Because the US is developed as an urbanite-hostile wasteland, devoid of third places[1], where people are kept out of the streets by design, and are goaded into existing only in the following locations:
1. Home
2. Work
3. Car
4. Somewhere you will be spending money - particularly, if it involves connecting with other people
Parks exist, but I can't recall the last time I met anyone at a park. The interactions are usually limited to "Hello" and commenting on the weather as you pass someone on a trail.
There are exceptions, of course. And there are shaded playgrounds too. But there's a reason most people meet their spouses online these days. The Internet has become our third place because our actual places keep us isolated.
NYC is on of the few exceptional American cities, but it, too, is not immune to the blight (so excellently described by N.K. Jemisin in her ode to The City[3] that only New Yorkers will fully appreciate).
I have a different experience in Bellevue, WA. I take my kids to parks multiple times a week. There's natural shade from the tall trees here, and some of the parks without natural shade have artificial shade. The parks here are clean, well-maintained, full of families, and devoid of trash and tents. Most neighborhoods have a park within walking distance, and it can be fun to explore new parks because there is usually ample parking.
You're right though, it's uncommon to meet new people at parks. "Single and ready to mingle" isn't a demographic that goes to these parks. At best you might get the contact info for the parents of kids the same age as yours.
> At best you might get the contact info for the parents of kids the same age as yours.
This is actually one of the better ways to make friends as an adult, especially as a new parent whose time is limited.
Your single friends are unlikely to have a schedule similar to yours - you can't as easily go out for beers after work, and you're almost certainly not staying out 'til 3am with a young child at home without some pre-scheduling.
But at the playground, you have people who have at least one thing in common with you, which means a common topic as an ice-breaker or an on-going conversation. You have people who'll understand your schedule, and your general availability. You have a place where you'll both be coming to regularly enough to either build up a rapport that can turn into friendship, but also a low-stakes environment where you can drift apart if you're incompatible without feeling bad.
As a parent, a playground is arguably the best possible place to make new friends as an adult.
Lets look at Singapore, a well developed and highly planned urban city state with many well utilized parks and green spaces, highly walkable as well as having a world-class public transport network, located on the equator, with 75%+ humidity and a high UV index for most of the day.
The vast majority of playgrounds are entirely unsheltered.
It seems to me that that logic could be applied to playgrounds in general regardless of whether they include shade.
Playgrounds have gotten much better than they were a few decades ago when I was a kid. I don’t see any reason that that can’t continue with putting an emphasis on including shade.
This accounts for about 90% of the problem with everything. Voter turnout in my state in the primary, where we have mail-in voting for all (IE: no excuse for people not to vote), during a presidential election year, was below 50%. And then people complain about their elected officials! People don't attend public meetings, they don't contact their elected officials, they don't come to political party meetings or get involved -- but those same people will tell you to your face that both parties are the same and that they feel powerless to fix government! Especially at a local level -- school board, city council, county, and state -- the average citizen has so stinking much opportunity that they don't even realize their own power! You want to get something fixed? Set up a meeting or two with your electeds. Don't get the response you want? Find ways to create a citizens movement. Can't get what you want in your municipality? Find a sympathetic state legislator or two who can push from the top town. Really upset? Run for office yourself or help get the people you want elected.
Canopies are made of fabric and degrade; they need maintenance and replacement, which isn't going to happen in America. Instead, they'll be put up once (at great expense, with some company profiting handsomely, and it just so happens that company is owned by the brother of someone important on the city council), and then just left there. After a few years, there will be holes in the canopy and it'll look like the movie "I Am Legend" (where the city degrades quickly because all the people are gone and no one's doing maintenance), and no one will want to play there. Parents will complain, but the city will push back because fixing it requires demolishing and rebuilding the entire playground, which is very expensive and not in the city's budget.
They're relatively cheap and easy to replace, having a neighbourhood play action committee can handle the costs every five years to a decade with regular bake sales.
What's more of an issue is
> Canopies are made of [ Plastic ] fabric
typically knitted polyethylene blend | woven polypropylene. The degradation of tens of thousands of kilometers of plastic shadecloth each year is a big source of microplastics in the environment .. which has been getting some bad press of late.
That is still a bargain for the services that the tree provides.
The best "premium shadow package" available on the market. Comprises: filtered light, relaxing breeze sounds, noise blocker, chirping birds and flowers, dumb squirrels frolicking around and fresh soil, all in the same package for just ten dollars a sapling.
$10 for a sapling is extremely cheap. That's more in the line of what you can expect to pay for a 2 year old seedling (ref: https://monroecd.org/tree-sale-2024/). But I agree. I've planted 10k+ seedlings (most not personally; I hired a crew). It's actually fun to watch them grow. Douglas Firs take about 5 years to grow to 5' (from 18"). After that, they grow 3'+ a year. Not being a food source, they don't attract wildlife though nor do they have flowers.
Today i learned USA city kids have a common enemy with italian kids on vacation: Scorching hot full metal slides that will leave 3rd degree burns on your body
50 years ago at my elementary school playground in the US I remember a scorching reflective metal slide that would slide you right into pool of mud.
I haven't seen one of these slides in America in at least 30 years. Any new playground I have seen is made of plastic and/or wood but I guess that doesn't get the clicks.
Those are the worse. Its literally a sheet of metal, under the sun without any shade. Those were either 90C in the summer or -30C in the winter. No inbetween
And in 30-50 years, people will rediscover the power of photocatalyzed reactions in the skin and portray modern folks as foolish, out-of-touch Edwardian prisses who tried to represses the immune system of the young with shade cloth. It's just a matter of time.
My US town has been adding shade structures to new and existing playgrounds. They don’t always meet the mark though and I wonder if they’re using architects who model the Sun to choose their placement.
Because the US is developed as an urbanite-hostile wasteland, devoid of third places[1], where people are kept out of the streets by design, and are goaded into existing only in the following locations:
1. Home
2. Work
3. Car
4. Somewhere you will be spending money - particularly, if it involves connecting with other people
Parks exist, but I can't recall the last time I met anyone at a park. The interactions are usually limited to "Hello" and commenting on the weather as you pass someone on a trail.
There are exceptions, of course. And there are shaded playgrounds too. But there's a reason most people meet their spouses online these days. The Internet has become our third place because our actual places keep us isolated.
NYC is on of the few exceptional American cities, but it, too, is not immune to the blight (so excellently described by N.K. Jemisin in her ode to The City[3] that only New Yorkers will fully appreciate).
The playgrounds follow the overall trend.
[1] https://esl.uchicago.edu/2023/11/01/third-places-what-are-th...
[2] https://www.theknot.com/content/online-dating-most-popular-w...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_City_We_Became