Further to the post below, there are lots of parks in Perth, particularly in the newer suburban sections in the north:
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Ah, but try to find (via Streetview) any kids playing in them. A few examples:
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Which explains why this column by Shelley Fralic in today’s Sun – Whatever happened to the free-range kid? – is equally applicable to Vancouver and Perth (and why both Canada’s and Australia’s kids get a D-minus for overall physical activity levels.)
Heyyyyy, I just realized none of these parks appear to have playgrounds. They look like nice serene adult parks, but nothing for the kids. There’s the problem! Build it they will come lol. Or are playgrounds now considered too dangerous for children? They might jump out of the swing sets, or fall off the monkey bars, or play chicken on the monkey bars. Which would be good. Hell, we had this incredibly dangerous huge metal horse thing (the scrap value was probably huge!) that five kids could sit on and it would rock forward and backward. It was ancient, too. It was fine if you were sitting on it, and completely dangerous if you were standing on it. After a classmate fell face down while standing and knocked out two front teeth nobody stood on it any more. But I remember what it feels like to fall on gravel, to get bounced on a see saw, to get totally nauseas from a tire swing/merry go round, and to be convinced that if I pumped my legs hard enough I could swing right around the swing set. Lol and of course things like huge painted cement pipe segments big enough to horse around in or on. Ok, I’m done rambling.. I just feel bad for kids because all these little scrapes and bad landings, etc were part of the fun. Kids don’t really want to play in a field with benches and the odd tree. It’s about as fun as playing hopscotch on blacktop…gets old fast.