Communities
ISV_Summer2016_web
ISV_Summer2016_web
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
urban development & health<br />
Spaces to play<br />
Greater density for the inner city comes with<br />
implications for open space. Much of the space<br />
is designed for passive use and active uses are<br />
confined to walking and riding a bike.<br />
Glenn Burge asks where will the children and<br />
those that live in these new communities play.<br />
In the slums of Rio de Janerio there<br />
were spaces to play created for children<br />
to kick or throw a ball around.<br />
Somewhere to meet and laugh, make<br />
friends, and breathe harder through<br />
the smog to get fit.<br />
Sure, it may be a harsh concrete<br />
surface, caged in by a rusty fence on<br />
the top of a crumbling building, but it<br />
is a space to play - even in the favelas.<br />
There is somewhere to meet a pretty<br />
basic human need for a place to be<br />
active for fitness and well-being.<br />
Now compare that to the future we<br />
face living in the City of Sydney.<br />
Dozens of cranes are adding the next<br />
60-80 metres high towers of two and<br />
three bedroom apartments from Ultimo-Pyrmont<br />
through to Green Square.<br />
Soon the 60 hectares of the prized Bays<br />
Precinct, and then the huge Central to<br />
Eveleigh project.<br />
Mayor Clover Moore recently enthused<br />
about the City beating its population<br />
forecast three years early as “a huge<br />
vote of confidence in the City’s efforts to<br />
make Sydney an economic powerhouse<br />
that is also a great place to live.”<br />
Sadly, when it comes to making sure<br />
the next 100,000 or so new residents<br />
have guaranteed new sporting fields<br />
and facilities, the line about a great<br />
place to live currently rings hollow.<br />
The failure to guarantee new sporting<br />
facilities as a fundamental principle<br />
of the major new housing projects<br />
in the City of Sydney catchment is an<br />
extraordinary failure of leadership at<br />
both the political and planning levels<br />
from Council, the State Government<br />
and its development agencies.<br />
We are currently seeing an outcry<br />
by Pyrmont-Ultimo residents over the<br />
failure 20 years ago to make sure there<br />
was a school site planned for the future<br />
population. In the next ten years we<br />
are likely to see a greater outcry over<br />
planners ignoring a basic human need<br />
of adequate recreational facilities.<br />
There are thousands of pages of<br />
academic research on the importance<br />
of active recreational sport creating<br />
social capital – through to the irrefutable<br />
health studies of how exercise is<br />
critical to well-being.<br />
Thousands of words are devoted<br />
each year to how children are unfit<br />
compared to previous generations and<br />
the blow-out in health budgets, due to<br />
heart disease and other illness, linked<br />
to a lack of exercise from childhood<br />
onwards.<br />
There are also noble sentiments from<br />
various Government reports. Try this<br />
one: the NSW Government states that<br />
its vision is “of a community that uses<br />
sport and recreation to improve its<br />
well-being.” (Sport and Recreation 2011)<br />
Or this finding: “Participation in<br />
sport and active recreation is seen as<br />
a way to improve personal well-being<br />
and a forum for the creation of social<br />
capital by creating structures with<br />
the community that help strengthen<br />
social connectivity and resilience.”<br />
(Australian Sports Commission).<br />
And another: “It is estimated that<br />
60% of all children aged 5 to 14 years<br />
participated in at least one organised<br />
sporting activity outside school hours”.<br />
(Children’s Participation in Cultural<br />
and Leisure Activities, Australia,<br />
Australian Bureau of Statistics).<br />
For every 10,000 new residents in<br />
the new apartments, at least 40 per<br />
cent will want sporting facilities. With<br />
a younger demographic coming into<br />
apartments the figure is much higher<br />
based on the analysis by age brackets.<br />
26 Inner Sydney Voice • Summer 2015/16 • www.innersydneyvoice.org.au