In municipalities across America, engaged citizens and civic leaders are actively seeking innovative ways to improve the accessibility, quality, and quantity of play and play spaces for children. KaBOOM! is committed to identifying relevant and innovative best practices in play, including the following examples from 2008 Playful City USA communities:
 In San Francisco (pop. 719,077), the Neighborhood Parks Council (NPC) partnered with the City to develop ParkScan, a technology solution where users alert appropriate city departments using their mobile phones or computers to instantly make their parks better and support the day-to-day operations of San Francisco city parks and playspaces.
New York City (pop. 8,250,567) Mayor Michael Bloomberg partnered with the Trust for Public Land to create places to play within a ten-minute walk of every child in the city. Current plans call for the creation of 185 new playgrounds and community parks, serving more than 380,000 children. The city council of Greenbelt, Md. (pop 20,903) is ensuring the quality of existing playgrounds by creating a new initiative to foot 75% of the cost to maintain and upgrade unsafe playgrounds controlled by Home Owner Associations. In return, the HOAs agree to make their playgrounds open to the general public.
In 2004, St. Petersburg, Fla. (pop. 252,246), launched “Play 'N' Close to Home,” a public/private partnership to build playgrounds within a half-mile of every child. To date, this partnership with schools and houses of worship has increased the number of playspaces by 20 percent.o make their playgrounds open to the general public.
To dramatically increase access to playgrounds, Tucson, Ariz. (pop. 543,897) is opening up its existing school playgrounds after school hours, on weekends and during the summer.Los Angeles (pop. 3,684,820) has launched a pilot project along the same vein.
Teens in Landfall, Minn. (pop. 700) desperately needed a place to skate, so the community hired a bus to take the kids to the nearest skatepark, over 40 miles away. The program was so popular, the community is now working on building a skatepark of their own.
Ankeny, Iowa has developed and implemented Parkticipate: a unique program that engages Ankeny residents in a variety of activities surrounding healthy lifestyles and learning about programs offered through the Ankeny Parks and Recreation Department. This new program was also part of the city’s play day that included a day camp where participants were involved in tree planting and park clean-up programs and evening programming included canoe rides, scavenger hunt, fun run, crafts, and sports activities.
Using an attraction to provide additional play opportunities,Grand Prairie, Texas built the Wide World of Parks outside a new minor-league baseball stadium. Tagged as “America’s Most Creative Playground,” the 15,000 square-foot area serves as a microcosm for the city’s entire parks system with educational materials on site as well as three play structures, miniature golf and a waffle ball park among several activities.
Neenah, Wis. offers a program called Passport to Nature - a free and innovative initiative that puts children in touch with nature and encourages them to spend time outdoors with their family and friends at nine outdoor sites around the Fox Cities. Children are encouraged to visit at least five of the nine sites and actively note their observations of at least five sites where they will collect stickers for their passport and receive a Passport to Nature pin. The Play Committee in Newport News, Va. is working with the Newport News Commission on Youth to include play priorities in their 5-year strategic plan. One of the initiatives is to create a map with both playspaces and the public transportation system, encouraging those youth who use the public transit system for free to engage in more unstructured play. The city also is planning to relocate an under-used play structure to a high-traffic community center.
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