I’ve been reading Monocle since last summer, and I always love how different perspectives can find their place in the magazine. In March’s issue (#171), Des Fitzgerald wrote a commentary about why parks and recreation areas are developed in the first place. He says:
The aim of the city park was never the benign provision of green space for recreation. Its aim was to guide and control — to nudge — the behavior of the urban working classes; to get them out of the pubs and into the air where they could see, and indeed keep an eye on, one another. Most importantly, park was there to maintain that most valuable of assets, the physical power of muscle: the actual productive capacity of industrial capialism, now encased in these men’s suddenly valuable bodies.
I don’t want to believe in this statement. Yet, my ignorance of the topic pushes me to the edge here. Recently, I started reading about managing the commercial and financial world, and my beliefs and thought lines are shaking from the ground. Thinking about why anyone would build a park if there was no commercial gain now makes sense. Although Fitzgerald doesn’t offer any evidence besides one report from the 1833 UK Government committee, what he says can actually hold true: build parks to get people out of bars, boxing games, etc., so they stay healthy and can work more. Although this intention is not something I want to believe, I know that governments always incentivize commercial gains over pure public gains. I wish that governments would ensure that their people are healthier, wealthier, and happier. But I also know that there is no point in being a Pollyanna here. Truths and reality often hurt.
- Source: Monocle’s March issue (#171)
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