Quote:
Originally Posted by Waye Mason
Those ball diamonds are packed and over booked all summer, every evening, all weekend.
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I'm not sure this is a good argument for having tons of diamonds. If a ball diamond were built downtown it would probably be booked too, but it's hard to argue that it would be a good use of the land.
To answer the question of whether or not the ball diamonds make sense we have to first ask what is the percentage of people who play baseball on the Commons out of the total number of people who might use the Commons. My guess is that we have a disproportionately large amount of land dedicated to a small minority.
I think most complaints are about the North Common specifically. The Central Common already has a good mix of stuff. Note that each use only takes up a small percentage of the whole and that areas like the skate park or playground probably get a lot more use per acre than the North Common ball diamonds.
But in any case I think that finding the best uses would take some fiddling over time. Improvements to the paths, some little plazas, benches, new trees, etc. can be done immediately and are affordable.