Introduction to the Special Issue: Cities as Playgrounds/Playgrounds as Cities: Rethinking Urban Play, Civic Engagement, and Socio-spatiality

Cities have long been key sites for play. Play scholars, urban theorists, designers, and creative practitioners have explored and discussed the important role of city play and urban playgrounds. As organized locations of play, playgrounds stand as an important role in representing cultural and social mores, reflecting the relational, political, and psychological dimensions of the city. They expose how a city and its society views childhood, surveillance, control, leisure, freedom, design, and space. However, play in cities has a complex and uneven history.