Play and the City: How to Create Places and Spaces To Help Us Thrive

by Alex Bonham

Overview

Play is essential, for children but also adults. It's how we relax and revitalise ourselves, build and maintain friendships, try new things, learn and innovate.

Cities have always been sites of play, bringing people together and pushing the boundaries of what is humanly possible. And now we need our cities to encourage and facilitate play of all kinds more than ever. If we want a world for our children to play in, we need to have a go at doing things differently.

A city that is enjoyable to live in - that provides welcoming spaces, plentiful resources, and an attitude of 'yes, you can' - is a playful city. A city that is good for eight-year-olds as well as eighty-year-olds is a city that's good for all of us.

By looking at how different cities across space and time have sought to encourage and facilitate play, Bonham shows us how to conceptualise our own contemporary city as a game, and encourages us to become participants rather than spectators.

Play the city! Get involved, make a difference and help to bring your city back to life. There is help here to identify opportunities, build a team of friends and allies, take part - and win!

It's time to make your move.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472144799
Publisher:	Little, Brown Book Group
Publication date:	07/08/2021
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
File size:	692 KB

About the Author

ALEX BONHAM was raised in the UK, and worked in publishing and the arts before travelling overland to her mother's native New Zealand in 2008. She now lives in Auckland with her husband, two children and a pack of dogs and campaigns for a more vibrant and sustainable, all-ages-friendly city. She has two Masters degrees, one in Law, the other in Drama and she is currently working towards a doctorate on the Playful City.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The vital importance of play for all ages xiii

Part 1 Play and You

1 Play and pleasure: which is which? 3

2 Playing to learn 11

Copying and attunement 11

Testing 16

Evolving play 20

3 What is a game? 27

What makes a game good to play? 29

Do the opposite 32

Trends in play 34

4 Why don't we play (more)? 39

The dark side of play: Cheats, spoilsports and crazy stuff 40

The right to play 45

Play, power and identity 47

Choosing homogenous vs diverse societies 50

The challenge of joining in 53

Impostor syndrome 54

5 Easing yourself back into play 57

Making time 59

Adopting a play mindset 64

What sort of player are you? 67

Part 2 Play and the City

6 Play and pleasure 75

Pleasure and the city; Gardens and girls 76

Play and the Proto-city 79

7 Play in the city over time 83

Happy cities - the new urban ideal 108

The city: A lovely place to visit, a lovely place to leave 113

8 Winners and losers 115

The oppressed: Slaves, immigrants, minorities, and the poor 115

The excluded 120

Women in the city 121

Kids in the city: Angels 123

Youth in the city: Devils 126

9 Conceptualising the city as a game (that is good to play) 131

Key places for a playful city 135

Linking it all up 149

10 Planning the playful city 153

Is your city playful? 158

Playful cities for everyone 162

The best cities are complex and contradictory 174

Part 3 Playing the City

11 How you can bring more play into the city 183

Enjoy the city 184

Attunement or finding your place in the city 185

The city as a place to test new experiences 188

Observing mastery in the city 189

Joining in 190

Making an offer 193

Adopting a (new) identity in the city 196

12 Reconnecting to nature in the city 199

Water 199

Snow 202

Hills, mountains and volcanoes 203

Natural rhythms 205

13 Your play personality in the city 215

14 Playing on the edge 241

Playing at breaking the rules 242

Breaking the rules to find solutions 247

Play as a way to explore possibilities 251

The opportunities for and dangers of breaking the system 253

15 Playing together nicely 257

The team of five million 257

Filling the gaps 261

Sustaining enthusiasm in big projects 266

16 Levelling up 269

An encouraging final point 273

References 275

Acknowledgements 289

Index 291

Editorial Reviews

The scope is broad and, like a literary game of parkour, the highly readable narrative jumps from one fast-paced fragment to the next - a string of facts, interlaced, but travelling in no defined direction ... Urges us to wander the city in wonderment: look up, look down, find a new shortcut. But most of all, turn up and join in—Kete Books

From the Publisher