Leaving No Child Inside

Yet again, it has been a long time between posts. Probably to no one's surprise, I am getting lazier as I age and enjoying way too many afternoons with a cold drink and a good book after a morning of park and neighborhood wandering. The title of today's post is taken from the work of Richard Louv , who back in 2005 warned of the danger of "nature deficit disorder," especially to children.

Merida, where I have spent several winters and where I write this, is not known as a particularly "green" city. Back when a group of Spanish marauders took over the Mayan city of T'oh in 1572, the perceived problem was keeping nature at bay, not losing all contact with it, and neighborhoods were built at a density that would be illegal in many US cities today. (That is a different rant.) These days, however, the colonial-era "white city" is undergoing something of a green renaissance.

In 2016, Merida developed a green infrastructure plan that is worth exploring in detail at some time, but today, I want to lift up child-friendly park development. The concept is nothing new here: in 1910, the city opened its Parque del Centenario as part of the celebration of Mexico's hundred years as an independent country.

This very urban park at the intersection of two heavily-traveled streets began as a botanical garden but added playgrounds and a zoological park later in its history, and while urban zoos are hardly ideal settings for the animals they house (and one could argue that no zoo is), Centenario to me seems to be filling an important function: it provides central-city children with access to century-old trees and at least an introduction to wildlife--FOR FREE. The animals' enclosures are relatively large, the place is clean, and in my visits few creatures have been exhibiting depressed behaviors. The old trees attract numbers of Merida's wild birds as well; I saw my first summer tanager from a bench in this park. It is not a perfect place, but it is always full of families.

The same is true of Merida's more modern zoo, Animaya. A recent visit on a weekday found the playground busy, the various walkways through the exhibits well-traveled, and the range of human ages well-represented. The park itself is free to enter, and experiences that take visitors closer to some of the larger wildlife exhibits are not prohibitively expensive--5 pesos (approximately 30 cents USD) for the boat ride around the monkeys' island, the train around the larger terrestrial exhibits, or the guided tour around the grassland areas. The city is encouraging visits through the free bus service it calls the Adventure Route, connecting the two zoos with other parks in the western part of town. Even families with limited incomes have access to these imagination- and empathy-expanding activities. (Would that more places would do the same.)

And it's not just zoos. A major city project is Ya'ax'tal, dubbed "the great lung of Merida" which, when complete, will stretch for fifteen kilometers and incorporate not only green space but a bicycle path, concert spaces, and numerous areas for active play. When a friend and I visited recently, we found migratory birds passing through despite the youth of most of the trees. This "paseo verde" is surrounded by residential areas on all sides and is within walking distance of 150,000 Merida residents. In the central city, the old railroad yard has become the Parque de la Plancha, already called "Merida's Central Park," though it is not nearly as large as Olmsted's masterpiece. With walk/bike trails of three different lengths, playgrounds for children of different ages, a skate park, two dog parks, pollinator plantings, and three thousand recently-planted young trees, it is an impressive place.

An older park in a definitely non-tourist neighborhood, the Parque Ecologico del Poniente is home to herons, wood storks, and trees that would have entranced my child self. (What am I saying? They entrance my senior-citizen self.) We frequently hop the local bus to go see what is blooming and which birds and butterflies are active. Here is one of my favorite trees, a flamboyan more than forty feet in height with a spread of perhaps twice that.

One of the most impressive aspects of these Merida parks is that entrance is free of charge, making them available to all. In addition, they are accessible by low-cost or even free public transport, and all are in fairly dense neighborhoods. If we want more children to be outside, we need to make it easy for them to be there. Merida seems to be taking that charge seriously.