I'm part of the Cumberland skatepark committie. Right now we're working on finding a site. Like most towns, I imagine, the only site we can get Cumberland to let us build on is as far away from the town centre as possible. I never would have thought much about this until I read 'The Death and Life of Great American Cities,' by Jane Jacobs. I could go on for ever about this book, but I'll try to stay brief and to the point.
So brief summary: It's about town planning, but considered 'the most influentian single work in the history of town planning...a work of literature,' (New York Times). Except it hasn't influenced anyone and the book was written in the early 60's. In fact, all the problems Jacob's so clearly defined with normal development ideas, creating business districts, massive housing projects or suburbs, and assuming that by plopping down a whole bunch of green grass in the middle of them will make everybody feel like their living in a utopia, have only gotten worse (case in point: EVERYWHERE YOU LOOK).
This rant really is about skateboarding, just stay with me for a second. Although, I honestly feel like skateboarders have a natural instinct for understanding the urban environment, and probably would make the best urban planners, so really its all about skateboarding. In light of that, though, I recommend this book to everyone, because anyone who has sat down in a public place, looked at the urban landscape around them and wondered who planned this and why, and how could they do it better, would get as crazy about this book as I have, and ramble about it as much as I am even though they promised not to. Ok, seriously brief, this is it.
She has four main ways to make an urban area good, meaning alive with people, safe, and economically healthy (for everyone). This is brief so I'm just going to bring up the main one: the need for a mix of primary uses, these must insure the presence of people who go outdoors on different schedules and are in the place for different purposes, but who are able to use many facilities in common. So what she's saying is if you build a housing project, even one that has lots of green grass and playgrounds and fountains and just looks really nice on the architects full-colour over-head map, if the only reason people have to go to that area is because they live there, its going to be dead quite with not a soul in sight for most hours of the day. How do deserted park areas end up? Lets just say street gangs don't actually hang out in streets, they hang out in parks. But if you have a city block that has residences, stores, a library, some restaurants and bars, an art gallery, along with a park, that park is going to be bumpin all day and all night with all the safety and liveliness anyone could ask for.
Of course, most towns are too small to have tons of different primary uses to add to their town centres, but many are building skateparks (I told you it was about skateboarding). Jane Jacobs, I tell you, would have gone bananas over skateboarding if, when she wrote this book, it was where it is today. Imagine town centres having a primary use, not just for different types of enthusiast, but different types of people watchers. All ages coming at different times of the day, not to mention using the local skate shop and getting refreshments at the local coffee shop. Not to mention people traveling from out of town for the park, but ending up in the town centre and using every other facility there.
So, I guess this rant is aimed at other people involved in skatepark building, which is happening a lot right now and requires whole communities to make it happen, so I'm thinking a lot of people. I'm talking about mixing the ideas of this book in with planning out skateparks. Really, making skateparks part of a big picture urban planning philosophy, and throwing the ideas at the town of Cumberland, right out of left field, who's with me (but with your own projects, of course)?
Anyway, I'll keep you up to date.
Plus, is anyone as interested in this skateboarding/urban-planning topic as I am?
Yes, I've often made the connection between skating and town planning. And I've always felt that the presence of skateboarders in a street or park was a good thing for everybody, including the non-skaters. It provides "local colour", free entertainment, and the safety-in-crowds factor. It even helps to slow traffic by creating roadside distractions (see http://www.lesstraffic.com for more on this).
I think planners haven't quite cottoned on to these advantages, let alone tried to exploit them. Downtown skateparks and skatable terrain, if planned well, make public space more vibrant, and hence provide opportunities for businesses that can feed off this - street cafes, bars etc. This isn't pie-in-the-sky stuff - I see the beginnings of this in Sydney where the Bondi skatepark attracts crowds of spectators (who then tend to spend even more money in Bondi's shops).
Another example is the old ampitheatre in Martin Place, which used to be chock full of street skaters every afternoon/night. A small number of spectators would often form. But Martin Place is a deadly dull "plaza" of city office blocks, and instead of expanding on this encouraging sign of life by encouraging complementary businesses, the council cracked down on the skaters, and eventually removed the ampitheatre.
(For an example of a complementary business, an independent movie theatre, with attached bar, opened immediately outside the ampitheatre. On quiet weeknights when the city would have otherwise been completely dead, movie goers would stop on their way in and out of the theatre to watch the skaters, the two groups would talk, the city would seem vibrant, and everybody benefited.)
There's a lot of skateparks being built in Sydney now, and they're mostly being located out of the way in quiet parks. I'd like to see them a little closer to the action, in places of high-pedestrian traffic, where the life of the skatepark becomes integrated into the life of the rest of the community, rather than shunted to a quiet corner.
For example, the City of Sydney is building a big new skatepark in Prince Alfred Park, which, although it's near the centre of the city, is very quiet. A more interesting option would have been Belmore Park, just around the corner, but always bustling with people.
Or just put it in Martin Place where the old ampitheatre used to be.
Skateparks and town planning
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