 |
Home | Search | Browse | About IPO | Staff | Links |
|
Home | Search | Browse | About IPO | Staff | Links |
|
This report is drawn with one important qualification: when the fine points of a particular discourse must be interpreted even the most expert translator or interpretator will have difficulty and be compelled to drop a sentence or two. The language and cultural barriers are tremendous blocks to good understanding. For example, your high school language course is adequate to help you distinguish between "Damas" and "Herren" but when you get inside and find you are all mixed up the shock and confusion is enough to block performance. Nevertheless, each person does, and leaves with a laugh on society for establishing all of these many and confusing walls and barriers. So within the limits of our power to understand what we see and hear, the following report on several countries in Europe is presented. Before getting to the specifics on parks and recreation some of our general impressions should be recorded. First, without benefit of statistics our impression is that all of western Europe is growing at a pace equal to ours. From most casual appearances the percent of adults over children is greater, and youth in Europe seems less endowed than in America. Compared to America the people of Europe work harder over longer hours, with more seriousness and frugality. Another observation that the proud American is reluctant to make is that from Paris to Venice, although there is obvious evidence of poverty, there are very few slums or ghettos as we know them here. The economy is bursting out all over. New apartments, perhaps 60 to 120 units per structure are being built everywhere, but only a very few new single-family dwellings. There are many new subways, new industrial plants, and new governmental buildings. There is some new university construction. After World War II, the bicycles clogged the streets, and today it is the compact car. These little vehicles are parked anywhere in spite of being ticketed as in America. The consumer market such as wearing apparel, foods, and household items, is as good as in America with prices on many items the equivalent of ours. There are no more camera bargains! With this economic progress the average tax the individual pays in the countries we visited is 22% of his personal income. The war is pretty well past with most damage repaired. Naturally all agree that such progress would not have been attained were it not for American help. There are many Americans still in Europe working both for public and private agencies. While Europeans appreciate such brotherhood, they seem to resent the
Illinois Parks and Recreation 134 September/October 1970
fact that the help was needed—they are proud people and want to be self-sufficient. They are patient with the USA administration policy on Southeast Asia. They do not reveal a fear of Russia, but for practical reasons they wish national barriers would melt away. They even express the wish that the USA were a part of the European Common Market. Working against such factors as improved transportation, technology, economics, and a modern social outlook, is the proud old regional or provincial history: The Bavarians dislike the Prussians; northern Italians wish the southern would work harder; the Swiss protects the autonomy of the Cantons, et cetera. The European recognizes that leisure and recreation can be new elements in society that may preserve local identification, cultural heritages, and at the same time, bring all together in a universal fellowship. The only one they will be able to quarrel with will then be the umpire and he is paid to take the heat! The intellectuals of Europe recognize this and are making speeches similar to those we heard from Jay B. Nash, Ed Lindemann, the Neumeyer's and our other philosophers of the 30's. There is an enlightened anticipation for the importance of leisure both within the so-called "recreation profession" as well as among lay people. For example, there is currently appearing advertisements for "The Resort Fund" which is being organized in Luxemburg. This fund is an investment fund to capitalize leisure industries and particularly resorts, camps and similar investment possibilities. Not only are these leaders of Europe apparently getting on the band-wagon, but the European has the advantage in that there seems to be an absence of the traumas that affect America. There is no racial war; there is no breast-beating over alcoholism or tobacco; there is little worry over narcotics or the behavior of youth. Youth simply falls in line or gets clobbered! School buildings in Geneva and Milan in some circumstances are 2 to 4 hundred years old. Only this year, 1970, will the Geneva schools experiment with coeducation! After such observations the visitor to Europe can only wonder whether we are over-indulging our youth and our educational system. Parks were visited in Paris, Geneva, Lausanne, Montreux, Luzern, Lindau, Munich, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Milan and Stresa. We listened to reports on parks in Zurich, Cologne, London and the Scandanavian countries. Considering these parks in terms of design, construction, usage, and mainteanance, no student of park management has completed his education until he has spent at least a summer term in Paris, Geneva, or Milan! These parks are superbly designed, extensively used as our photographs will indicate and well maintained. For example in Milan a pleasant Sunday brought out an attendance every bit as heavy as in Lincoln Park of Chicago, yet by the time we departed from our hotel at 10:00 a.m. on Monday morning the litter pickup was complete. Furthermore the clean-up was done by a few three-man crews equipped with fagot brooms, primitive hand tools and an old fashioned pushcart. There were no mechanical sweepers, dumpster trucks or such equipment that we depend upon so much here in America. Nearly all of these parks are aesthetically beautiful horticultural artworks with many well cared for old trees—some planted by man 400-600 years ago. There are shrubbery beds as well pruned and cared for as our lawns. While turf or lawns of Europe are well cared for, only in Geneva was there a lawn comparable to our Blue Merion. Only in Geneva did we observe power mowers, and these the variety we use for our residence lawns. There was no mowing equipment
Illinois Parks and Recreation 135 September/October 1970 such as the gang mowers we use on our golf courses. The maintenance men in European parks work hard and long hours at a dedicated pace with primitive—by our standards—tools. There are few new parks in Europe where the governing body went out to purchase land and develop a new park. There are few neighborhood planned parks for recreational use of the neighborhood. However, this policy is now receiving much lip-service in several cities and ten or twenty years from now this service pattern will be much in evidence. We saw two such prototypes, one in Geneva and another in Salzburg. Both were of excellent modern—almost futuristic—design. This same trend applies to installations of playgrounds. With certain very outstanding new exceptions, the rule is that playground equipment is very sparsely installed, and that of primitive, and even hazardous design. The few new playgrounds we saw had rather well designed equipment of German manufacture. If marketing costs are not prohibitive, Europe should be a tremendous market for our American equipment. Swimming pools, of excellent design, are provided in many of the cities on our itenerary. Some of these pools were designed for competition, but many were designed for only recreational swimming and sun bathing. The general architectural design was usually of very high order, but for details of plumbing, electrical service, air conditioning, and similar utilities the American pool is far ahead. Can you imagine a park athletic field with five -5-fully uniformed soccer games in progress simultaneously? Such we found attracting perhaps a thousand spectators in the suburbs of Munich. European parks do not offer baseball diamonds or football fields. The only equivalent was in Paris where much park surfacing is in screened gravel— obviously done to reduce maintenance—but providing an excellent surface for La Bocci which was being played by literally thousands on a Sunday afternoon. There were few hard surface playing areas. Tennis courts, for example, were mostly En-Tou-Cas, very well maintained. Parking space was notably lacking and the drivers jumped the curb to park, parking tickets notwithstanding. The lake or river fronts in all cities, except Venice, were well utilized as parks. By American standards these waterways were sadly polluted. Nevertheless, there was much advantage taken for boating or simply landscaping the water front. Here and there an outdoor cafe offers that very ancient, but very popular sport of girl-watching. Perhaps we should call that "people watching". The marinas provide much space for one-design sail boats and few power boats. Moorage is either floating, dry, or dockside. There are no such luxuries as shore-power, telephones or water supply. Although these cities all seem to be "crawling with people and all sorts of kooks" there seems to be no severe vandalism. Toilets and restrooms are often old but reasonably clean. The only defacement in evidence was on the masonry of public structures—that was peace symbols, or "anarchic" graffitti. This does not imply either that European parks are models of efficient maintenance as we have some photos of the Munich Zoo, and in several other cities of our tour where maintenance is inferior. Can you imagine in your city hall, nightly, a four-piece string ensemble playing Mozart, Shubert, etc. on a 52-week a year schedule, drawing an excess of capacity audience at $1.25 (U.S.) and you must check your topcoat and packages at 25¢ (U.S.) each? Such we found in the Mayor's conference room in Salzburg. Readers knowledgeable in the music arts way recognize what this writer heard was a concert of the Salzburg Palace Concert series which is every bit as much public recreation as the Grant Park Concert of the Chicago Park District. In this same complex, the Mirabell Palace where "Sound of Music" was filmed, in the gardens there was a 40 piece military band playing a concert to about 1,000 persons with both players and audiences standing! As we approached the entrance to the Milan Zoo we passed a fountain with a reflecting basin perhaps fifty feet in diameter. But our attention was attracted by a three-deep crowd of children and adults intensely interested in something in this basin. Could someone have fallen in? No, this was merely Sunday afternoon when the youngsters with Dad's help come to this particular fountain to sail model boats. There were few golf courses in this part of Europe but of course skiing, mountain climbing, family camping, sailing and boating, and simply touring seem to substitute for this sport. Recreation programming as we understand it here in America is only emerging in Europe. The European is still resource oriented and believes first in building, and then follow with program. He states that after resources are assured, program will follow. Actually program is now well under way but in a different setting. Specifically this is the club—viz. Auto, Ski, Camping, Hiking, Cycle, Gymnastic, Tennis, Soccer, and ad infinitum. These clubs are closely knit and may carry on from generation to generation attracting the same family groups. And actually the family is the recreation group in Europe today either in camping, touring, swimming, and a host of similar pursuits, even nudism! One of the problems that the European leaders recognize they must ultimately face is to bring recreational services into the very limited space between the high density apartment units now being constructed. These newly developing areas hardly leave enough space for service vehicles, parking for residents let alone space for children to play. Yet we have stated the child of Europe does not seem to receive the same community attention, or endowment of the child in America, and this is more evidence. Another recreation program receiving as much attention in Europe is the industrial program. Industrial leaders have caught on to the values of such activities, and with the lack of services in the community, are serving a great need. The pattern is much similar to Industrial Recreation in America. This concludes a review of our observations and we must now await the publication of the proceedings of the Biennale Europeenne des Loisirs to evaluate our Continued on Page 140 Illinois Parks and Recreation 136 September/October 1970 A Park Man Visits Europe Continued from Page 136 accuracy of observation and reporting. Although there are many tremendous ideas and accomplishments in parks and recreation in Europe, there are many problems. Some of these nations have no financial problems in recreation, but need ideas and solutions to other problems. For the American there is a tremendous opportunity in Europe for new ideas and inspiration and this is the value of the International meeting. The International forum is not one for only the professional as at this time there seems to be few opportunities for international employment. There is little likelihood that a German city will seek an American professional. Yet there are many new ideas, reinforcement for older ideas, and new ways of doing old things that the American can learn in Europe. At the very least his aesthetic appreciation can be considerably enriched. The International forum can also be of value to the board member, the entreprenner in recreation, and the recreation educator. Actually the attendance to the Geneva conference exceeded 500 and the attendance from among these categories was as great as the professionals in attendance. There was also good attendance from city planners, other public officials, and a substantial attendance of private agencies. The exposition was most outstanding and in design, variety of exhibits, and in every other way exceeded anything done with similar exhibits in America. The exhibit was a combination of auto show, boat Illinois Parks and Recreation 140 September/October 1970 show, garden show, do-it-yourself exhibit, et cetera. There were 160 exhibitors who paid $5.00 a square foot for the privilege of exhibiting, who had the expense of travelling, and who in some cases set exhibits as large as 40 x 60 feet! The literature, the design of the exhibits from the graphic arts aspect was superb! In conclusion, it pays us to lift our sights from our day to day setting. Not only does it give us a lift, but in this world that seems to become smaller with each new scientific achievement we realize as Marshal McLuhan would have it that we live in a global village. This global interdependence is the result of many factors—increased trade, instant communication, new technologies and the multinational corporations. We cannot afford to ignore our international problems and yet solution is made so difficult by language barriers and provincialism. We must accept interdependence as a new fact of life and turn to the United Nations and organizations such as our International Recreation Association. Despite imperfections, the barriers mentioned, the forums should be used not only to achieve world peace but to improve standards of living at home as well as abroad. Illinois Parks and Recreation 141 September/October 1970 |
|
|
