Much more is being bulldozed than softball

Changes at North Field undermine a radically inclusive community, Kathryn Jezer-Morton writes.

The Parc Jeanne-Mance Softball Association is a community of friends and acquaintances who, over decades of time spent hanging out and hitting balls at the park’s North Field, have made the city home for each other. Now, this priceless community asset is threatened by the Plateau Mont-Royal borough’s recent bulldozing of their softball diamond.

The borough closed that softball field last spring for construction and promised to reopen it this month. Last week they reneged, and indicated that the field will not reopen.

Although the park’s neighbouring south softball field remains open, many of the PJM league’s games have been moved to Laurier and Lafontaine parks. Breaking up the league’s fields breaks up the group’s social cohesion. Space for the league’s legendary pickup games — as important to many as league play — has been cut by more than half.

There is more at stake here than softball. Softball games at the North Field had a spontaneous and benevolent quality reminiscent of a bygone era of urban life: kids playing behind the backstop while their parents fielded, beers being discreetly passed around, loiterers and homeless guys stopping to watch. It felt like how city life was meant to be: the opposite of isolated, the opposite of lonely.

The culture that has revolved around the North Field for the past 50 years is defined by its informality. It’s at once a tight-knit group of friends and a radically inclusive environment where newcomers are made to feel welcome. It’s rare to see such diversity on a playing field — of ages, genders, ethnicities and levels of experience.

Sounds simple, but it’s the result of a complex network of what social scientists call “affordances” — that which is possible given the conditions at hand. Sometimes affordances are so subtle they’re almost imperceptible; restaurateurs understand this. What makes a restaurant great? What makes it impossible for a beloved bar to recreate its former glory when it’s forced to move to a new location? It’s spatial dynamics, it’s what’s close by, it’s the location of the shade tree, it’s who’s always there and who drops in for a surprise visit every now and then.

Urban planners and policymakers can’t design the cocktail of affordances that have made the North Field a special nexus of social magic. Ironically it’s the PJM league’s strength — its reliance on social rather than corporate or civic ties — that makes it vulnerable to collapse. Without the field itself, the league is just a group of friends, some of whom only know each other from the field. Busy schedules and the absence of a convenient alternative could very easily dissolve 50 years of history. City governments should protect the communities that can’t be planned for, that emerge over time, and that can’t easily be reconstituted. Yes, the North Field is probably a casualty of the gentrification of Jeanne-Mance Park. Part of the North Field’s social DNA is its rough edges, its willingness to tolerate a little rowdiness. That probably doesn’t appeal to the many sponsored events that rent out Jeanne-Mance Park throughout the summer.

Borough Mayor Luc Ferrandez can widen the sidewalks, beef up the bike lanes and plant beautiful native shrubbery on every street corner, but his government can’t bring people together the way history can. They can’t engineer it — but they can decide to place a value on it, and protect it. It’s fragile, because it’s based on social bonds. It’s valuable because without it city life would be nothing but an existentially bleak cycle of wage-earning and consumption. Even bike paths, third-wave coffee and artisanal ice cream aren’t enough to sweeten that deal.

It felt like how city life should be: the opposite of isolated, the opposite of lonely.