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Vol. 19, No. 3 - Summer 2003
Vacant lots and abandoned buildings: Who wants
to play here?
The first thing Corliss
Outley does when she begins gathering research data on inner city
play habits is to choose a location, usually a park, and recruit kids
who are hanging out in the area to be her assistants.
 “I talk to the
kids who are there and say, ‘Here’s what I need. I want you to be my
research assistant. I want you to talk to other kids and give me a
report, do a survey, you know? Find out what kinds of activities your
friends like best, what afterschool programs there are, what things
they’d like to change about their neighborhood,’” explains Outley,
assistant professor of recreation and parks studies in the School of
Kinesiology. It works. The kids are immediately engaged, she says,
and take on surveys, do photography, and help to start new park and
neighborhood activities that are more attuned to their interests and
abilities. In the process, Outley gains insights into how children
and youth interact with their surroundings—how their activities are
influenced by the state of their neighborhood and how the neighborhood
is shaped by the activities of the kids. Outley joined the college
in 2000, moving to the Twin Cities from Houston, and she’s building a
body of work that she envisions turning into a long-term, longitudinal
study. “Previous research studies have indicated that a
neighborhood’s ecological and social risks impact inner city leisure
behavior and lead children to seek out alternative play spaces due to
the prevalence of ecological risks—streets poorly maintained,
uncollected piles of garbage, abandoned buildings, and dilapidated
houses,” Outley says. “Perceptions of these risks were often expressed
in terms of fear, anger, and anxiety.” The impact of such
surroundings and responses to them almost always translate to strong
limitations on physical and recreational activities, usually because
parents will only allow their children to travel so far from home for
safety reasons. Some children get no outside recreation at all because
parents and/or the children themselves are choosing to stay inside
where it feels safer. “But children are showing us that despite what
we see as dismal conditions, they are resilient and able to adapt to
and change that environment, however marginally, to meet their needs,”
she says. “The pride and resourcefulness of children and adult
residents are evident.” For Outley, these results lead her to
encourage solutions, but not of her own devising. Instead, she turns
to her youth volunteer assistants. “I try to listen to youth and give
them the sense of their own power to change their environment,” she
says. “Youth can lead the way if adults can be made to see that kids
aren’t stupid and, in fact, can truly bring positive change to their
parks and streets. When they’re given the chance to do this, they not
only discover the reward in this kind of work, but they change the
community’s perceptions about youth and their place in the world.”
Outley is just beginning a new study that will examine how use of
public parks and recreation services is related to the health of older
adults. “This is an important subject right now considering both the
current budget cutbacks affecting parks and park services and the fact
that we have increasing numbers of people over 50,” Outley says. “We
know that among Americans between 56 and 75, more than six out of 10
use local parks and 20 percent of them can identify specific programs
and services sponsored by local recreation systems. These parks and
services have the potential to offer a big impact on the health of
older Americans. We’re interested in measuring how big an impact.”
—Peggy J. Rader |
