Agreed, but the author is not highlighting the lack of public spaces in general, but specifically a lack of public spaces where there isn’t an expectation to spend money.
In my experience, the expectation to spend is greater at indoor spaces than outdoor, so with this distinction, I agree with the author. If taken as originally written, I would think the number of outdoor public spaces far outweigh the number of libraries in any community, but YMMV.
There are parts of the world where outdoor spaces are basically unusable for most of the year because it’s either too hot or too cold.
When the temperature is reasonable, you can use parks, forests, lakes, rivers, pedestrian malls, bike paths, etc. In some less busy areas you can even use the streets. Street hockey and/or street futbol are pretty common in some areas.
But, extremely hot weather, or extremely cold weather can mean that being outside is terrible. You can dress warmly for winter, and that’s fine to do sports. So, you could go cross-country skiing in the winter in a park. But, you can’t really just hang out outside when it’s -10C.
I would imagine the author is referring to indoor public spaces, to which I wholeheartedly agree.
Depending on where you live, there may not be a lot of outdoor public spaces either
Yep. Most of the towns I lived in looked like this.
Oh god, this is Toronto
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Ah, the geography of nothing. I wish it would die.
Agreed, but the author is not highlighting the lack of public spaces in general, but specifically a lack of public spaces where there isn’t an expectation to spend money.
In my experience, the expectation to spend is greater at indoor spaces than outdoor, so with this distinction, I agree with the author. If taken as originally written, I would think the number of outdoor public spaces far outweigh the number of libraries in any community, but YMMV.
There are parts of the world where outdoor spaces are basically unusable for most of the year because it’s either too hot or too cold.
When the temperature is reasonable, you can use parks, forests, lakes, rivers, pedestrian malls, bike paths, etc. In some less busy areas you can even use the streets. Street hockey and/or street futbol are pretty common in some areas.
But, extremely hot weather, or extremely cold weather can mean that being outside is terrible. You can dress warmly for winter, and that’s fine to do sports. So, you could go cross-country skiing in the winter in a park. But, you can’t really just hang out outside when it’s -10C.