toddlers to sθәqәlxenәm ts’exwts’áxwi7 for the first time, i saw it differently. it was buzzing. dozens of kids of a wide range of ages climbing, bouncing, swinging, leaping, falling, laughing, and shouting, while their adults endeavoured to keep up.
is that worth $14 million? it’s a lot of money, so it’s a fair question. but the park seems to be a resounding hit with kids.
(beyond the children’s play spaces, the park has lots to offer older users: cool lighting on the big overhead structures help make it a popular date-night spot, and you can grab coffee and sandwiches at an on-site cafe, a common feature of parks in some cities in latin america, asia, europe and elsewhere, but not previously in vancouver.)
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fry, for his part, said recently that the park today “looks pretty great and people seem to enjoy it.” he noted, however, the park board continues to “struggle with budget” — with sθәqәlxenәm ts’exwts’áxwi7 coming in at $17.9 million, well over-budget, he said, adding that most east van parks “seem to be pretty poorly maintained.”
the new park’s size — less than an acre in a dense downtown neighbourhood — limits what could be done there. there isn’t space for a soccer field or baseball diamond.
leo fumano, 2, gets a helping hand from layla humayun, 10, while playing at sθәqәlxenәm ts’exwts’áxwi7, also known as rainbow park, in vancouver on wednesday.
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“that’s why we went vertical, to maximize the context, being in such an urban setting,” said mandy yu, a senior landscape architect with the park board. “it’s the backyard to so many residences in that neighbourhood.”
the new downtown park features in-ground trampolines, and several climbing structures, including a 10-metre tower and slide, the city’s tallest.
“we definitely don’t want to design boring playgrounds,” yu said. “there are really imaginative ways you can design playgrounds that might seem risky, but they’re actually quite safe.”
mandy yu, a senior landscape architect with the vancouver park board, is pictured at sθәqәlxenәm ts’exwts’áxwi7, also known as rainbow park, in the city.
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“it’s a balance,” yu said.
not all risk is good. certain playground elements of the past are not likely to come back, she said, citing the example of the child-propelled, metal merry-go-rounds that were once common in public parks, but have been phased out because of too many serious injuries.
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“kids need to learn a bit of resilience,” yu said. “you don’t want them to get hurt. but you want little kids to get back up again and keep going.”
getting the occasional bump or bruise might not be the end of the world. it might be better than no bumps or bruises at all.
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