Child-rearing values and practices of Japanese and Dutch families : the importance of public green space

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CHILD-REARING VALUES AND PRACTICES

OF JAPANESE AND DUTCH FAMILIES:

THE IMPORTANCE OF PUBLIC GREEN SPACE

Author: Jana Pasker University of Amsterdam

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Colophon

Master thesis for the research master Urban Studies University of Amsterdam

Graduate School of Social Sciences Nieuwe Achtergracht 166 1018 WV Amsterdam Student information Jana Pasker Student ID: 10552472 Jacques Veltmanstraat 603 1065 DZ Amsterdam janapasker@hotmail.com Supervisor

Dr. Ir. C.J.M. (Lia) Karsten Second reader

MSc Y.T. (Ying-Tzu) Lin

Cover picture source: Author

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Summary

In this master thesis, a comparative case study is presented that aims to answer the following main question: “How do Japanese and Dutch families in the Amstelveen area use public urban green spaces and how important do parents consider green space for their children while they’re growing up?” The first case considers middle-class Japanese families living in Amstelveen, while usage of urban green by Japanese children was observed in a park Tokyo. The second case considers middle-class Dutch parents living in Amstelveen and Dutch children using Amsterdamse Bos, a park bordering Amstelveen. Using observation and semi-structured interviews, the following results have been found. While characteristics of ‘good parenting’ practices taken from the rural idyll idea on one hand and urban-based practices on the other hand have been found for both cases, Japanese and Dutch families show varying degrees of priorities on certain aspects. Japanese parents have been found to prioritise educational benefits of playing in nature much more than Dutch parents, but Japanese children were granted much less unsupervised free playing time than Dutch children were. Play behaviour was very dependent on specific park features that were present. In practice, children from both groups seemed to prefer playing with man-made equipment rather than free play or interaction with natural elements, although more interaction with natural elements was observed than interaction with man-made equipment. When Japanese children near middle-school age, priorities shift towards skill-focused development, involving intensive extracurricular activities and study lessons. Dutch parents valued both urban-based ‘good parenting’ practices such as attending many extracurricular activities, as well as independence of mobility and a strong sense of community, which they see as non-urban. Parents and children alike seem to react to the suburban nature of Amstelveen in ways that emphasise the benefits of the partly urban and partly rural nature of the area, leading to the conclusion that social-spatial specificity is a major determining factor in creating local parenting cultures.

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Introduction

The trend of newly formed families moving to the edges of urban areas has been documented in many part of the western world. As Artmann et al. (2017) describe, the wish for more available green space often drives the sprawling of cities outwards, by families moving to the edges of cities to access the surrounding greenery and a more spacious living environment. This trend can also be observed in the Netherlands. When the amount of leaving families decreased in the years before 2012 during the economic crisis, there was much attention for the upcoming ‘urban family’ in both national media and academic literature (see for example Boterman, Kasten & Musterd, 2010; Capel, 2013; Laarman & van Dam, 2018). However, the amount of young families leaving the capital city of Amsterdam has increased again in recent years, to about 1 in 10 young families (see figure 1). Today, 24 percent of households in Amsterdam include children, which is much less than the average of 38 percent of households in other surrounding municipalities in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. Thus, the process of suburbanization of families in the Netherlands, which started in the 60s, has shown no real signs of stopping (van der Wouden, 2001).

While literature on suburbanization of families has been largely based on western countries such as Australia, the United States and Europe (see (Artmann et al., 2017; Carroll et al., 2011; Haaland & van den Bosch, 2015; Howley et al., 2009; Karsten, 2003; Karsten & Felder, 2015; Schänzel & Carr, 2016; Valentine, 1997), not much attention has been given to other cultural contexts. Another similarly developed country that is based in a different cultural context, which also features a history of family suburbanisation, is Japan. Compared to other Asian countries, its early economic progress has led to

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5 more similar degrees of urbanisation to western European countries, with Japan’s large-scale suburbanisation also starting in the 60s (Okamoto, 1997). Some time later, families with children still can be found to be concentrated around the main metropolitan areas, according to data from 2005 (Statistics Bureau of Japan, cited in Statistics Japan, n.d.). As Okamoto describes, many Japanese people have lived entire lifetimes in suburban areas of the country’s metropolitan cities. It seems that in both the Netherlands and Japan, the trend of the suburbanisation of families has been going on for more than 50 years.

Reasons for wanting to live on the edge of urban areas can be traced back to preferences pertaining living environments, but also to economic processes that more or less force families’ hands in their choice of residence. Most families that want to move out of Amsterdam in the near future have less bedrooms than family members and have no private garden (CBS, 20191). House prices also keep on rising in Amsterdam, leaving no available housing options for young families within the right price range and with enough space. In 2018, house prices in Amsterdam were 12.5 percent higher than the year before (CBS, 20192). Thus, young professionals that are important for the city’s knowledge-based industries (see Metropoolregio Amsterdam, 2016) are being pushed out of the city as soon as they have children. This also causes an increase in urban sprawl, as is also described by Artmann et al. (2017). The Greater Tokyo Area is also an extreme example of the same urban sprawl phenomenon, which is currently seen as the most populous metropolitan area in the world with more than 38 million residents (United Nations, 2017). However, apart from processes that make it hard for young families to keep living in the city, value systems also play a part in motivating them to either stay in the city or move to the edges of urban areas.

Families’ preference for green space can be drawn from the idea of the rural idyll, a concept that has been explained by Valentine (1997). This set of ideas and preferences for a certain childhood in a certain setting can be understood as a social construct that is kept alive in our society by repetition by the adults in it (see Holloway and Valentine, 2000; Jones, 2000). Following this value system, urban parents still often see the city as unsafe and restrictive for children in their daily lives (Karsten & Felder, 2015), while more rural areas are seen as better environments for children to grow up in. The wish for a safer, greener and more spacious living environment is arguably an important reason for families that were formed in cities to move to the edges of urban areas. The theory of the rural idyll and its effect on parents’ choices of living environments is mostly based on western cases, as well as a few specific highly urban east-Asian cases (see Kong, 2000; Karsten, 2014). Can the same ideas of the ideal living environment for children be found in a different east-Asian cultural context, namely in the context of Japan?

To answer this question, this thesis sets out to compare parents from different cultural contexts in their ways of describing the importance of green space for children, as well as their children’s actual usage of green spaces like parks. As this research has been set up as a comparative case study, the case of Japanese families, seen in a park in Tokyo and living as expats in Amstelveen, will be compared to the case of Dutch families, also living in Amstelveen. Amstelveen is the municipality where new parents most often move to from the municipality of Amsterdam (OIS1, 2018). While being virtually attached to Amsterdam, it is functioning as a suburb in the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area. Considering these features, it is an interesting location to examine parents’ value systems on urbanity and rurality. Japanese parents were also encouraged to evaluate their current living environment while comparing it to what they were used to in Japan, which helped to show their

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6 preferences and values on the topic. The main research question that will be answered is “How do Japanese and Dutch families in the Amstelveen area use public urban green spaces and how important do parents consider green space for their children while they’re growing up?”. The main question will be answered with the two following sub-questions. The first sub-question focuses on children’s park usage, namely “how are urban children using urban parks”, in which the focus lies on observed patterns of usage of green space. The second sub-question is “what parental narratives about the importance of urban green for children are used, which motivates parents to use public green space with their children”. This second sub-question focuses on meanings parents give to their living environment and how they think it might affect their children. While the second sub-question focuses on parent’s perspectives and wishes pertaining to their child’s living environment and their playing activities, the first sub-question examines how children are actually using their playing environment. This way, parents’ wishes and ideals pertaining to their childrearing practices can be compared to the reality of those practices.

The thesis is structured in the following way. First, the theoretical framework is presented. Then, research design and methods will be explained, including a conceptual model, operationalisation and an in-depth explanation of the fieldwork locations. After this, the analysis of the results is presented, which includes both cases and the comparison of the two. Finally, the thesis ends with a conclusion.

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Theoretical framework

The importance of green space for families

Much literature has been written on the subject of urban green space and its benefits. In general, the social-cultural benefits of urban parks include social cohesion, physical activity by interaction with natural environments, mental benefits such as stress-reducing processes, increased life satisfaction and perceived beauty in every-day life (see Bertram and Rehtanz, 2015; Chang & Bae, 2017; Daniel et al., 2018; Dzhambov & Demitrova, 2014; Huang, 2014; Takano et al., 2002). For example, a study on working mothers in Taiwan shows that visits to parks and other urban green space reduced stress levels and encouraged positive emotions (Chang & Bae 2017). A study on elderly visitors to a park in Bulgaria shows similar results of lessened anxiety in the participants (Dzhambov & Dimitrova, 2014). Living in close proximity to urban green has also proven to have a significant positive relationship with daily life satisfaction (Bertram, & Rehdanz, 2015; Samuelsson et al., 2018). Furthermore, park users themselves have been shown to be moderately aware of an urban park’s benefits on the economic, social, aesthetic, health and safety and ecological level in a case study in Taipei (Huang, 2014). In general, parks have been appreciated and deemed important by residents and planners of cities around the world.

Children’s living environments and western ‘good parenting’ practices

For families, green spaces are valuable as they provide green playing space for children, which is increasingly scarce in cities (Karsten, 2003; Karsten & Felder, 2015; van der Burgt & Gustafson, 2013; Kinoshita, 2009). However, narratives from such urban parents about the benefits of raising children in the city have also emerged. In the city of Amsterdam, where young urban professionals stayed in the city even after having children in the last few decades, benefits of the urban environment for children have been emphasised by this group (Karsten, 2003). They argue that staying in the city can provide children with a broader range of cultural and educational possibilities and enrich their development until adulthood. Parents from this group, which consists of largely upper-middle class city residents, have been shown to enjoy family outings in the city the most (Karsten & Felder, 2015). This narrative is consistent with the current western idea of what ‘good parenting’ entails. As Pynn et al. describe, “the good parenting ideal is a subjective construct that refers to what parents think other parents consider good parenting” (Pynn et al, 2019: 267). Recently, ‘good parenting’ seems to entail more surveillance and involvement in children’s lives than in previous generations (Pynn et al., 2019). Putting children into structured and supervised activities, with the goal to expose children to many learning opportunities for the betterment of their development is a main feature of current ‘good parenting’ practices. However, while the narrative that praises the benefits of growing up in the city with all its learning opportunities is certainly present, another narrative exists next to it. The rural idyll that presupposes children need safe, open green space to play and grow up in also prevails among urban and non-urban parents alike. This ideal includes preferences for a green environment with non-densely built family homes, as seen in typically suburban environments (Artmann et al., 2017; Carroll et al., 2011; Haaland & van den Bosch, 2015; Howley et al., 2019; Karsten, 2003; Karsten & Felder, 2015; Schänzel & Carr, 2016; Valentine, 1997). This romantic idea of what makes up a good environment for children most prevalently features aspects like a small and tight community, safety and vigilance and wide green areas, where children can play with a certain independence (see Valentine, 1997; Jones, 2000). A green environment is also seen as an important

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8 source of education, as a non-pre-made playing space that stimulates creativity and offers its own lessons about the life around us (Kong, 2000; Goodenough et al., 2015). Following this line of thought, the city doesn’t offer families the kind of environment that is deemed favourable. The dense urban structure lacks an abundance of open green space. Furthermore, the city is seen as crowded as opposed to rural settlements and dangerous and anonymous as opposed to familiar and safe rural communities. As opposed to the dangerous, ‘defiled’ urban space, the ‘pure’ rural space grants children more freedom of movement as a result of adults’ presuppositions that it is relatively safe to lessen their surveillance on their children in these areas (Owain, 2000). The decision that urban families make of moving to lesser densely populated suburbs when children are born, often rests on the idea that a more safe, spacious and green environment is better for children (Lupi & Musterd, 2006; Howley et al., 2009; Howley, 2010). Not surprisingly, the suburbanisation of families that started in the Netherlands in the 60s has been ongoing onto this day, and doesn’t show signs of stopping (van der Wouden, 2001). This preference for specifically non-urban characteristics of the living environment can be seen as a clear reflection of the rural idyll.

East-Asian ‘good parenting’ practices

The aforementioned theory pertaining to children and what is deemed to be a good environment for them has been largely based on ‘western’, in this case European, North-American and Australian, cases. However, different local parenting cultures will bring about different ‘good parenting’ practices, as these practices are subject to change depending on which social group and location is examined (Holloway cited in Pynn et al, 2019). Articles based on east-Asian contexts feature some similar trends in playing practices and what is considered to be ‘good parenting’. An article written by Perrem on park usage by Japanese families reflects some western ideas of ‘good parenting’ practices (2016). The notion that children are not safe in urban public spaces can also be found in this case, which is based on fieldwork in Japanese urban parks. Children’s mobility in public spaces, like urban parks, is thus restricted, following social ideas of ‘stranger danger’ and interaction with children belonging to social groups that are thought of as undesirable. Often, children are confined to their homes or only play in parks under strict supervision from their parents. As Kinoshita found (2009), play time in informal public playing spaces has drastically decreased over the past 40 years in the Setagaya-ward in Tokyo, as children are now mostly spending their playing time in parks, schools and homes. Also, children in Japanese cities are now more busy with extra-curricular activities such as sports, music lessons and cram school (Kinoshita, 2009: 72). This is also reflected in research done in the east-Asian cities of Singapore and Hong Kong where childrens’ movements are very limited, often to inside-spaces, and highly controlled by their parents (Kong, 2000; Karsten, 2014). East-Asian parents in these cases seem to prefer to put more of their children’s time into skill-building exercises in safe environments rather than in free playing time outside. Where parents do appreciate the value of recreation and, perhaps more importantly, education in nature, some parents don’t feel they have the knowledge to teach their children about nature (Kong, 2000: 264). More often do parents teach their children about the dangers of nature than the benefits of it, which also leads to more fear of wild animals and environments on the children’s part. This absence of an affinity with nature and a preference for skill-focused childrearing practices intersects with families’ middle-class status in the cases of the highly urban Singapore and Hong Kong (Kong, 2000; Karsten, 2015). This skill-focused form of ‘good parenting’ practice can also be found in other Asian contexts such as China (Chua, 2011 and Shek, 1996 cited in Karsten, 2014: 558). As Karsten points out (2014: 568), there might be a shift from a rural idyll to an urban idyll in the cases of these east-Asian cities.

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9 Apart from the emphasis on safety in public spaces, a narrative about the city itself as an inherently unsafe or unhealthy place seems to be absent from Japanese and other east-Asian parental narratives. In the next section, I’ll discuss how historically different cultural values pertaining to the ideas of cities and nature can explain differences in the ideas urban parents in Japan and the Netherlands have on what is considered ‘good parenting’, and what is a good environment for children to grow up in.

History, traditions and urban parks

Western urban thought and public green space

The clear separation of urban fabric and rural open space in western thought and modern urban planning theory can be traced back to the medieval European city (Spirn, 1984: 31). This city is characterised by a densely populated urban core that is surrounded by a clear border in the shape of a city wall and a moat, with rural areas only to be found outside of this boundary. As cities grew larger and denser, garden space or the countryside were no longer accessible to the common people. As Spirn suggests, residents of cities that grew bigger and bigger at different times in history would start to complain in the same ways. The unhappiness with urban phenomena like bad smells and unclean air increased together with a nostalgia for the greenery of nature that grew further out of reach.

For those city residents that have no access to the nature beyond the city walls, parks are a solution that can bring greenery back to the city. The first ideas of public parks in European countries started in England in the 18th century (Andela, 1981: 367). They were English landscape gardens and their purpose was to create an experience of nature that could be enjoyed by anyone, in line with the enlightenment philosophy of the time. In France around the same time, royal gardens were opened up to be enjoyed by the public, but they remained in their orderly geometric fashion, because they were believed to be able to inspire the correct law and order morality within their visitors. There was also the idea of parks that were essentially model farms (ferme-ornée), which had the purpose of introducing city residents to a romanticised countryside life. In Germany, public parks were also opened up to the public in the late 18th century, although access was given to the common people with the prerequisite that they kept a respectful distance from those of higher class. Hirschfeld’s argumentation for public parks, who was a theorist of landscaping and gardening and part of the enlightenment reformist bourgeoisie, shows the ethical and political purposes intended for such spaces (Andela, 1981: 368). Public parks were to draw city residents away from wasteful urban pastimes, create opportunities for people from different classes to meet and understand each other, and offer education in the form of monuments with inscriptions that show elements of the region’s notable and heroic history. With a few public parks that follow the purposes stated previously in the late 18th century, the public park only really took off in the 19th century, as a reaction to the industrial revolution and its consequences for urban social life (Andela, 1981: 369). However, it should be noted that even before this time, theorists like Hirschfeld already framed the city as 'densely populated towns where airs and vapours amid houses packed closely together cause poor health and mortal diseases' (Hirschfeld, 1768 as translated in Andela, 1981: 368). Hirschfeld’s ideas behind his public park design express the strong dichotomy between the dirty, unsafe city and the healthy, safe countryside that has been present in European urban thought since medieval times. After all, gardens and parks reflect the values of its designers and cannot be separated from the contemporary

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10 social issues of the society they are placed in (Campbell, 2018). Even the earliest examples of public garden designs as seen in England, France and Germany, seem to try to emulate the countryside in some way, to provide citizens of the dirty, unsafe and otherwise unethical city to a piece of ethically virtuous nature from outside the city’s boundaries (Andela, 1981: 368; Spirn, 1984; 31).

Nowadays, the city is still often seen as dirty and unsafe in comparison to the clean, healthy countryside, taking from the still prevalent idea of the rural idyll (see Valentine, 1997; Owain, 2000). Parks still play an important role in bringing important natural features to the otherwise non-natural city, for the same public health and aesthetic focused purposes as before in European history (see Bell et al., 2005). In recent times, this is not only done for these ethical and aesthetical reasons, but also in an effort to create a more sustainable and habitable city, as Spirn for example describes in her book the Granite Garden (1984). This is also reflected in recent policy goals, such as the municipality of Amsterdam’s “Green Agenda” (2015), which emphasises the need for green spaces in the city for the benefit of city residents in their everyday lives, and also for climate related sustainability problematics in the city and in general. Green revitalisation projects are also used to promote the image of cities to compete with other cities on the global scale, to attract and keep attracting growth (Shafray, 2018). Even though there is an awareness of the city as an entity that is intertwined with its surroundings and the climate, a strong imagined divide between ‘city’ and ‘nature’ as separate entities is still evident in policies and public narratives. This divide still effects urban policy and design choices in Amsterdam and other western cities, as well as the minds of the public.

Japanese urban thought and public green space

A strong dichotomy between a rural ideal and the problematized city, as is present in the western case, is absent from traditional Japanese urban thought (Smith, 1978: 45). Traditionally, the city wasn’t imagined in a black and white relationship with the countryside, which has been the case in Europe since medieval times (Spirn, 1984: 31). The city was rather seen as mediation between man-made areas and natural areas (Smith, 1978: 47). In pre-modern Japan, cities were full of natural elements such as wood and plant-based structures in houses and other buildings, while agriculture was found in the city as well. Since structures were built out of wood, grass and bamboo elements, houses degraded at a faster rate than stone or brick based structures would. As a consequence, houses didn’t last very long and thus became part of the cycle of all things in the natural world, naturally decaying and disappearing and then being built up again. In this way, the dichotomy between long-lasting, orderly human-made settlements and the wild, natural areas outside of the city didn’t exist. There were no walls between the city and its surrounding area. Instead, the density of structures gradually became less and less the further away from the city centre one came. Thus, the urban fabric of Japanese cities like Tokyo historically consist of a mix of open spaces and urban fabrics, which is still partly visible in the form of agricultural land use in Tokyo today (Yokohara & Amati, 2015).

Even when Tokyo’s population started growing rapidly and urban physical structures were strained in the beginning of the 20th century, the modern city was hardly seen as a problem in and of itself, possibly because of the traditional view of the city as mediation (Smith: 58). Writers on urban thought of this period didn’t deem the city as inherently immoral because of its problems, like European writers did in the same period, but saw its problems in a mechanical and quantitative framework. Traffic systems that grew more and more congested for example were approached as

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11 though they were a machine that was not working properly, while there was no explicit disdain for the "city" as the cause of this problem. Also notable is that the concept of certain forms of urban space, such as public parks and squares, did not exist in Japan until the end of the Edo period in 1868, when the Japanese government started implementing European urban city planning practices (Sakai, 2011). Even then, they assumed a an array of hybrid forms as they were adapted into the Japanese city scape and its society. In the Edo period and before, urban spaces that functioned as gathering spots for larger groups of people included bridges, fire barrier zones (empty spaces to prevent spread of fires) and temple grounds (Erez, 2018). From these three sites, the temple grounds arguably were the only ‘green’ urban spaces that were somewhat open for public use. Temple grounds often house festivals for example. This is why green spaces in Japanese cities used to be of a more sacred nature, rather than the secular nature, like public parks in European cities. As the urban fabrics of historical Edo and later Tokyo were fundamentally different from European cities, those differences still carry on into the urban fabrics we see in the city today.

As is evident from Tokyo’s current urban structure, the integration of nature and city that had been present for a long time has more or less been lost. As multiple authors note, there has been a severe decline in formal and informal green space in the city in the last 50 years or so, leading to a contrast between the dense city and the surrounding rural areas (Bae, 1991; Yokohari & Amati, 2005; Kinoshita, 2009). Perhaps because of a lack of awareness of the city as a problematic entity that opposes nature as is present in European-originated urban thought, not much priority was given to keeping the green infrastructure of the city intact as it sprawled outwards. For example, plans for a green belt around Tokyo were abandoned in favour of more urban growth in the 20th century (Bae, 1991). Studies examining Tokyo’s green infrastructure notes that the restoration of it would be beneficial to the ecological resilience and habitability of the city as a whole (Yokohari & Amati, 2005; Kumagai & Yokohama, 2008). Just like in other global cities, policies and projects supported by Tokyo’s government now also aim to revitalise Tokyo’s green spaces (Shafray, 2018). With this green revitalisation, the goal is to support social cohesion and interaction, habitability and also Tokyo’s competitive position in relation to other global cities. However, a narrative that clearly separates ‘city’ and ‘nature’ in contemporary urban thought and planning practices, which can be found in western contexts, seems to remain absent from the Japanese case.

Implications for further research

As there is not a long standing legacy of public parks in Japanese cities, usage and perception of urban parks and other green space in the city might also be different. These differences in urban thought, one originating from Europe based on a strong dichotomy of urban and rural, while the other originates from Japan based on a understanding in which cities have a softer mediating quality, might also point towards differences in perceptions of urban characteristics in the minds of Japanese parents today. There has not been much research into specifically Japanese ‘good parenting’ practices, besides other east-Asian perspectives, or research into contemporary Japanese urban thought as much has been done for western contexts. That’s why input from a different cultural perspective will be helpful in broadening our understanding of the different forms of ‘good parenting’ values and practices in different local parenting cultures pertaining to families’ usage of urban green space and other related childrearing practices.

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Research design and methods

Research questions

This thesis is mainly concerned with the following research question: “How do Japanese and Dutch families in the Amstelveen area use public urban green spaces and how important do parents consider green space for their children while they’re growing up?” The research is structured as a comparative case study, in which the case of Japanese families will be compared to the case of Dutch families. The main question will be answered by answering the two following sub-questions. The first sub-question is “how are urban children using urban parks”, in which the focus lies on patterns of usage of green space. The second sub-question is “what parental narratives about the importance of urban green for children are used, which motivates parents to use public green space with their children”. This question focusses on the narratives and perspectives parents use to describe what they think is best for their child or children in general. Each question will be answered for both Dutch families and Japanese families.

Conceptual model

To better explain the various variables at play in the research question, the following conceptual model is presented. Starting with the conceptual variables of Japanese tradition and culture and West-European tradition and culture, for the sake of this conceptual framework it is assumed Japanese and Dutch childrearing values are at least partly determined by the broader cultural context that they’re formed and perpetuated in. Following the orange line, the main causal relation in relation to the research question is presented. Japanese or Dutch childrearing values lead to various ways of perceiving the importance of urban green and behavioural patterns of park usage. Following the white line, the role of the intermediating nature of the park design variable is illustrated. Because of their broader national and cultural contexts, park design in Tokyo and park design in Amstelveen differ from each other. The way a park is designed also leads to different possibilities of park usage, as illustrated with the line from park design to park usage. All concepts illustrated in this model will be explained more in the following operationalisation section.

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Operationalisation

To make clear what the variables presented in the conceptual model represent and how they will be used in this research, they are operationalised as follows. After explaining the nature of the research units, the concepts that are presented in the conceptual model will be explained in order of appearance in their causal relationship.

The research units have been operationalised as such: Both groups of parents that were interviewed, Japanese and Dutch, have the respective nationalities, are living in the area of Amstelveen and Buitenveldert (Amsterdam), and have children between 4 and 12 years old (Dutch primary school age). Subjects observed in the parks in Tokyo and Amstelveen were children and their parents who were speaking Japanese in the case of Tokyo, and families speaking Dutch in the case of Amstelveen, both with children around the same age group of 4 to 12 years old.

Japanese and western European tradition and culture refers to the characteristics of each culture and tradition pertaining to urban thought and childrearing. It is recognized that European tradition and culture is heavily influenced by the type of urban thought that places ‘nature’ and ‘city’ in direct opposition of each other. In the Japanese case, a direct opposition of the concepts of city and nature is not traditionally found in urban thought, arguably because of a history of the mixing of agricultural and urban land use within Japanese cities. The culture and tradition of each area is thus in this case defined by their history of urban thought and the social values that are derived from that.

Japanese and Dutch childrearing values are independent variables, but are assumed to be influenced by the cultural contextual variables, as can be seen in the conceptual model. In this thesis, childrearing values are operationalised as what is to considered to be ‘good parenting’: the set of values and narratives parents use to describe what is best for their child or any other child while they grow up (Pynn et al, 2019). What is considered ‘good parenting’ relies on local parenting cultures, which leads to differences depending on the social group and geographical place childrearing values are based in. In this case, the local parenting cultures that are examined are that of middle class Dutch parents on one side, and that of middle class Japanese parents on the others side.

Park design in Tokyo and the Amstelveen area is operationalised by looking at each case and what features are present within each park. Features include playing facilities, natural aspects, path design and other facilities like toilets. The history of how these particular features have come to exist through the process of designing the parks is also considered.

Park usage is operationalised as interactions of the park visitors with their surroundings and each other and their activities in general, as well as the time-spatial nature of those activities, such as how often and how long park visits take place.

Perceived importance of urban green is operationalised as the way the interviewed parents describe the value they attribute to green areas and parks. This is mainly derived from the answers to the following questions that were asked in interviews: Why parents chose to live where they live, what they think about children growing up in the city or the countryside, what they think about the urban parks they visit, what they look for while they’re there and what they think their children will gain by playing and growing up in a green area.

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Fieldwork methods

In this section, the methods that were used to acquire data for this research will be described per sub-question. As the focus of this research is on narratives and motivations for behavioural patterns, the methods are generally qualitative in nature.

Sub-question: Usage

To answer the main research question, the two sub-questions will be answered following the results of two sets of research methods. The first sub-question, “how are urban parents and their children using urban parks”, will be answered using both participatory observation, non-participatory observation and semi-structured interview methods. Using observational methods has the advantage of allowing the researcher to carefully register behaviour of observed people with a relatively high degree of objectivity, as opposed to interviews where socially desirable answers might be given by interviewees (Bryman, 2012). Observation has been done in two different parks, one being in Tokyo and one being in Amstelveen. Around ten hours of observation have been done in both locations, where I have observed other park visitors and their patterns of behaviour closely. I did this by either sitting in one place and noting what I observed other people doing in a specific location over a period of time, or by walking around and noting what I experienced and saw, to understand how the park was used more generally. When analysing the fieldwork notes from my observations, I pay attention to essentially three different things. What were the visiting children, aged around 4 to 12 years, doing in general and for how long did they do it, how did they interact with other visitors and their parents, and how did they interact with their surroundings. This is done only for Japanese speaking children and their families in Tokyo and for Dutch speaking children and their families in Amstelveen. From the semi-structured interviews, I have collected data on interviewees’ time-spatial behaviour pertaining to their park visits. From this data I was able to get an overview of how often interviewees went to parks with their children in the week preceding the interview, which parks they went to, and how long they stayed there and finally what they and their children spent most of their time doing there. Combining the observational data and the data from interviews, I was able to get an overview of patterns in behaviour of both the Japanese and Dutch group respectively.

Sub-question: Narratives

To answer the second sub-question, “what parental narratives about the importance of urban green for children are used, which motivates parents to use public green space with their children”, I conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews. In this type of interview, the researcher has a list of topics that need to be addressed in the interview, but the interviewee is given room to elaborate on their answers and stray off from the original question (Bryman, 2012). Because of the room given to interviewees to elaborately answer questions, there is space for new perspectives and narratives to present themselves in these conversations. This type of interview was perfect for my research question, as I was both interested in specific time-spatial behaviours pertaining to park usage and wanted to find out what narratives and value systems my interviewees used to describe what they thought was best for their child and children in general. The interviews I did lasted about 40 minutes on average each, with a few as short as 20 minutes and a few as long as an hour and a half. To guide my interview questions, I used the following conceptual table. The questions noted here are examples and have not been used exactly like they are stated here. The complete interview guidelines can be found in the appendix.

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15 Concepts Items for interviews

Perceived importance of urban green

Questions:

1. What features do you value most in a park?

2. Did you base your choice of residence on the surrounding environment for your children?

3. Do you think a green environment is important for children while they grow up?

Other childrearing values

Questions:

1. Relative to growing up in the city, is growing up in the countryside better for children?

2. (After asking if they value playing outside and getting a positive answer:) How do you think playing outside is good for children?

Park usage Questions:

1. How often do you go to a park with your child(ren)?

2. What did you and your child mostly do while visiting the park?

3. Did you play together with your children or did they mostly play on their own?

Fieldwork locations

In this section, I will describe the fieldwork locations that the observations took place in. For the Japanese case, this was a park in Tokyo called Arisugawa-no-Miya Memorial Park. In the Dutch case, it was a playground and pool area within the larger area of Amsterdamse Bos. The layout of each place will be described below, as well as the various types of landscaping that can be found within each park. Characteristics such as these landscaping styles can inform the types of usage that are encouraged by each type of park design. Playground areas, pathways and natural elements will also be described for each park, as well as the locations I observed from. These can also be found on the maps for each park location.

Arisugawa-no-Miya Memorial Park

Fieldwork for the Japanese case was done in the Arisugawa-no-Miya Memorial park, which has a total area of about 55,000 square meters, in which the building of the Metropolitan Central Library is included (Google Maps, n.d.1). This fieldwork location was selected as it is situated in a ward in which a high percentage of families is living, relative to the rest of Tokyo. The Minato ward features a percentage of 17,6 households with residents under 18, and has the highest fertility and growth of fertility rates in Tokyo since 2000 (Tokyo Bureau of Social Welfare and Public Health, 2015). Also, the park offers a relatively large amount of green space compared to other smaller playgrounds that are scattered through Tokyo. Because of its central location in the Tokyo area and the fact that many families make use of this park, this park shows a good example of how urban Japanese families use green space that’s available in Tokyo.

This park in the Minato ward in Tokyo was opened in 1934, when its conversion into a park was finished by commission of prince Takamatsu. Previously it was owned by the imperial Arisugawa-no-miya family line. The park was named after prince Arisugawa Takehito, thus the name. It was intended as a space to promote children’s health and education about nature, according to information provided at the entrance of the park, also accessible on the park’s website (N.N., 2012). In this park, different styles of landscaping have been used, each with a different cultural legacy

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16 behind it. As mentioned previously, various types of landscaping inform the types of usage by park visitors. To understand the Japanese influences on the design of this park, as well as the types of park usage that are encouraged in different areas, these different sections will be described below. First, I will discuss the largest part of the park. As is explained on the information sign at the entrance of the park, the landscape style used in a large part of the area follows the ‘rinsen’ style of landscaping. Rinsen stands for ‘wooded’ (rin) and ‘spring’ (sen). This style is characterised by the use of hills and rocks as well as a pond or water feature to emulate natural features such as the sea, rivers and mountains on the scale of the garden in question. This is also expressed on an English introduction panel at the entrance of the park that reads:

“The park’s cascading hills and valleys, ponds, and densely wooded areas have been arranged in harmony with the natural terrain according to the traditional Japanese rinsen style of landscaping, expressing an elegant natural beauty and create a tranquil setting rarely found in central Tokyo,” (see

also N.N. 2012).

The predominant park features, the pond with the waterfalls and streams leading to it, seems to be a clear example of the mimicking of rivers streaming from the mountains into the sea. This mimicking of natural features that are revered in Shinto traditions is another indication of rinsen landscaping (Goto & Naka, 2015: 3). The hills used throughout the park in their turn represent mountains. Another set of features that points towards the traditional Japanese landscaping legacy is the deliberate use of plants and trees that show the passing of seasons, like the plum grove in the middle of the park and the iris bed in the middle of the stream near the pond. Unlike western parks, little interaction with the features that are emulating natural beauty is encouraged. Instead, participation in this form of Japanese garden design is supposed to be passive, with visitors walking through the garden and appreciating its beauty (Sakai, 2011: 354).

However, a specifically western feature can also be found in this park. This feature is the square that is spread out before the statue of prince Arisugawa Taruhito. Especially with the equestrian statue at its end, this feature looks particularly European to me. However, upon closer inspection, it can be noted that this is merely an adaptation of a western public space feature into the Japanese context of this park. The square is not hardened, but rather is made up of dirt, which becomes dust when many children run across it. However, the way that it is used by many children as a large playing space, without the space itself attributing any discernible codes of usage to it, is a unique feature for a Japanese park that is more reminiscent of an European square, a type of urban structure that has been historically absent from Japanese urban design (Smith, 1978; Erez, 2018). All in all, this space forms a hybrid between a traditionally European public space feature and Japanese public space, a Japanese implementation of the concept of an European square, even including a man-on-horse statue.

Finally, the park also features some generic characteristics that can be found in any park in Tokyo. Near the centre, which also includes the generic public toilets which are sure to be found in any public park in Tokyo, there is an area with vending machines, benches and a tall clock. It is a small area, but it none-the-less looks like any park in Tokyo with these typical facilities and layout (Erez, 2018b). Then, on the other side of the square, there is an area for children to play. This are includes facilities such as swings, a jungle gym and benches for children’s guardians to sit on and watch

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17 children while they play. There is no implementation of traditional landscaping, traditional western features or anything that could notify a visitor of the cultural significance of the location of the park. The main locations I observed from can also be found on the following map, indicated by the red stars. Apart from these static locations, I also participated by strolling through the park as any other visitor. My routes for doing this were from the square with the equestrian statue, down the path towards the pond passing by the playground, and on the path that goes around the pond. These routes were also most frequently used by other park visitors. The elements mentioned previously can also be found on this map. The European-style square is indicated as the “open space” and the playground is the “children’s corner”.

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Klein Kinderbad in Amsterdamse Bos

Fieldwork for the Dutch case has been done in this area around a children’s pool (kinderbad in Dutch), which is situated in the larger Amsterdamse Bos park in the west part of Amstelveen. This smaller area’s surface is about 17,000 square meters, which is much smaller than the park in Tokyo. However, this smaller area meant I was able to observe most of the area from a single spot, so I could observe more people at the same time than I was able to see in Arisugawa-no-Miya Memorial Park. The larger area in which this is situated, the Amsterdamse Bos (or Amsterdam Forest) was finished in the 1960s, but was designed in the years following 1928, when it was decided the public park would be built. A design of the site from 1937 can be found in figure 2. The park is situated beyond the south-west border of Amsterdam, and functionally lies in the municipality of Amstelveen, as well as in the bordering municipality of Aalsmeer. The park is however owned and maintained by the municipality of Amsterdam (Gemeente Amsterdam1, n.d.).

Amsterdamse Bos was designed according to the principles of Dutch Functionalism, in the international context of Modernist architecture, as the planner of the park van Eesteren was active in the Congres Internationaux d' Architecture Moderne (Andela, 1981: 388). This meant that the Amsterdamse Bos was designed as part of the urban corpus, an idea that sees the city as a functioning machine that places emphasis on air, light, sanitation and exercise for its residents. In this framework, the Amsterdamse Bos was to provide recreation, functioning as a link in a chain of various urban parks in Amsterdam. Various types of recreational activities were planned and built for, including a water sports centre in the north, a riding school in the east, an open-air theater and various sports grounds (Andela, 1981; 390). The areas to the east and north were built using geometrical patterns for easy access and to support larger flows of people, while to the west and south of the park a more naturalistic approach to landscaping was taken, following English landscaping design. In these ‘deeper’ parts of the Amsterdamse Bos, there are more spaces that encourage walking over unhardened paths, sunbathing and camping.

In an international context, Amsterdamse Bos can be seen as one of many urban forests of European cities (Bell et al., 2005: 150). As Bell et al. frame it, urban forests or woodlands are forested ecosystems with various purposes including recreation and nature preservation. Many such urban forests originate from the wooded areas beyond medieval European city walls that were swallowed up by cities as they grew (Bell et al., 2005: 155). Many others also originate from more modern city planning practices outside of historical medieval city centres, that incorporate lanes with trees, formal squares and urban parks for aesthetic and public health-focused purposes. As explained before, Amsterdamse Bos is a product of the latter modern planning practices. As the Netherlands is a densely populated country, space for recreation is scarce and urban forests and parks are intensively used (Bell et al., 155). In densely populated regions like this, urban forests offer the important opportunity of escape from busy city life, which they do by providing a naturalistic inspired landscape and an obscuration of the cityscape and its noisiness.

The ways in which this naturalistic impression is created can also be found in Amsterdamse Bos. For example, groups of trees are used to emulate forested areas, through which paths have been placed that grow from straight and broad near the entrance to more narrow and winding further along the way towards the south and the east part of the park. The broader access roads are paired with wide open grass fields that offer space for recreation to a large amount of people, while more densely

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19 forested areas can be found further away from the entrances. These changing proportions of open spaces and wooded areas are also used to provide visitors with the fantasy that they are leaving the city behind them, while they are going further and further into the forest (Oldenburger-Ebbers et al. cited in Bell et al., 2005: 174). As described by Andela, visitors are led from busier open areas near the entrances designed in a modernist style towards more secluded forested areas, inspired by the English landscaping style, that are further away from the urban surrounding area.

The area I did my fieldwork in can be found on the map of the larger Amsterdamse Bos area in figure 3, and a map of the area itself can be found in figure 4. Klein Kinderbad can be found along one of the main roads that cuts through Amsterdamse Bos, leading to the south-east. The area is surrounded on the west, south and east by wide grass fields that provide wide views of the landscape, while there is a forested area to the north. Patches of trees frame the grass fields surrounding the children’s bath and playground, creating the impression of forest meadows. The area is well accessible by means of walking or biking and there are toilet and drinking water facilities as well. The children’s pool and toilet are however only usable from May until September, and the pool is filled with water from 10 in the morning until 7 at night (Gemeente Amsterdam2, n.d.). The location I observed from can be found on the map below and is indicated by the red star. That location is a bench that overlooks the pool, the playground next to it and large parts of the grass fields surrounding the area.

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20 Figure 3: Plan for Amsterdamse Bos from 1937. Source: Beeldbank Amsterdam, edited by author.

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21 .

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Response of research participants

As described before in the operationalization, the prerequisites for interviewees were that they had either Japanese or Dutch nationalities, that they lived in Amstelveen or areas very close to it, and that they had children between the ages of 4 and 12. The maps in figure 5 show the addresses of the Japanese and Dutch respondents in Amstelveen and the bordering Amsterdam Buitenveldert neighbourhood. Even though Buitenveldert is not officially part of Amstelveen, it was included in this research as the area is considered a suburb of Amsterdam. Buitenveldert borders Amstelveen in such a way that they are functionally part of the same suburban area, south of the centre of Amsterdam. North of Buitenveldert and beyond the A10 is the Amsterdam inner city area. The addresses are labelled with the interviewed parents’ pseudonyms. In the following section, I will describe the process of contacting these participants and provide an overview of their background information and housing situation. The section ends with a reflection of the implications and limits of the sample that was acquired.

Figure 5: Maps of the Amstelveen area. Japanese respondents’ addresses on the left and Dutch respondents’ addresses on the right. Source: Google maps n.d., edited by author.

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Japanese interviewees

The process of approaching possible Japanese participants started by looking up Japanese organisations that are situated in the Amstelveen area online. I contacted a few Japanese schools in Amstelveen and Amsterdam, as well as the Japan Women’s Club (JWC). The JWC organises events such as practice sessions for Japanese conversations and has organised the creation of the cherry blossom park in Amsterdamse Bos in the year 2000 (JWC, n.d.). By mail I told them that I was looking to interview Japanese parents, and that I wanted to join one of their conversation sessions to be able to meet possible interviewees. I got a fast and welcoming response, in which I was invited to the conversation session and told that I would likely be able to already interview a few volunteers if they came to the session. In that session on the 5th of April I was already able to interview two Japanese parents, one of whom offered to introduce me to some of her friends. Using a Japanese mobile application called LINE I was brought into contact with about ten of the organiser’s friends who all were interested in being interviewed for this research. Because I was able to do the interviews in Japanese, I was also able to interview participants that couldn’t speak English or weren’t comfortable enough to do so. Through some of the friends of the organiser that I interviewed, I found two more Japanese parents who were interested. In the end, I was able to hold 12 interviews with Japanese parents. About half of these interviews were held in the houses of respondents, while the other half were held in cafés in the Amstelveen Stadshart area or at Gelderlandplein in Amsterdam Buitenveldert. All of the respondents had at least one child in the age range between 4 and 12 years old. All children of respondents are mentioned with their age below their parent’s name in table 1 on the next page. As can be seen in the same table, most of the interviewees were not employed or working part-time, save for just one interviewee. Out of 12, 4 were living in Amstelveen for less than 3 years. Only 3 were living in Amstelveen for more than 5 years. Out of those that stay longer, 2 weren’t married to Japanese men but to a Dutch man and an American man. As I heard in some of the interviews, most expats tend to stay in the Netherland for about 3 to 5 years, before they move to another country or back to Japan. I was also only able to interview mothers, although in two cases there was also a father present during the interview, who was sometimes asked to help answer a question. As can be seen in table 2, 5 of the Japanese parents had no garden and 2 of them no outside space whatsoever. The number of families that have only 2 extra (bed-)rooms is also 5, the remainder of families having more than that. Several families thus have a limited space inside, as well as limited private outdoors space, which could lead to motivation for going on family outings to public green spaces.

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Table 1: Japanese respondents and background information

Interviewee and child(ren) Nationality Family composition Occupation Highest Education Level Time spent living in Amstelveen area J1 Ichiko

10 y/o son Japanese

37/female 47/male 10/male

Housewife University 3 years

J2 Futaba

43/female 38/male 6/male Housewife University masters 9 years J3 Minako 6 y/o son, 6 y/o daughter Japanese 42/female 40/male 6/male 6/female

Housewife University 2,5 years

J4 Yoko

43/female 42/male 6/male Part-time guide at Museumplein Higher Vocational Education 10 years J5 Itsuko 7 y/o daughter, 3 y/o daughter Japanese 38/female 38/male 7/female 3/female

J6 Romi 7 y/o son, 4 y/o son Japanese 40/female 44/male 7/male 4/male Part-time cook

at Schiphol University 7 years

J7 Nana 5 y/o son, 3 y/o daughter Japanese 30/female 30/male 5/male 3/female Art director of

packaging University 1 year

J8 Hachiko 5 y/o son, 2 y/o daughter Japanese-Korean 37/female 38/male 5/male 2/female

Housewife University 3 months

J9 Komori 6 y/o son, 2 y/o son Japanese 36/female 36/male 6/male 2/male

J10 Touko 5 y/o daughter, 1 y/o son Japanese 43/female 36/male 4/male 1/male Housewife University masters 3 months J11 Izumi

38/female 38/male

8/male

Housewife University 4,5 years J12 Niko 5 y/o daughter, 3 y/o son, 1 y/o son Japanese 39/female 40/male 5/female 3/male 1/male

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Table 2: Living situation of Japanese respondents

Interviewee Bedrooms Balcony Garden Owned/rental Car(s) J1 Ichiko

10 y/o son 2 Yes No Rental 1

J2 Futaba

6 y/o son 2 Yes No Rental 1

J3 Minako 6 y/o son, 6 y/o daughter

4 No Yes Owned 1

J4 Yoko

6 y/o son 5 No Yes Owned 4

J5 Itsuko 7 y/o daughter, 3 y/o daughter 2 No Yes Rental 1 J6 Romi 7 y/o son, 4 y/o son 2 Yes No Owned 1 J7 Nana 5 y/o son, 3 y/o daughter 5 No Yes Rental 2 J8 Hachiko 5 y/o son, 2 y/o daughter 5 No Yes Rental 2 J9 Komori 6 y/o son, 2 y/o son

3 Yes Yes Rental 2

J10 Touko 5 y/o daughter,

1 y/o son

3 No No Rental 1

J11 Izumi

8 y/o son 3 No Yes Rental 1

J12 Niko 5 y/o daughter, 3 y/o son, 1 y/o son 2 No No Rental 1

Dutch interviewees

Getting into contact with potential Dutch interviewees proved to be less easy than with of Japanese respondents. Like in the case with Japanese parents, I first tried contacting various organisations based in Amstelveen online, like schools and other community-based organisations. However, I only found one interviewee in this way, which was through a small school in which there was only one child enrolled in the age group of 4 to 12. I found one more interviewee through the first contact, but then I had trouble finding anyone else for a while. In the end I found most interviewees through my father’s company, which is based close to Amstelveen. He was able to find 4 colleagues who wanted to be interviewed by me. I found the remaining 4 interviewees through Japanese contacts and through one of my father’s colleagues’ friend. In total, I interviewed 9 Dutch parents. In the end, I found most contacts through professional relations in the Dutch case, which stands in contrast to the

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26 Japanese contacts, who I mostly found through a network of friendship. Dutch respondents were also harder to interview, because in most cases both parents of the household were working and thus had less time, while in the case of Japanese parents, the mothers had more time on weekdays to meet me for the interview. Compared to the Japanese contacts, a lot more respondents have lived in Amstelveen for a longer time, as can be seen in table 3. The amount of higher educated respondents however is roughly the same in both cases. As can be seen in table 4, only two Dutch parents have no garden and only Tina has no private outside space at all. Only one family has less than three extra rooms that could be used as bedrooms. Most families seem to have quite a bit of space inside and outside for the household members to use.

Table 3: Dutch respondents and background information

Interviewee

and child(ren) Nationality

Family composition (ages, gender) Occupation Highest Education Level Years living in Amstelveen area N1 Emily

9 y/o son Dutch

46/female

9/male Civil servant

Higher Vocational Education ~30 years N2 Tina 13 y/o daughter, 10 y/o son Dutch 47/female 55/male 13/female 10/male Project

manager University 9 years N3 Desirée 11 y/o son, 9 y/o son Dutch 50/female 45/male 11/male 9/male

Manager University 10 years

N4 Victor 7 y/o son, 4 y/o son Dutch 44/male 47/female 7/male 4/male

Sales manager University 9 years

N5 Vera 13 y/o son, 11 y/o son, 9 y/o son Dutch 46/female 47/male 13/male 11/male 9/male Release Train Engineer University Masters 10 years N6 Zoey 7 y/o daughter, 7 y/o son Dutch 49/female 55/male 7/female 7/male Chief Operating Officer University 9 years N7 Evert

4 y/o son Dutch

39/male 42/female 4/male Product manager Higher Vocational Education 5 years N8 Andra

4 y/o son Dutch

42/female 39/male

4/male

Manager University 16 years N9 Nora 8 y/o daughter, 6 y/o son Dutch 42/female 50/male 8/female 6/male

ICT architect University 9 years

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Table 4: Living situation of Dutch respondents

Interviewee and pseudonym

Bedrooms Balcony Garden Owned/rental Car(s) N1 Emily

9 y/o son 2 Yes No Owned 1

N2 Tina 13 y/o daughter, 10 y/o son 4 No No Owned 1 N3 Desirée 11 y/o son, 9 y/o son

3 Yes Yes Owned 2

N4 Victor 7 y/o son, 4 y/o son

6 Yes Yes Owned 2

N5 Vera 13 y/o son, 11 y/o son, 9 y/o son 4 No Yes Owned 2 N6 Zoey 7 y/o daughter, 7 y/o son

4 Yes Yes Owned 2

N7 Evert

4 y/o son 4 Yes Yes Owned 2

N8 Andra

4 y/o son 4 Yes Yes Owned 2

N9 Nora 8 y/o daughter, 6 y/o son

4 No Yes Owned 2

Limitations of the sample

As described before, most respondents were found using a snowball effect. Especially in the Japanese case, all respondents were contacted from the same circle of acquaintances. However, I expect that most Japanese expats living in the Amstelveen area are in some way connected through various community-organised groups and activities. From the interviews and casual conversations afterwards, it seems that Japanese people consciously choose to live in Amstelveen to have access to this Japanese community, that seems to be very active. For example, the JWC (Japan Women’s Club) organises many different activities and seems to have the function of connecting most Japanese expats that live in the Amsterdam area. I doubt that it would have been possible to find Japanese respondents that weren’t connected to this larger community in some way. As for the Dutch respondents, I had contacts from three distinct pools of contacts, namely the small school that led me to the first contact, my father’s colleagues and finally the professional contacts of some Japanese respondents. In the Dutch case, the chance that all respondents come from a similar background was

Child-rearing values and practices of Japanese and Dutch families : the importance of public green space