Why ‘playable’ cities are successful cities, according to one expert

EDITOR’S NOTE: Knox Pages sent reporter Grant Pepper to Austin, Texas for the 2019 South by Southwest convention. From March 8 to 12, he’ll attend conferences where industry leaders will discuss the future of healthcare, technology, downtown development and more. Each day, he’ll report back on his findings. The goal? To spark conversation about what’s next, and how this region can be a part of it.

AUSTIN, TEXAS – When Ryan Swanson graduated from architecture school, he and his friends packed into a clunky, white station wagon and drove to New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward.

It had been six years since Hurricane Katrina, but the ward was still left in socioeconomic ruin; only 37 percent of its residents had returned since flooding ravaged the area. Crime and unemployment rates were high.

Swanson was not there to ‘save’ the ward – he couldn’t. Instead, he was there to get the ball rolling. Literally.

He and his friends got out of the car, blew up a giant, multi-colored beach ball and began rolling it down one of the ward’s main streets. As they went, residents emerged from their houses and approached the group. They asked why, and who, and everything in between – and then they helped push it themselves.

By the time the group had pushed the ball to the community center, which had been abandoned years earlier, people from across the ward had joined. They bonded while working towards a common goal. They laughed and conversed; children played in the streets.

This was exactly what Swanson had in mind. He wanted ‘play’ to bring the community together.

“The community really came together over this simple gesture of pushing a giant beach ball down the streets,” Swanson, still astonished, told a crowd on Saturday at the 2019 South by Southwest convention.

That afternoon in New Orleans was the beginning of Swanson’s new career. He and his friends eventually founded The Urban Conga, a Florida-based design firm that works to turn underutilized areas into interactive play spaces in cities across the country.

On Saturday, Swanson pitched urban development leaders from around the world on the benefits of ‘play.’ He introduced concepts that his organization has found effective – from installing musical benches to outdoor ping pong tables – and talked about why those simple structures have made communities healthier, wealthier and more well-connected.

Breaking barriers

It all started for Swanson during college, when he was living in downtown Tampa, Fla. He was writing his senior thesis when he came across a quote from Jane Jacobs, the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Jacobs wrote:

“There is no logic that can be superimposed on the city; people make it, and it is to them, not buildings, that we must fit our plans.”

This struck a chord with Swanson. He was living in Tampa during a time of “massive development.” Buildings were being built at a rapid rate in an effort to bring people to the city. But people didn’t stay, Swanson said. They came, worked in their offices, and left.

“We wanted to figure out, ‘How can we work to engage these spaces?’” Swanson recalled.

After graduating, Swanson and his friends traveled to nine cities across the country – with one being New Orleans – to conduct a social experiment. They wanted to see how installing simple, cost-effective, play-based architecture could enhance activity and engagement in urban environments.

What they saw blew their minds.

In New Orleans, the Lower Ninth Ward came together over a giant beach ball. In Houston, people from all walks of life stopped to see a mural, projected onto the side of a vacant building by an Xbox. In Los Angeles, people stopped to swing on man-made swings that Swanson’s troupe had installed in a vacant lot. In several cities, the group left “kits of imagination,” where members of the public could assemble puzzles and sculptures together.

“The way most of these ended was it kind of became a giant block party in underutilized public spaces,” Swanson said.

But it was one moment, back in Tampa, that allowed Swanson to see the true potential of his idea.

He and his group had assembled a variety of play-space activities on a Tampa lot. At one point, a homeless man approached the property. He began to walk past it when a giant bouncy ball rolled up in front of him. A family, which Swanson believed to be middle-class, had been passing the ball in the distance when it rolled away.

The man looked at the ball, paused for a second, and passed it back. The family did the same. A back-and-forth ensued, which resulted in laughter and a conversation. Swanson and his friends stood in awe as they watched the dialogue unfold.

“In that moment, in kind of a first-hand experience, I saw those (societal) barriers break down,” Swanson said.

“We were creating these conversations that might have never happened before.”

Swanson proceeded to quit his job at an architectural firm to begin The Urban Congo. The organization now works on projects nationwide. It has been featured on PBS and in The Atlantic. It now offers a customizable product line as well, consisting of multi-dimensional items such as ping pong tables and xylophone benches.

The organization will soon reveal its first “Playable Cities Guide,” which will detail the benefits of urban play for a global audience.

Making it happen

While Swanson featured mostly large cities during his presentation Saturday, he said the concept of turning urban spaces into areas of play can apply to cities of any size. The effects will not change, he added.

Swanson believes it will take a “team of people” to get projects like this done. It typically includes cooperation between community leaders (in this case, visionaries), investors and cities to make it happen.

“The biggest thing is getting a team together in these cities and showing them the value that this brings,” he said.

That’s the hard part. Swanson’s organization often encounters city officials who fear these structures will cause too much of a liability for the city. There are permits, zoning laws and hearings involved. Depending on the situation and the land in question, things can get complicated.

But Swanson said the biggest obstacle in creating urban play spaces has to do with the stigma attached to the word ‘play.’ Swanson believes adults in America are taught to dismiss play as “childish.” Play has a negative connotation, Swanson said, which can make it harder for cities to accept these ideas.

In turn, Swanson said he typically has to show the quantitative and qualitative benefits of urban play spaces. He’s compiled a list of four key reasons why cities should consider their value:

Time & money: Playable structures allow people to spend more time downtown. This will help stimulate the local economy, Swanson says, because studies show that when people spend time near or in a business, they are more likely to spend their money there as well.

Health: Instead of just walking from point A to point B, people will stop and play in these spaces. In a country where 35 percent of adults and 17 percent of children are obese, Swanson said this could make way for positive change.

Social value: As illustrated in New Orleans and Tampa, these spaces will not only bring people together, but also prompt people to work together. Swanson believes these simple structures can help break down rigid, long-held societal barriers. Urban play spaces make communities closer and stronger, he said.

Identity: Often times, Swanson said, urban play spaces take on the identity of the city. If done right, the two-dimensional murals and musical benches can become a source of pride for a community. It’s something that brings about happiness and prosperity, and it’s completely theirs.

Swanson believes that more and more cities are seeing the benefits of implementing urban play spaces. He left the crowd on Saturday with a quote from Plato, the philosopher, who saw this coming long ago.

“You can discover more about a person in an hour of play,” Plato said, “than in a year of conversation.”