Where Have All the Swing Sets Gone?

By Laird Harrison/Oakland, Calif.

It was bright but cool in the backyard of the Duck Pond preschool in Oakland, Calif.--perfect climbing weather. So Chloe Fillinger pulled herself to the top of the play structure, where she reached for the fire fighter's pole, her three-year-old body poised for a fast ride to the bottom. Her hand flailed in empty space. "Cynthia!" she called to her teacher. "The pole is gone!"

Across the country, school fire fighter's poles are falling to hacksaws. Day-care-center swings are tumbling into trash bins. Parks are losing their seesaws, churches their jungle gyms, housing developments their slides. Whole playgrounds have closed, all because safety regulators have raised their standards higher than many owners can afford to reach.

Concerns about safe playgrounds are not new; the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission first published guidelines in 1981. But the rules have gradually become stricter, and in recent years, courts, insurance companies and state governments have given these rules the force of law. Now, with federal regulations passed last year requiring wheelchair access to climbing structures, some playground operators can't afford to replace what they have removed. Says City College of New York environmental psychologist Roger Hart: "I think it's gone too far."

For sure, there are play structures that are unsafe. Many built before the 1970s were little more than steel towers over bare asphalt. "A lot of the playgrounds we grew up on were really kind of instruments of torture," says Kathryn Dresslar, a legislative aide who helped bring about new California regulations. In 1999, according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, a quarter of a million American kids went from playgrounds to emergency rooms.

Even without the new regulations, some playground operators could see that changes were needed. "There were horrible metal pieces and concrete that could cut our children," says Judy Davidson, who successfully lobbied to have climbing equipment removed from Community Elementary School 236, where she teaches in the Bronx, N.Y. But in two years of writing grant proposals, Davidson has been unable to replace what a bulldozer demolished in a few minutes. "You know how important it is for them to have a place to climb and play," she laments.

And therein lies one of the biggest problems for many parks, schools and churches. A medium-size structure that fully complies with federal guidelines costs around $100,000. Adding to the price are new regulations, issued in October 2000 under the Americans with Disabilities Act, requiring that at least half of every playground be accessible to children in wheelchairs.

Even if they had the money, many small churches and day-care centers don't have the space. The guidelines require that swings be set apart from any other structure, with a clearance both in front and back equal to twice the height of the swings, and 6 ft. of clearance on either side. That's most of the space in some private playgrounds. And since a wheelchair ramp must be 12 ft. long for every foot in height, it is practically impossible for some playgrounds to include structures more than a few feet above ground level.

In California, where playground owners have until 2003 to comply, swings must be removed from many preschools. No other state has gone so far. But in many states, insurance companies are refusing to cover structures that don't comply with the guidelines, and courts are using them to determine liability. In Connecticut, some parks have yet to replace all the seesaws and merry-go-rounds torn out in 1997 following a court decision that stripped cities of immunity from injuries at public recreation areas. Many day-care centers in North Carolina had to replace all their playground equipment when the state made federal guidelines a condition for licensure.

The rush to revamp playgrounds has set off a boom in the playground-equipment industry, whose members helped write the new guidelines. It has created a lucrative sideline for some insurance adjusters who, with a few days' work, can become certified playground inspectors and earn as much as $1,000 for scrutinizing a preschool's backyard. Many of these newly minted inspectors are treating their regulations like the word of God, says Teri Hendy, who teaches inspectors for the National Recreation and Park Association. "I've had people fail toilet seats in playground bathrooms for head entrapment. They are failing trees because the branches are protrusion hazards."

The upheaval is likely to continue for some time as playground safety standards are continually revised. In 1998 University of Northern Iowa researchers found safety problems at more than 90% of the 3,052 playgrounds they surveyed nationwide.

Whether the new guidelines are preventing injuries is a matter of debate. While visits to emergency rooms for playground injuries doubled from 1976 to 1999, there are no figures on the number of playgrounds for either year. Joe Frost, University of Texas at Austin professor emeritus of early childhood education, believes that more kids are being injured because they are such couch potatoes that they don't have the strength and agility to protect themselves. The softer, rounder, lower equipment that is streaming off assembly lines contributes to the problem because it doesn't build skills, according to Frost. "We see a certain dumbing down," he says.

In Andover, Mass., safety inspectors closed the sprawling Dragon's Lair dreamed up and hammered together by local parents and kids in 1985. Last year parent volunteers raised $100,000 and bought standardized pieces for a less fanciful construction. "It's not as good as the old one," says Paul James D'Ambra, 8. "I liked the bridge that you could crawl through and the slide and the tires and the secret passages."

It doesn't have to be that way, say playground researchers. They wish American designers would take their lead from northern European "adventure playgrounds" that feature running water, gardens, toys and pieces kids can put together and take apart themselves. Such playgrounds are inexpensive to set up and not particularly dangerous, but they do require the supervision of full-time play leaders, something American park departments haven't included in their budgets since the 1960s. The proliferation of sterile, static playgrounds is a symptom of American parents' obsession with control, says environmental psychologist Hart. "What's unfortunate is this paranoia about children's safety and the idea you can manage risk by removing challenge. Kids have to learn how to make their own behavior safe." And if they don't find some risk in their playgrounds, he is concerned that they will seek it in much more dangerous places.