Columbia (Once Again) Named Playful City USA

For the second year in a row, Columbia has been named a Playful City USA--once again, the only city to be so recognized in the St. Louis metropolitan area.

Playful City USA is a national recognition program honoring cities and towns across the nation committed to taking action for play.  Columbia was selected, in part, for its deployment of the popular Park Pal program--cited as a national "best practice"--as well as for the strong supporting role of the community's nine-member Play Commission.

Each of the 2010 Playful City USA communities has demonstrated creative commitment to the cause of play in the areas of quantity, quality and access. Quality relates to the number of usable, open playspaces. Quality involves subjective factors that encourage repeated use and make playspaces engaging, exciting, interesting and fun. Access entails the ability to get to a playspace (roads, trails) and a lack of barriers to the playspace (cost, safety, traffic, locked gates, equity).

Playful City USA celebrates and highlights these unique initiatives developed by communities across the country. A primary goal of Playful City USA is to encourage cities and towns to share creative ideas, concepts and programs in an effort to increase play opportunities for children.