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KaBOOM! Playspace Finder Assists Cities in Charting Public Parks, Playgrounds
by Ben Duda
 Taking constant detailed inventory of public parks can develop into a difficult task for cities large and small, but it’s also an undertaking that can produce unforeseen benefits.
Brentwood, Calif., used the KaBOOM! Playspace Finder — a free Google-based searchable directory that helps parents, community members and children locate places to play — to conduct an audit of the city’s playspaces as part of its application for KaBOOM! Playful City USA recognition in 2008.
Located in the Bay Area and one of the fastest growing communities in California, Brentwood’s population swelled from 10,000 to more than 50,000 from 1990 to 2005. Along with the city’s staggering growth came a commitment to maintain a significant proportion of public green space to the city’s population, which contributed to Brentwood being named a Playful City USA community in 2008. City officials used the KaBOOM! Playspace Finder as an itemization tool to chart and keep track of the constant additions to public parks made necessary by the population surge.
“We used the Playspace Finder to take a close look at what we were building and to take a detailed inventory,” Brentwood Recreation Manager Poldina Scherff said. “The tool allowed us to realize assets we had within each individual park and make sure they aligned with our activities guide, which we publish three times per year and distribute to the community.”
Officials from Tucson, Ariz., received assistance from citizens and turned a requirement for public parks inventory into a significant benefit when the city applied for recognition in the KaBOOM! Playful City USA program in 2007. A component of the application, Tucson completed a “Playspace Audit” and city officials realized gaps existed in public park services for portions of the community.
As a result, the city forged an agreement with a local school district to open school playgrounds during out-of-school hours. This shared use arrangement significantly increased the access, quality and quantity of places to play for children in the community.
“The agreement allowed the school yards to become additional playspace and in exchange the city provided maintenance during the out-of-school time,” Tucson Mayor Robert E. Walkup said. “The [Playful City USA] application process allowed us to compile a detailed inventory of our playspaces and helped to us to recognize gaps in our system. From this, we were able to create a master plan and prioritize current and future projects to best meet the needs of our community.”
The examples set forth by Brentwood and Tucson helped inspire KaBOOM! to embark on a campaign to create the nation’s first map of playspaces. To help populate the map, on March 23, KaBOOM! began enlisting the help of individuals and groups across the country to add 100,000 playspaces in 100 days to the KaBOOM! Playspace Finder, which includes photos, ratings and details about a variety of playspaces, including playgrounds, public parks & trails, sports fields, ice rinks and skateparks.
KaBOOM! is also teaming with Julianne Hough, two-time winner of Dancing With the Stars’ and Mercury Nashville recording artist, in the campaign. Individuals can choose to support one of six charities and Hough will donate $1 for each playspace added. The participating charities are America’s Promise Alliance, First Book, Jumpstart, National Wildlife Federation, Shaping America’s Health and YMCA of the USA. Individuals also have the chance to win autographed items from Hough and weekly prizes such as an Amazon Kindle 2 from KaBOOM! for their participation.
Within the next month, a new KaBOOM! Playspace Finder widget will launch. The widget, a smaller, customizable version of the KaBOOM! Playspace Finder, can be placed on any website. The new version will allow municipalities to create highly localized playspace directories for defined geographical areas such as individual cities and counties.
More information on the KaBOOM! 100,000 playspaces campaign, which continues through June 30, can be found at www.kaboom.org/100000. More information on the KaBOOM! Playful City USA program is available at www.kaboom.org/playfulcityusa. Applications for 2009 recognition are due by June 1.
Ben Duda is the senior manager of the KaBOOM! National Campaign for Play.
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