This means that we’re constantly trying to figure out how to improve our designs.  We need to exploit our physical features, especially steps, and we always like to add creative flourishes (e.g. where to put the loop-the-loop?).  So, we’re creatively problem-solving, and Marco is taking more and more of this on from me as he learns how things work.

In addition, we’re trying to make this a social neighborhood game as well.  We’re setting up the track on our front yard and sidewalk, so we’re able to attract boys of all ages (including boys like me ; > ) to play with us.  I’ll tell you - Hot Wheels is quite an attraction!

My son Marco and I have been having the time of our lives ever since our first eBay shipment of Hot Wheels track arrived a few days ago.

I decided to get him the same kind of track that I got back around 1970 rather than the track Mattel sells today.  Perhaps this is just for sentimental reasons, but I have another rationale:  the old sets are just track and other parts that can be configured in myriad ways.  The new sets have departed from the concept of modular parts, and are more like kits.  This is similar to the change in Lego over the past few decades.

Kids are almost always out playing, and there are virtually no cars passing through there, but it’s a five-minute walk to downtown Palo Alto and three minutes Johnson Park!  And, for you heavy commuters out there, it’s three minutes from 101!

If you place a bid on this house after reading this, please let me know.  I’ll want to let the broker know I should get a cut of his/her commission!

Here are the rules that we played with:  everyone but one person would stand at one end of their yard, and that one other person would stand in the middle of the yard.  With his back turned to the others, he would say, “Red Rover, Red Rover, I call [color].” He would then turn around, and anyone wearing at least a bit of that color would charge toward him and try to run past him to the other end of the yard.  If the person in the middle touched someone, that person would then have to be the person in the middle.

Playing this last night connected me to my childhood in my neighborhood better than anything I’ve ever done with Marco.  The older kids and I improvised rules.  The youngest kids, including Marco, had only a vague sense of the rules, but they played the game in their own way and had a great time.  At one point, one of the kids fell and skinned his knee, cried a bit, then continued playing.  We played and played until it started to get dark outside and the moms came out to tell us the kids needed to go to bed.

When Marco woke up this morning, the first thing he told me was that he wanted to play Red Rover again.  We absolutely will do that, until he or the other kids get tired of it and start playing something else.  I’d better brush up on “Capture the Flag,” and the various flavors of “Tag” and “Hide and Seek!”

So, how did we get to this point where we happened to stumble upon this game of Red Rover?  While this may have seemed completely spontaneous, actually setting up the conditions to make this happen took a lot of steps.  What I’m trying to convey here is that you shouldn’t just shove your kids outside one day one expect them to get involved in a great neighborhood game.  A lot of groundwork needs to be done before this is even possible.  Here are the things we did in the months before this:

Play Outside in Our Front Yard:  Marco played with me or his nanny many, many times in our front yard before this.  We played Hot Wheels, bouncy ball, golf, baseball, etc.  It’s important to note that we did this in our front yard in full view of other people in the neighborhood, so we got to talk to people as they walked by, and sometimes they would join us for a time.  Thus, Marco got comfortable playing among his neighbors, and they got to know us.

Knock on Neighbors’ Doors to Find Play:  Often, when we have some free time, we walk to the houses of neighbors who we know have young kids (0 - 11) and knock on their doors.  Our neighborhood is as lame as most, so the probability that a family will be home on a weekday or weekend afternoon is far less than 50-50, but we do this anyway.  A lot.  In the few times kids had been home in the past, we were able to get some play going, but I must admit that my son Marco wasn’t so good at playing with the other kids.  Instead, he engaged in parallel play.  In addition, he never asked to see these kids unprompted.  At any rate, he has been getting more and more comfortable being with these kids as we’ve seen more of them, and they’ve been gettin more used to him, even if they’re not actually “friends.”

Walk and Bike Around the Neighborhood:  A month or two ago, we started walking around our block and other adjoining blocks.  Now, in the last couple of weeks, Marco has gotten into riding his bike on these routes.  So, he’s getting more and more comfortable with our neighborhood and all its details - the people, the houses, the trees, the flowers, the bumps in the sidewalks, etc.  He’s also getting confidence for navigating the geography on himself, although, of course, we don’t let him cross streets on his own just yet.

So, our evening of “Playing Until the Sun Goes Down,” was no accident.  We spent an awful lot of time over the past few months sowing the seeds for this.  Now that it’s happened once, though, I’m going to do everything I can to get it to happen again and again…

Remember playing in your neighborhood after dinner, until you couldn’t see the ball anymore?  Well, last night, I played a game with my son Marco (3-1/2) and three other boys outside in our neighborhood until the sun went down.  This is something I did countless times as a kid, and I’ve been longing for play like this in our neighborhood in Palo Alto.  I want to tell you about what we did, and about how we got to the point where we could do something like this with our neighbors.

After dinner last night, Marco and I were riding our bikes around the block, and three brothers we know implored us to cross the street and come over to their house.  After riding around their block with them a few times, they asked us to play “Red Rover.”

Next, the toddler population is great.  Taking both sides of the street into account, within three houses to both sides, there are nine children between 0 and 5 years of age. 

The street is fairly free of cars, but it’s not a cul-de-sac.  The nearest elementary school is Duveneck, which is 0.6 miles away straight down Dana, but because of overcrowding, it’s not certain that your kids would be able to go there.  If not, though, Addison and Walter Hays are both fairly close.

This neighborhood falls short of a perfect Playborhood rating because I didn’t see much evidence in the three times I’ve visited there of children playing in front yards or neighbor socializing.  The only solid evidence I have of this is Karen’s garden and her stories of children’s activities there.

So, this neighborhood would need more leadership from a parent or two to establish a culture of frequent outdoor play.  Given this, I do believe that an extremely vibrant Playborhood is likely there in the coming years as the preschoolers get into elementary school.

So, what about the house and the real estate deal?  Curiously, the realtor hasn’t posted any pictures of the house interior.  It’s over 3,600 square feet and listed at $4.2 million, so it’s out of reach for most families.  It does seem pricey, but who knows - maybe the interior is amazing.

So, my wife, sons, and I are going over to see it tomorrow (Saturday, March 15).  Once I check it out, we’ll comment on this story here…
A couple of months ago I wrote about the wonderful Karen Harwell and her Dana Meadows Organic Children’s Garden in Crescent Park.

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Well, there’s a home for sale close to Karen’s house.  The home for sale is at 1300 Dana Avenue, and her house is across the street and one or two houses over at 1335 Dana.

So I went there to check out the neighborhood yesterday in more depth to gauge its Playborhood factor.  I had a good talk with a next-door neighbor.  My verdict:  for families like mine with preschool children, I would rate this neighborhood very highly.  For elementary- and middle-school-aged kids, it’s also quite good, but preschoolers are the sweet spot here.

I wish I could recommend the house itself, but I do believe that the owners are hoping for a big “Playborhood premium” that I wrote about.  In our Playborhood Survey, we found that Palo Alto / Menlo Park residents would be willing to pay on average $100,000 extra for a neighborhood with great play opportunities. 

The house has 4 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2219 weirdly laid-out square feet, definitely needs some fix-upping, and is listed at $2,399,500.  Those who are interested in this property may value the property and location more than the house itself.  If you do consider building there, I recommend that you check on the lot size with the City of Palo Alto.  I seem to remember that this lot was listed at below 9,000 square feet at one time rather than the 9,751 the realtors list it at now.
I’ve been searching for Playborhoods in Palo Alto and Menlo Park for over two years, and a home is now available on one of my favorite blocks!  The street is Somerset Place in Crescent Park, and the house is at 30 Somerset Place. 

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This short cul-de-sac has about 10 kids ranging from 5 to the teens.  Most of the younger kids are girls, so if you have girls of early elementary school age, you’ll particularly love it here.  Best of all, Somerset Place has a great deal of outdoor activity.  When I look down there from Lincoln Avenue, I almost always see someone outside.  many times, kids are playing.  There are a tree swing, a play house, and many other kids’ toys always sitting in the front yards.  In addition, though, parents are out there very often, too. 

Besides having playmates, Marco would have access to a play structure.  When I was a kid, other kids all over the neighborhood would come to our back yard when they saw my sister and me on our swing set because we had no fence, so they could all see us instantly.  Kids love playing with each other on play structures.

But would tearing down the fence and hedges benefit our next-door neighbors?  With the fence and hedges, their yard is dark.  It’s claustrophobic.  Without the fence, their yard would be much more bright and open. 

In addition, I believe that those older kids would enjoy 3-1/2 year-old Marco as much as he would enjoy them, maybe even more.  Marco’s 9-, 11-, and 13-year-old cousins are crazy about him.  Age-matching for play is way overrated.  At any rate, they don’t have to be the world’s best bosom-buddies - they would just hang out together and play.

OK, OK, so what about privacy?  What about it?  Are these folks sunbathing nude in their back yard?  Having wild sex?  Committing heinous murders?  I don’t think so.  Neither are we.

So what about this privacy thing?  In my opinion, the “benefits” of privacy are wayyyy over-estimated relative to the costs of shutting others out.  The members of the N Street co-housing community, which I wrote about recently, have a very rich community life due in part to the lack of fences there.

So, should we blame the architects and builders and city planners?  Well, yes, but that’s not going to get us anywhere.  We need to look long and hard at the fences we have around our yards today and start talking to our neighbors about them.  Then, we need to tear them down.  That’s what some Berkeley, CA residents have done, and they’re very happy with the results. 

You may hesitate to tear them down because you’re worried that you may not like your back yard after a few months.  Or, you may worry that tearing down fences will decrease the resale value of your home.  If these are concerns for you, you can preserve the wood from the fence so you can re-install it later.  That’s what the folks at N Street have done, and they’ve never reinstalled one board.  The wood just lies there.

Imagine how much more fun your kids and your neighbors’ kids would have if nobody had fences separating your houses. 

Then, do something about it!  Unfortunately, we’re renters and our lease runs out in a few months, so I’ll have to wait until our next house - one we own, I hope - to start tearing down those fences.
Allow me to introduce you to my next-door neighbors in the Crescent Park neighborhood of Palo Alto.  Below you see what my son Marco and I see of them when we play baseball or hockey in our side yard adjoining their property.

And here’s what we see when we play bouncy-ball on the sidewalk next to their house.

Gee, they look pretty boring, don’t they?  Well, actually, they aren’t.  From the shrieks of laughter we hear over there from time to time, I believe two elementary school-aged kids live there.  And I think they even have a play structure in their back yard…

However, from our point of view, they’re total zeroes.  They might as well be a commune of 85-year-old hermits.

In addition, though, they have a kind and wise teacher right there who is ready to answer any question, and whose every answer leads us to ask more questions.  Karen studied biology in college and is a former teacher.  Walking through her garden with her, I was struck by how many questions I had for her on a subject that never appealed to me as a student.

How does trash become fertilizer in a compost pile?  What function to worms play in a garden?  Can ducks understand us when we talk?  When is the best time of year to pick fruit from her 17 different fruit trees? 

I felt like a toddler seeing a garden for the first time.  Come to think of it, in my 45 years, perhaps I’d never really seen a garden before Karen showed me hers. 

You can read more about Karen Harwood and her Dana Meadows Organic Children’s Garden in a Palo Alto Weekly article written in 2003.
[NOTE:  Karen Harwell, the topic of this article, will be a panelist at the Neighborhood Play Forum in Palo Alto on January 23.]

I just met the woman of my dreams last week.  No, my wife has nothing to worry about.  I met the woman I’d most like to live next to.  Her name is Karen Harwood, and she lives on Dana Avenue in Palo Alto, CA.

You see, my wife and I have been searching for a house in a Palo Alto or Menlo Park Playborhood for over two years.  We want to live in a neighborhood where lots of children roam outside playing, independent of their parents. 

Karen has singlehandedly created this environment in her one-sixth of an acre yard, the “Dana Meadows Organic Children’s Garden.” That small amount of space, less the space for her house, is the home of seventeen different fruit trees, numerous vegetable plants, ducks, and bee hives.  It also contains many facilities that make it sustainable like a compost pile and worm pile.

This is pretty much the only way Marco has real fun play with other kids.  Sure, we do playdates with other families, but the kids don’t really let their hair down the way Marco and his cousins do. 

That’s because real fun play, or “unstructured play,” is most likely to happen when adults are comfortable letting their kids play without scrutiny.  That is most likely to occur at one of the kid’s houses, or in a neighborhood around the kids’ houses.

So, when school’s in session for Marco’s cousins in Pittsburgh, we’re stuck here in our “nice neighborhood” without opportunities for him to play, even though kids just like his cousins live right here.
My family and I live in a “nice neighborhood” in Palo Alto, CA.  Some kids live around here, including 1) two early elementary school-aged kids next door, 2) a sixth grader a couple doors down from there, and 3) three toddler boys across the street.

Our 3-1/2 year old son Marco and I frequently play in our front yard and along the sidewalk, but it’s quite lonely out there.  We never see 1) because they have a big fence and either stay behind it or drive away, we hardly see 2) even though his parents are good friends of ours because he’s super-busy with football, basketball, and sleepovers, and members of 3)’s house have only answered the door once out of at least six times we’ve gone over and knocked on the door.

My wife and I have resorted to importing Marco’s five cousins here from Pittsburgh, PA twice in the past few months so he can have playmates around.  They were just here over Christmas.

I worked closely with PA Weekly reporter Arden Pennell on this story.  In fact, I approached her with the idea about a month ago.  She found lots and lots of parents who agreed with the Playborhood idea that kids should be allowed to play outside in their neighborhoods more, so much so that the sub-headline for the story is, “Parents rebel against over-scheduling kids, call for a return to free play.”