According to the Sacramento Bee newspaper on 11/12/2012, the city council received an estimate of almost $690,000 to rebuild downtown Sacramento's McKinley Park after an arson fire incinerated the playground. The money used will not only be used to rebuild the one-third of the playground's burned wood, but also to rebuild the remaining two-thirds as the wood's durability over years of erosion is near its end and may be a danger to the public using the park.
It could possibly be that public parks are symbols of the American Dream as a past time for families and friends to gather to enjoy themselves. Even though other past times like the Dodgers baseball game are far more noticeable, on a local level, parks on the other hand can, to an extent, portray that for an average family having these small past times are part of American family values; in fact, the people of the city may feel responsible to build these recreational parks as way to protect those values.
What does everyone think?
The article can be found here:
Repairing McKinley Park, Sacramento Bee
I've never thought of the public park in such a way, specifically the public park being a symbol of the American Dream. Just like in the Lawn People, people can be see in the present day being drawn to the park for social interactions. This may be a stretch, but couldn't the public park be a substitute for the frontier and Manifest Destiny in today's world? Nowadays, people are unable to expand into more land like the past, but rather have to make new connections and relationships with other citizens. Thus, the public park works as a vector for people to interact and grow socially, while at the same time, enrich the American family values mentioned above.
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