recreation areas more important than shopping centers?
When new towns are planned, it is important to build more public parks or sports facilities than shopping centers for people to spend their free time. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
Urban planning is a technical and political process of designing and developing economical, environmental, cultural and transportation needs. It is often argued that cities should have more public parks and sports complexes than shopping malls to have more relaxed time. This essay will firstly discuss the importance of public spaces for today's city inhabitants, secondly the importance of shopping complexes for a town, followed by a reasonable conclusion on why I completely disagree to the fact that parks and sport complexes are essential for a city than the shopping centers.
One argument put in favour of the prime benefit of the parks is that is provides a great opportunity for city dwellers to relax or do an outdoor activity such as jogging or cycling. Today's busy lifestyles make people unhealthy and most of them are used to a sedentary lifestyle. Sports complexes and gyms will be essential places for them to escape from hectic and stressful work environment and spend some quality time for exercises and other physical activities. Also this will give them opportunity to develop their social life boosting interactions among the community. For instance, a survey conducted by Queen's University stated that 60% of urban population uses gymnasiums after work hours and during the weekends. Therefore it is an unarguable fact that cities need public spaces and recreation sporting facilities for a healthy population.
On the other hand, shopping complexes create a financial advantage for a city. They will give more convenient shopping experience for town dwellers reducing the transportation cost. Also they may attract visitors from other cities as well. Shopping malls within the city created employment opportunities on retail, maintenance and security sectors exhorting local residents to work within their city limits. Last month, the newspaper 'Sunday Times' revealed that the recently opened 'Majestic' shopping mall in Kandy created 1000 jobs for the locals contributing the city economy. However, some may argue that shopping complexes tempt people to spend on unnecessary things that are not quite essential.
Based on the above facts discussed, I completely disagree that public parks and sports facilities are more crucial than shopping centers. It is an absolute imperative that a city should have a healthy and wealthy residents. In order to have a balanced city, it is indispensable that the city planners should design and develop parks, sporting complexes as well as shopping centers. Parks and sporting facilities should not be developed at the expense of shopping malls for a city.