By
Jan Schaffer
J-Lab Executive Director
April 15, 2004
After
years of bemoaning the lack of green space, your neighborhood decides
it wants a local park. Finding land is only the first of your tasks,
especially in New York City where space is such a premium that parks
are being planned atop an elevated railway, the world's biggest landfill
and a gas tank farm.
You
must be mindful of competing constituencies and incompatible uses: Will
the park attract nature lovers (you'll need wooded areas for wildlife)
or sports enthusiasts (plan ball fields). Will it serve playground-cavorting
youngsters, skateboard-grinding teens or bocce-pitching seniors?
You
must make some tough calls: Will the park allow cars or only pedestrians?
What about dogs? Will it offer bathrooms? What about food?
Who
will clean it? Who will pay for it? What about crime?
Play
the GothamGazette.com's newest interactive game and you come to understand
that parks are about choices, choices and more choices.
"Plan
your Future Park" is the eleventh game or quiz that the GothamGazette.com,
the Citizen Union's online news site, has posted and it's first one
done entirely in Flash.
"I
was afraid our readers and libraries and schools wouldn't have the capacity
to do Flash," editor Jonathan Mandell laughs. "Then I was
told that was true two years ago."
Like
its forerunners, the game is chock-full of factoids about real issues
and real decisions confronting city residents, a feat of journalistic
footwork as much as animated Flash.
Mandell
credits his interns and his staff of seven, including one part-timer,
for the ideas and execution behind the exercises. Users, for instance,
not only learn about the pros and cons of various scenarios, they also
learn how various city groups have achieved their park goals.
"They
are, to me, works of journalism," he declares. "As much reporting
goes into them as into any conventional article."
"We're
published by a good-government group that cares about civic engagement,"
he says. The games are designed to get people engaged in an issue.
"Fun. Fun," declares one message board participant. "But
where are the maps of the subways and neighborhoods?"
"A fairly good introduction for some of the issues," applauds
another.
"A
great teaching tool for the classroom," chimes in a third.
Indeed,
the nonprofit Teaching Matters uses GothamGazette.com's games and reports
in two dozen public middle schools.
The
games and quizzes are part of a quarterly effort by GothamGazette.com
that also includes a print magazine and a public forum on a theme or
issue.
"Once we come up with the actual theme, we put together the magazine
and then come up with the game," Mandell says. "We look at
ONA winners, J-Lab, and PBS.org for ideas we can adapt."
Stay
tuned for three more interactive exercises this year: Next up will be
one on Republicans in New York City, pegged to the party's convention.
For the fall state and federal races, look for an exercise on how federal
policies affect New York City. The theme of jobs and the economy will
be the focus of the third.
The
games are pretty basic and inexpensive, Mandell says. "It gives
us a niche, an identity, an alternative."
