The Case against... Parks?!

Matt Yglesias makes it:

It seems to me that human beings have some kind of psychological tick that leads them to overestimate the amount of time they’re going to want to spend engaged in outdoor recreating. It’s one thing if you live in California, where the weather’s nice all of the time, but here in the Northeast how much use do we really get out of parks? People don’t go to the park at night, or during the winter, or when it’s raining. Compare that to, say, an apartment building with some retail on the ground floor. People go to stores all the time.

Yeah, too right! Let's pave over Boston Common so we can have space for another Gap!! That sounds awesome.

I think that "psychological tick" that Matt is talking about is that even devout city dwellers often like to walk through green spaces to get to said store... and that's "use", even if it's not as obvious as hanging out and throwing a Frisbee around.

photo by flickr user riacale used under a Creative Commons license