There also ought be more public spaces in general. When everything is all zoned up to be residential or commercial, there's nowhere to go without a credit card.
My area recently zoned a block of unused space to be used for dirt jumps and left some shovels and a wheelbarrow there. Its now an awesome place to go hang out and ride a bike. Every day when school finishes you see a group of about 10 kids riding from school to the jumps.
It cost the council probably less than $1000 to turn a block of weeds in to an awesome social space.
This is becoming more of a problem, at least in the city I live. Greenspaces and public parks are being replaced with condos and apartment complexes with their own walled off private courtyards and such. Parks, little groves of trees and stuff are the kinds of places we'd hang out as teenagers a lot.
Which city is that? Most cities are unwilling to sell off public parks to private developers. Do you have specific examples of parks that were built over and not replaced with something accessible to the public?
In South Australia there was recently protests to stop a parklands getting turned in to a supermarket. I never heard what ended up happening there but the council was pushing hard to get it converted because "Shoppers are demanding more choice"
I'd rather not be too specific, but in the lower mainland in BC. Yeah, the one that used to be just down the road from me that's about to be turned, first into a giant pit, then into a large complex of highrises.
