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The Story of Systemic Racism and Playgrounds: How KABOOM! uses data to overcome playspace inequity by Isaac Castillo and Colleen Coyne

Hello, AEA365 community, and happy Conference Week from Indianapolis! The AEA staff have been working overtime to prepare for our biggest event of the year. Whether you will be joining us for the conference or not, you can keep up with our happenings via the AEA365 blog. See you around!

-Liz DiLuzio, Lead Curator


Hello! We are Isaac D. Castillo and Colleen Coyne, and we represent the Learning and Evaluation team at KABOOM!.

And we have a question for you: 

What do playgrounds, data, systemic racism, maps, and evaluation all have in common?

Playgrounds should serve as a sanctuary for children – an escape from everyday pressures where they can just be kids. But not every child in the United States has access to a safe and high-quality playground. 

At KABOOM!, we refer to these disparities in access and quality as playspace inequity. KABOOM! builds playgrounds in partnership with others across the United States to end playspace inequity, so more kids can grow up happy and healthy.

But how do we measure playspace inequity? That is where data, maps, storytelling, and evaluation come in.

Most people assume that it’s easy to figure out where playgrounds are located. Unfortunately, most mapping software does not consistently verify playground locations. For example, this is NOT a playground.

This is a picture of a baseball field in Google Maps. There is a red geolocation pin in the baseball field which labels the field as a playground. This is obviously not a playground.

Downloading this raw playground location data for the entire United States and cleaning it every year would take thousands of hours.

Furthermore, there is no national data set on playground quality. So even if we did know where playgrounds are located, we certainly do not know which ones are well maintained and which ones have broken swings and slides.

This is not a high-quality playground:

This is a picture of a playground structure which includes four plastic slides. Three of the four plastic slides have holes in them, making this an unsafe and unusable playground structure. Grown adults would be afraid to go down these slides.

We know from prior research that there are more playground locations and more high-quality playgrounds in predominantly White wealthy neighborhoods. But without national data on playground locations and playground quality, it is difficult to prioritize communities for additional playground investments in a data-informed manner.

To help KABOOM! overcome this lack of data, we created the Playspace Inequity Prioritization Index (PIPI) which consists of 21 publicly available data points. These are standardized to create a single overall PIPI score for every census tract in the United States.

This is a list of the 21 data elements that make up the PIPI. The respective weights for each indicator in the overall PIPI calculation are included in parenthesis. The entire list includes: 

Population Characteristics such as the percent of BIPOC (non-white) population (2.5x), Income less than or equal to 80% area median family income (2.5x), population under 18 years of age (2.5x), language isolation (1.5x), children under 18 with disability (1.5x), residential properties with 2 or more units.

Inequity Indicators include life expectancy at birth (2.0x), the percent of children receiving public benefits (2.0x), excessive owner housing costs (1.5x), excessive renter housing costs (1.5x), HUD subsidized housing units (1.5x), unemployment rate.

Park Access and Built Environment includes the number of parks (2.0x), percent of area covered by parks (2.0x), number of schools (2.0x), commute means of transportation, pedestrian road network density. vehicles per occupied housing unit (no vehicles for residents) (1.5x), traffic proximity and volume, children with low access to healthy food (2.0x), households without computer or internet (1.5x).

Many of these indicators reflect societal conditions rooted in systemic racism and intentional disinvestment. It was not that long ago that local governments chose to remove playgrounds entirely instead of allowing residents with different races, ethnicities, and income levels to play together in the same place.

The overall PIPI score estimates where playspace inequity is likely to be occurring based on these indicators. With a higher positive (greater than zero) overall PIPI score reflecting greater playspace inequity and greater need for support from KABOOM!. While census tracts with negative (less than zero) overall PIPI scores reflecting communities experiencing less playspace inequity and that likely have been the beneficiaries of regular societal investments.

This is graphic that includes a large dot at the center which represents a zero PIPI score – or the mean level of playspace inequity in the United States. There is an arrow that extends to the left, which represents PIPI scores below zero or negative PIPI scores. There is also an arrow that extends to the right, which represents PIPI scores above zero or positive PIPI scores. KABOOM! focuses its work on census tracts with PIPI scores greater than zero.

With PIPI scores for every census tract in the United States, we can create maps for every state, region, or city to help visually determine which areas are experiencing greater playspace inequity. These maps help us partner with parks and recreation departments, school systems, and other funders to prioritize new playground investments.

Using PIPI data, maps, and other data sets, we also work with partners to measure how our work changes playspace inequity over time.

Because playgrounds are fun – but figuring out where to build them is a serious endeavor.

Rad Resources

Mapping Playground Access in Philadelphia

The State of Playspace Equity in Three Colorado Communities

Review of Studies and Data on Playspace Equity for Children

Ending Playspace Inequities for Baltimore’s Kids


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