The grass example is also a nice demonstration of how the conventions differ around the world. In some countries it is taken for granted that one can sit or lie down on any lawn in a public area. In others, they are carefully manicured and surrounded by fences and inscriptions trying to dissuade people from doing the obvious thing everyone wants to!
Entirely correct. I'm from Western Europe, and almost everything (or at least a great lot) that is humanly accessible is meant to be used by humans, including grass. Note that this is not in opposition to "carefully manicured", as there is plenty of lawn (for example) which is carefully tended to, but still publicly accessible.
It's also totally natural to sit on art, if it's convenient for sitting, even if it's many centuries old.
A decade ago I moved to California, and it's a very stark contrast there. There is so much greenery and similar that is just "off limits" and made for just looking at it.
Generally, in California things feel much more "fenced off", even without any actual fences.
Similarly, I will never understand Central Park in New York City. I was there a couple years ago and the vast majority of the grass is not meant to be walked on. Most of the paths have a little mini fences surrounding them and there’s tons of signage saying not to walk on the grass. There’s exceptions here and there throughout park park, but generally it’s a park where you’re not allowed on the green spaces, which is just absurd to me. I’ll take the openness of Golden Gate Park in San Francisco over the travesty that is NYC Central Park any day. But of course Salesforce “Park” in San Francisco is similar, you’re not allowed off the paths other than certain small approved lawn areas, and the security has yelled at me about it multiple times. So much for a public park.
> Similarly, I will never understand Central Park in New York City. I was there a couple years ago and the vast majority of the grass is not meant to be walked on.
Perhaps it was a temporary thing? I was there in July of 2021 and there were these little half-height fences surrounding many of the paths and signs saying to stay off the grass. Could have been a temporary restoration thing, or some sort of covid weirdness, no idea. Or maybe my memory is wrong.
It's not purely population though. My neighbourhood has a desire path, where the grass has been killed off my people walking through it. The traffic is a few people an hour, mostly kids.
However, one of the main parks has similar areas where you get 10s to 100s of people an hour, or people covering it up for extended periods of time for picnics, etc. If population was all that mattered, the park would be barren and the path would be lush, rather than the other way around
In the botanic gardens in Sydney they actually put up signs "yes you are allowed to get on the grass" because I assume many tourists assumed you are not allowed to (in probably tried to tell other people off).
but how do other places handle this? I see plenty of parks where grass is accessible and not entirely gone (granted, a lot of those places don't have the most lush grass, but they have grass!). Is it just constant replanting?
We have The Domain in Sydney which hosts events and concerts too, so large crowds also are fine to some degree. I assume water and sun and fertiliser go a long way. But I've seen in other areas (and probably The Domain but I rarely go) they will put up temporary construction fences for regeneration when it needs a break and starts to show dirt.
In my experience, grass is only threatened if you have a lot of people in a very short time. Think concert or festival. Granted, NY/Manhattan has many more people than SF, but I don’t know if Central Park is that popular to reach those conditions? Golden Gate Park seems to cope fine indeed.
NYC resident here, this is simply not true. Yeah of course there are gardens and bushes that are fenced off but most of the grass and dirt you can walk and lie on if you wish.
Someone else here said that it is custom for Parisians to lay on any available patch of grass (like I know from other Western European cities). So it’s okay to assume that that particular patch, along with Disney Land in the article, are exceptions to that rule.
Another example from Europe that I've just seen: in Vienna's Shoenbrunn Palace[1], pretty much all grass in the gardens is off limit (but most grass in the public parks in the city is open). I suppose that makes sense because that garden is specifically made to look splendid, not for people to picnic on, and given the huge number of tourists coming all the time, allowing people to walk on that grass would quickly turn it into mud.
Tove Jansson in the 50s wrote her Moomin characters to burn "keep off the grass" signs and park keepers were definitely "the authority" to be subverted
