Rudolf Vleck For much of my adult life, I had no real affinity for parks. I grew up in the suburbs, where parks were really just extended backyards for adjacent elementary schools, spaces primarily for young children. Unless you were athletic, or looking for a place to smoke a joint, once you outgrew the playground and hobbyist soccer leagues, you were done. My perception of parks changed when, a few years ago, I moved into a house that faced Trinity Bellwoods Park. On any given day, there were cyclists, ultimate players, readers, sunbathers, footballers, and dogwalkers. Drawn by the activity outside, I started a new ritual of Chippy’s fried haddock with Sapporo, planting myself at the base of a tree for a meal en plein air. In the documentary Helvetica, the beauty of typography is said to be in the space between the letters, rather than the letters themselves. There is something analogous to that for cities and their public spaces. We see it in our own city by the surprising transformation of Yonge-Dundas Square into an actual gathering place, despite its commercial surroundings, and the use of St. James Park for the Occupy Toronto protests, which gave the often-dull park a kick of something spontaneous. But what happens when that space in between isn’t negative space, isn’t an intentional, restful contrast to the buildings and cars around, but is just blank? This summer I visited Malvern’s Neilson Park in the east end of the city. At 17.3 acres, Neilson is just under half the size of Trinity Bellwoods and contains a splashpad, playground, three baseball diamonds (host to the Scarborough Stingers!), and Neilson House, a historical venue that in the afternoons is used for childcare. Everything, in other words, but people. On subsequent visits, I’d be lucky to see one distant stranger also walking the area; granted, I was only coming on weekday afternoons. I asked Alex Dow, manager for the Malvern branch of community-building initiative Action For Neighbourhood Change, if the time of day was the reason for the lack of activity. He shook his head. Save for a few dogwalkers and the occasional baseball practice, he said, it always felt more or less empty. This shouldn’t be the case. Much of the perimeter of Neilson Park is lined with houses, their occupants facing the park, as I had with Trinity Bellwoods. South of the park are four giant highrise towers, where thousands of people live. The population is there, and it’s young, too – Malvern has one of the highest concentrations of young people in Canada with nearly as many people below the age of 30 as there are above. So why are they choosing to stay at home? In my discussions with Dow, no one reason stood out. It could be something as ordinary as not having enough time, given the demands of daily urban living. The fatigue from work, compounded by the stress of a lengthy commute due to multiple transfers in transit, followed by the need to get dinner on the table – and suddenly the skies are dark, and walking outside in the park seems like the last thing to do. Yet, given the hefty research behind the benefits of parks, feeling burnt out is all the more reason for a stroll. WorkbypsychologistsRachelandStephenKaplansuggests [PDF] that the random busyness of urban living demands much of our attention and drains our resources; however, seeing nature could have a curative effect by improving cognitive function, something they’ve dubbed attention restoration theory. (This won’t be news to anyone who takes a walk when faced with stress or a mental block.) To be fair, millions of city-dwellers get by without a park just fine – yet reflecting on Neilson Park’s vast, empty green space I can’t help but wonder if the question isn’t what is missing, but what is being lost? There’s something comforting about being surrounded by other people, even if they are strangers. In a way, they’re not wholly unfamiliar because you have something in common: you all chose to come to this place and like spending time here. (And one should never underestimate the power of mutually liking something, even if the effect is subtle and unspoken.) Parks are space to connect and create relationships between residents and, even if you don’t get to know people by name, build networks. Dow tells me that while Malvern doesn’t have a strong community network, which – in a way – the park illustrates, efforts are underway to bring residents closer. Part of the strategy includes big additions to Neilson Park. Behind the Neilson House, there will be a large community garden – a project close to Dow’s heart that has been years in the planning – and children in daycare will get the opportunity to learn about gardening and food security. Along a gently sloping hill, there is talk of a skateboarding area to attract more youth. In addition, in the summer, there are plans to erect a projector screen to allow for film showings after dark. It’s unrealistic to expect a tidal shift in park use overnight, but the new developments will seed the park with people watering crops, doing ollies, and eating popcorn. Still, I’m optimistic that as residents look out their windows and see others enjoying the park, the desire to join in will be too hard to resist.
