Beckham bedlam and true democracy

A great city has great parks:

"If only children had as much public space as cars,
most cities in the world would become marvelous."

"For the poor, the only alternative to television
for their leisure time is the public space.
For this reason, high quality public
pedestrian space, and parks in particular,
are evidence of a true democracy at work."

From a keynote address
delivered by Enrique Penalosa, Mayor of Bogotá,
Columbia, to the Urban Parks Institute's
"Great Parks/Great Cities" conference July 2001










Galaxy #23:
the man
and
THE moment

Enter Beckham bedlam: the world's best known
soccer midfielder has joined the Los Angeles Galaxy.

Trying to limit the world's most loved game in our
local parks these days is rather like pretending global
warming doesn't exist.

Fields the length and breadth of Southern
California are filled with young and old alike trying
to 'bend it like Beckham' did on his FIRST free kick
for his new team.

Anyone can play soccer anywhere, anytime,
without special equipment.

All you need is a ball and your feet.

Public space is true democracy at work.

Public Access to Public Spaces

Los Angeles just released zoning controls for downtown:

http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/a-zillion-new-neighbors/16946/

Meanwhile, the city remains incredibly park poor
and our precious little available public park
field space might not necessarily be accessible:

















Above:
Lafayette Park synthetic soccer field locked &
empty at midday. Families play ball in the dirt,
on the hill in the background, in the picnic area,
or on the basketball courts. They have to
play everywhere except the space donated
and built for soccer.

At Mar Vista's synthetic field, players engage in
healthy activity during the entire day:


















Why is that?
The answer is simple: the previous local park advisory
board championed the Prop K for Kids rec improvements
line item which paid for this specific regional treasure...
...and withstood pressures for gates and locks
because they wanted maximum public access.

Fencing the synthetic soccer field at Mar Vista
would have closed off one third of the park's available
sports field space to casual users--hardly what
city voters had in mind when they approved Prop K,
the 30 year residential property tax assessment
to fund Los Angeles rec and parks capital improvements
meeting the active rec needs of our youth.

Indeed, when the city did put up a fence across the entire
west end of the park right after the field was completed,
cutting off all walk-on public access, the ensuing community
rebellion forced its complete removal.

Packing working families living downtown into units
potentially as small as 300 square feet without any
city planning provision for adding green spaces
--including spaces sized for team sports--
is a recipe for future urban blight.

Green spaces also need to be open to the public.

Otherwise the trend towards synthetic ball fields
will result in very large portions of our public parks
literally made off limits to us all.