I've done quite a bit of travelling with my 3 younger kids around the Mediterranean over the past few years and finding parks and playgrounds for them to play is quite a focus as a parent. Sometimes finding them is essential to parental sanity.
1. Parks in Israel
In Israel, where we live, there are beautiful new playgrounds everywhere and anything that gets a bit old is quickly replaced.
Within 3 minutes walk of my apartment in the center of Tel Aviv there are three quite large parks with excellent kids play equipment.
1A Gindi TLV Park
In our apartment complex itself, right downstairs, there is a park with 2 lots of kids play equipment and run-thru fountains.
1B Kiryat Sefer Park
About 3 min walk away is Kiryat Sefer Park which has been around for a decade or two after resident action groups prevented the area from being turned into buildings.
It has ponds at the top and the bottom and a little semi-artificial creek connecting them which is turned on at certain times.
1C Brand New Park
About 2 min walk away is a huge new park with a lovely pond, large grassed areas (rare in Israel due to water scarcity) multiple kids playgrounds and adult exercise equipment (a favourite of my kids).
It is surrounded by brand new fancy high-rise commercial towers housing Nvidia, Monday.com and top law firms as well as cafes and restaurants. I don't even know its official name yet, as although it has been accessible for 18 months already, it is still being completed with new extension areas being developed.
Note that all these photos were taken today in the middle of a weekday, so there aren't many kids.
But in the afternoon they will be full of kids.
Before The Brand New Park opened Kiryat Sefer Park could be unbearably crowded on a Saturday. I once counted 7 outdoor birthday parties being held there at the same time.
This is typical of a society with a TFR of over 3. Indeed mostly secular Tel Aviv still has a TFR of 2.5, making it by far the most fertile major 1st world city on the planet. The Tel Aviv Municipality is having to build 100 new class rooms every year to cope with the growth in the number of kids. It is also having to build new parks and renovate old ones at a rapid rate.
2. Parks in Turkey
We visited the city of Finike on the southern coast of Turkey (Antalya province) in Sept/Oct last year and were impressed with its parks also.
Although not quite as modern, they were extensive, in good condition with good play equipment.
While the parks were nice, we did notice a distinct lack of children in these parks. And it wasn't always during school hours that we visited them. I didn't fully understand why until I saw this.
[Source: https://x.com/masagget/status/1922188390578954272]
Turkey had healthy fertility until quite recently, hence good, relatively modern parks, but has suffered a rapid drop off in the past 7-8 years.
3. Parks in Greece
We visited Greece in summer of 2022 and while the islands, towns and beaches were lovely, the kids playground situation left a lot to be desired.
There was only one playground which was not near the center of the town, had a bare dirt floor, no shading in the intense summer heat and very limited play equipment. It was relatively modern, maybe 10-15 years old.
It is not surprising that Greece invests in its tourist towns, but not in playgrounds, as Greece fell below replacement fertility (TFR 2.1) in 1983 and has hovered around 1.3 for more than 30 years.
4. Parks in Italy
We visited Italy a bit earlier that summer of 2022 and the situation was similar but slightly worse. Lovely beaches, coastline and food, but run down towns with very few kids and playgrounds that were scarce. When we finally found one it was 40 years old, had bare dirt for a floor, no shade cloth and was faded and splintering in parts.
The kids still had fun and met one other family with one child - a typical Italian family.
Again the playgrounds are the stark real world reminder of the demographic reality.
Italy fell below replacement fertility in 1976 and has hovered around 1.3 for 40 years.
