EDITORIAL - Plain space doesn't make a park

The Cebu City government plans to tear down an old building currently used as a 1,500 sq. m. warehouse for maintenance equipment and convert it into a Magellan's Park as it is near the Magellan's Cross. It is also meant to complement the Senior Citizens Park just across it.

Just like any other burgeoning metropolis where rapid urbanization is cramping up every available open space, Cebu City needs a little elbow room too. But while it needs green areas for citizens to stretch, breathe deep and relax, it cannot just be willy-nilly about it.

Parks, if they are to serve the purpose for which they are created, must be in locations that have to be carefully chosen. They cannot be reduced to a simple matter of space availability, which unfortunately, is what the planned park is all about.

Proponents of the plan have carefully laid out the circumstances of the envisioned park -- it is just across Senior Citizens Park and also near Magellan's Cross. What is being conveniently omitted is the fact that it is also a stone's throw from the Carbon Market.

This is not intended to disparage anyone or anything, but Carbon Market being the single biggest public market in the whole island of Cebu also means it is the single biggest attraction for people. And by people is meant a swirling humanity of every sort and type and persuasion.

Parks function not because of the open spaces they have but because of the feeling of confidence they inspire and the safety and security they guarantee. Reduce the level of confidence and take away guarantees of safety and you have parks that howl in emptiness or worse, as havens for crime.

Since mention has been made of the Senior Citizens Park across from where the city government proposes the new park to be, the feedback is that it is for senior citizens in name only. Few seniors, if at all, go there, it being either too hot (no shades or sun shields) or too out of the way.

Real estate being too pricey as it is, the city's 1,500 sq.m. property -- too small really for a park -- may as well be put to better and more gainful use in some commercial endeavor than as a park that may not attract anyone.