Natalie Brown can breathe a sigh of relief when her children enter McCormick Park.
There’s a playground, a wading pool and plenty of trees, but the most important thing is that it’s largely fenced in, allowing Brown’s children to run around freely at the park near Dufferin Street and Dundas Street West.
“Having parks that are a little bit bigger, where there’s more space to run around and kids can get their energy out, is critical,” she said.
The family lives in Brockton Village, which is designated as having a mid-to-high score under ”Canada’s first playability index,” called the PlayScore, created by University of British Columbia researchers. It assesses how well neighbourhoods support young children’s outdoor play across Canadian cities — any type of play that takes place outdoors — such as with playgrounds or green spaces.
In Toronto, the highest-scoring neighbourhood was Lambton Baby Point (north of Old Mill subway station), with a score of 8.07, while the lowest-scoring neighbourhood was Wellington Place downtown, with a score of 2.54. Neighbourhoods that are more playable tend to have higher socio-economic status, Gemmell said.
When children have opportunities for outdoor play, it helps them build confidence, get their daily exercise and has socioemotional benefits, such as managing stress, according to Louise de Lannoy, executive director of Outdoor Play Canada, a national non-profit advocating for outdoor play access.
Researchers created the index by accessing existing data related to five main factors:
•Traffic environment, such as car speed and number of intersections
•Social environment, such as opportunities for social interaction
•Natural environment, such as the amount of vegetation in an area
•Spaces for play, such as parks or playgrounds
•Child-relevant destinations, such as elementary schools and community centres.
Together, they’re combined into an overall playability score for each neighbourhood.
Emily Gemmell, who led the research project, wanted to focus on how urban and suburban environments supported children’s physical and cognitive development across Canada.
In Toronto, Gemmell and her team found that some neighbourhoods are more suitable for outdoor play than others and that children don’t have equal access to those spaces.
In its 2024 report card, ParticipACTION, a non-profit focused on advocating for physical activity, gives Canadian youth a D-plus for overall physical activity. Around 39 per cent of children between the ages of five and 17 met the recommended 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous exercise.
“We need to go down to each … neighbourhood and say ‘How does this look to a child?’ ” she said. “That is really important for their sense of place and mental health and feeling like the neighbourhood is theirs as well as the adults’.”
As cities and suburbs have grown more car-centric, one of the main barriers for children to access parks and playgrounds is traffic danger. Gemmell says children developmentally aren’t able to assess the danger or navigate those risks.
“The places that children are able to play in have really shrunk to these specific parks, playgrounds,” she said. “These are often disconnected from where they live and so they require a lot of adult supervision.”
De Lannoy said additional factors, such as speeding, car congestion or a lack of pedestrian crossings, can make parents reluctant to allow their child to participate in outdoor play, and they opt for recreational classes.
“We’ve designed cities largely for adults,” she said.
For living in a large, bustling city like Toronto, Brown said neighbourhood parks like McCormick are a “well-served” experience. But she understands why parents don’t let their children head to their local park on their own.
“It doesn’t feel like living in downtown Toronto that our streets are set up for kids to feel safe and be safe.”
Brown often takes her kids over to the ravines in High Park to have that “feeling of nature.” It’s one of the few spots in the city where she said her kids can enjoy and safely explore the space around them.
“We need more of it and we need it to be more accessible.”
