Don't it always seem to go. That you don't know what you got. Till it's gone. They paved paradise. And put up a parking lot. -Joni Mitchell
I grew up in Corbeau Town, so-called because in the 19th and early 20th centuries there was a beach where Wrightson Road is now and ships from "the Main" landed cattle to be slaughtered there. The entrails attracted corbeau by the thousands, most of which seem to have now disappeared. The few remaining have apparently followed me into the Diego Martin Valley, flying high overhead or posing haughtily, like Dracula at midnight, on the light poles along the highway. Every afternoon when I was five or six and my sisters a bit younger, my mother would bathe us, dress us in clean clothes and at around four o'clock walk us up the road and around the corner to Victoria Square where we would meet up with other like-minded mothers and play "hide and seek" and "hop scotch" and other games that, without thinking, taught us how to socialise with others and developed coordination, muscle, stamina and bone density, most of which, claims to the contrary by the pharmaceutical companies, is laid down in childhood by the age of 18.
My mother, in the meantime, would sit down on one of the park benches, old but clean and sturdy, with no other marks than the natural wear from people sitting on them, meet up with her friends and other mothers and talk away the hours from four to six. In those far-off days twilight always began at six when we would wend our way home for a dinner of cocoa tea and bread and butter and, if you were lucky, a slice of sausage. Then, exhausted, by eight we were in bed. On Sundays there was always the expectancy that the Police Band would set up in the clearing in the centre of the square where the various paths that bisected the square met, and serenade the afternoon away. Victoria Square was an integral part of my life as a child. I still like to go there, sit down on my mother's favourite bench and while away the time thinking of the children I played with and wondering where they are now. It doesn't last long because today there is always some character making an offer certain to raise your pressure, and pressure you to leave.
We have all of these wonderful, if now relatively unused, squares and parks-Lord Harris, Woodford, Adam Smith, Victoria, King George, the Savannah (what's left of it)-in Port-of-Spain, courtesy mainly of the Spanish. I forgot who it was said that, upon conquering a country, the Spanish built a square, the French a fort and the English a prison. Back in Europe, the English love their parks, the French their gardens and the good old Spanish their squares. It is simply enthralling to arrive in a European city of several million and see the number of parks and squares and gardens and greenery. According to David McCullough in his just published book, The Greater Journey, Americans arriving in Paris for the first time in the 1830s marvelled at the number and quality of the city's parks and wondered "how much city life at home could be improved by public spaces of such beauty. At home the value of city property was reckoned almost exclusively by what could be built on it."
That's almost 200 years ago and we have not moved on despite the amount of evidence showing that public open spaces with trees are good for everyone. For example, the average tree in a park traps dust, releases about 13 pounds of oxygen and absorbs 26 pounds of carbon dioxide a year. But then, the same Americans marvelled at how the French drank coffee with hot milk, one of the characteristics of a civilised society, something they and others have still not managed to get right. Open public spaces are central to our life and their lack of use impacts negatively on our lifestyle. There are so many things that keep us physically apart: cars and highways, tall buildings, malls, backyard patios, cells, computers and TV. To understand each other, we need to see each other. Humans, like those opportunists, dogs, are the greatest readers of body language.
Communities depend on public spaces as a place for friends and neighbours to gather, to develop social harmony; to get to know and respect each other; to develop a sense of identity and oneness and to pass on public knowledge about what's happening in the community, rather than bad talk each other on radio. Democracy depends on the gathering of citizens and squares are made for this. Just think of our own Woodford Square and the impact it has had and continues to have on our politics. Tahir Square in Cairo is another that immediately comes to mind. Open public spaces are not only good for children, and they are certainly not luxuries.
