During a recent trip to Paris and Tours, France, I was struck by how often the parks in those cities were designed for adults, not children. It seemed such a contrast with Toronto.
The telltale difference for me was the fact that many of the parks there had lots of seating along the pathways or at places of interest: you were invited to sit down and watch the passing world or talk with friends or read a newspaper or book.
I took our empty wine bottles to the recycling spot in a park near the apartment we had rented in Tours. The park had a very pleasant and winding lagoon with ducks and geese and, to either side of the gravel walkways, flowers, trees and bushes, a few small patches of grass and lots of benches. It was mid-morning and there were a few mothers with their baby carriages, some teenagers obviously talking about a school project of some kind and people sitting on benches watching the ducks and other people. I wanted to spend the rest of the morning there.
On a warm spring afternoon we walked from the main commercial area in Tours to an island in the Loire. We found the same profusion of benches and people, but none of the swings and teeter-totters that seem to be part of almost every park in Toronto. One corner of the island had a skateboard park designed for kids, and since it was a holiday, it was jammed with action.
It’s not that there is nothing in French parks for kids, but that is rarely a park’s main attraction. In the gigantic Luxemburg Gardens on the left bank of Paris, there’s an area devoted just to kids’ activities on the west side, but the main part of the park is around the fountain and pool where there are sturdy movable metal chairs and benches. That’s where you find the crowd.
Yes, since it was a Sunday afternoon with a breeze, there were many toy sailboats skittering across the pool, but it seemed they were mostly of interest to adults who were talking as they sat around the pool. Nathan Phillips Square never felt so friendly and relaxed, even with its reflecting pool.
I’m not trying to argue that parks should not respond to the needs of children, just that this shouldn’t be their main function. Toronto’s parks seem to be skewed against adults.
On warmer weekends, Trinity Bellwoods Park fills with neighourhood gen-Xers, but since it is almost benchless, they have to lie and sit on the grass, and it does not look very comfortable. The innovative park on Cumberland Street with the hunk of Georgian Bay rock is clearly a place designed for adults, not children, and it offers many visual delights but few benches for sitting.
Sugar Beach by the Redpath plant on Toronto Bay is designed for adults, and that’s good. High Park could use a lot more benches on its pathways.
The Toronto consensus is that a park should be a place of green grass and kids’ playthings, not a place where adults can relax and while away an hour on a comfortable bench.
The formidable Jutta Mason has done much to make Dufferin Grove Park a place that welcomes community activity — including wood-fired pizza ovens! — but largely her efforts have been seen as a thorn in the side of the city bureaucracy.
Maybe things are changing. The group Park People, www.parkpeople.ca, gets residents involved in rethinking and redesigning local parks, including asking the city to waive permit and insurance fees for local events in parks. Imagine if the city actually encouraged local groups to use parks for events not only focused on children: that would be a good change.
The ravines, of course, are a different story. They are meant for walking and in some cases riding, certainly not for sitting. And the Toronto Island serves a different purpose than local parks: our big green space, our green lung in the lake, a pleasantly distracting boat ride away, our own Central Park, although Toronto City Council seems intent on approving a busy flyway over it for jets using the Island airport.
That’s a good thing about travel: it asks you to see your own city in a different way. My small trip taught me that our parks should be more attractive for casual adult interaction and relaxation, which often just means more benches.
And how would we get to that decision? Maybe we should send councillors to France for a few weeks in spring to check things out. Hmm.
Post City Magazines’ columnist John Sewell is a former mayor of Toronto and the author of a number of urban planning books, including The Shape of the Suburbs.