My city, Chicago, is packed with playgrounds. There are four within a ten minute walk of my house. If we want to go further afield, there are also several large

My city, Chicago, is packed with playgrounds. There are four within a ten minute walk of my house. If we want to go further afield, there are also several larger parks with a bit more room to run around. Some of the community gardens set aside space for kids to play in the dirt, and the Park District is starting to get in on the "natural playscapes" thing. Our apartment building has its own patio space, a reasonably large butterfly garden, and some gardening plots in the back yard. We've set aside one of the garden plots for the kids to do whatever they want in (last summer's cherry tomato harvest was a sight to see), and turned another into a sandbox. We spend lots and lots of time outside in those sorts of communal spaces. For my part, I feel sorry for kids living in these intensively inward-facing suburban environments where there are no sidewalks or community spaces, and kids are dependent on adults with cars to help them get together with their friends.