Research on local governmental restrictions for ball play in block parks

Abstract

This research aims to clarify the local governmental restrictions on ball play in urban parks and identify management problems. We sent 399 questionnaires to top 8 populated cities in each of 47 prefectures of Japan and 23 wards of Tokyo, 276 local governments responded. The result is as follows:1) 60% of responded local governments have restrictions on ball play, among them 40% in certain parks individually and 20% in all parks “unifiedly”. The bigger the city, the more restriction rate for ball play it has, and overall growth is provided by the increasing share of individual restrictions. In Tokyo, the unified restriction rate is significantly higher compared to other cities. 2)We identified two sources of the local governmental ball play restriction in urban parks: first - direct request from the neighborhood, second - inheritance of the restriction from the previous government. 80% of government do not know when the ball play was prohibited. 3) Once ball play is restricted, there is no case showing the change back to “non-restricted” state. About 90% of governments do not plan to change their current policy. 4) We identified that there is no clear method of decision-making regarding the ball play, including documentation.