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A cascade of research in recent years has demonstrated that green spaces in cities are not a mere frill, but critical infrastructure that supports the physical, mental and social wellbeing of all residents, and children in particular. Urban green spaces are also a potent defence against climate change and its metastasizing ills. Sky-high rates of climate-related anxiety show that many young people are acutely aware they will be forced to inherit this crisis.

And yet, as our understanding of these benefits has grown, green space in pc28����has dropped.

By using satellite data to track urban greenness over time, Statistics Canada found that Toronto’s green space has shrunk significantly over the past two decades. As the region faces pressure to create much-needed housing, city reports warn that the amount of parkland per person risks falling further. Unplantable land covered by concrete and other impervious surfaces is expanding, a change that is often permanent.

Recently, Doug Ford’s provincial government introduced new housing legislation that includes a suite of changes developers advocated for and that municipalities say will mean less new parkland in the future.

Wyatt is of course naive to these adult challenges, in part because he is two, and in part because his parents work hard to give him and his brother access to parks, nature and outdoor activities. For children of families with less means, the barriers to accessing green space are even steeper.

“For a long time, (green space) seemed like it was just a nice-to-have, it was a luxury,” says Cathy Jordan, a professor of pediatrics and consulting director of research for the non-profit Children & Nature Network. “And the nice-to-haves and the luxuries tend to go to the more advantaged,” and tend to be cut first when there are budget deficits.

But as the research “explodes,” Jordan says, one thing has become clear: “We should be thinking about this as a necessity for all children.”

Wyatt maximizes the park’s tiny footprint and whatever nature is inside it. He gathers fallen leaves into a pile and jumps into them. He investigates a branch that has snapped off a beleaguered tree. He picks two clover flowers and swoops his arms dramatically as he marches up to his mother, offering this pint-size bouquet to her with a flourish.

A bag that was previously full of crafts becomes stuffed with vibrant red maple leaves and hung from the handle of Wyatt’s scooter to be brought home.

“We are at rock capacity. We are at acorn capacity,” Wyatt’s dad will later say, wearily.

Experiences like this — unstructured, free-roaming outdoor play, in direct contact with nature — are so important for children that the writer Richard Louv coined a term to describe its absence: “Nature-Deficit Disorder.” Louv wasn’t trying to suggest this was a real medical disorder, but since he came up with the term almost 20 years ago, countless studies have been published that quantify how important nature, parks and green space are to our wellbeing.

The benefits start early: in utero.

In a study of 2.2 million births in Canadian cities, researchers found that mothers who lived in greener areas had lower risks of delivering premature and low-birth-weight babies, outcomes that can have lifelong consequences. The link between greener areas and better birth outcomes persisted regardless of the socioeconomic status of the neighbourhood.

From birth onwards, the benefits of nature keep accruing. In a study of Ontario kindergarteners, children who participated in more lessons outdoors scored higher in self-regulation. Other studies have found that merely being able to view green space from a window, either at school or at home, has benefits.

In Canada, and in other countries, green space — and all the benefits that come with it — is not distributed equally. Wealthier households tend to have more residential greenness, and white populations across all income levels have “markedly” higher greenness around their homes than any other group, according to Statistics Canada.

This imbalance will have even sharper consequences as climate change exacerbates heat waves, flooding and other extremes, all of which green space helps buffer: trees cool the air, soil absorbs rainwater.

Some emerging research suggests that affording access to green space to all children can help equalize the advantage gap, with low-income kids benefiting the most from these experiences. In a study that had some fourth graders take science lessons outdoors in nature and others inside in classrooms, the scores of kids in the classrooms were influenced by sociodemographic factors, whereas the kids learning outside all benefited equally.

“When exposed to the same green environment, kids from economic disadvantage begin to catch up,” says Jordan, adding this finding has “major, major” policy and urban design implications.

The literature on these benefits is now so substantial that the conversation has turned not to whether nature makes people happier and healthier, but how much is enough: what should we consider a minimum “dose”?

This question was part of what drove Jared Hanley to co-found NatureQuant, a technology company to help measure people’s exposure to nature. They created something called NatureScore, which aggregates reams of data to rate the quantity and quality of natural elements for every address in North America.

In Toronto, an address in Riverdale scored 65 out of 100. One in Rosedale scored 95. Wyatt’s address is among the lowest scoring residential addresses in the entire city: 6.7 out of 100.

“Anything below 20 is pretty nature-deficient,” says Hanley, the CEO and co-founder of NatureQuant.

When he was the city councillor for this ward, Joe Cressy used to hear from his constituents in this pocket about lack of park space “endlessly,” he says. The ward, Spadina-Fort York, has some of the lowest parkland per person and highest population growth.

Only 340 children under age 14 lived in Wyatt’s area in 2006, according to the census. By 2021, there were over 2,000.

As the dad of a young kid, Cressy says he gets it: “When the wading pools close on September 1, I’m like, uggghhhh,” he says.

“As a resident of a city, I think parks and community centres are where community is built. In the absence of shared public space, we’re nothing more than individual household units behind closed doors,” says Cressy, who is now a senior vice-president at George Brown College.

Finding ways to create new parks was both exciting and frustrating, he says.

Exciting because councillors and staff often had to flex their creativity in carving out green spaces. In 2019, the city initiated a series of manoeuvres — relocating a fire station, selling the land, using the proceeds to buy a parking lot — to create a new park at 229 Richmond St. W. The site of the Gardiner Expressway’s old York-Bay-Yonge off-ramp is now a park, and a chunk of pier at the bottom of Rees Street is about to be. There’s also the Bentway, a not-for-profit partnership that has converted dismal areas underneath the Gardiner into public spaces.

But frustrating, because their larger ambitions were often stymied. The proposed Rail Deck Park, which would have created a 20-acre legacy green space overtop the railway corridor south of Front Street and west of Blue Jays Way, was effectively killed when a provincial tribunal ruled that developers were allowed to build more condos and office towers over the area instead. Property prices punish the city, too: millions of dollars in a fund for new parkland don’t buy much downtown.

The City of Toronto’s 2019 Parkland Strategy emphasizes that while these spaces are integral to the wellbeing of residents, population growth and densification are putting pressure on the system. If no new parkland is acquired, the amount available per person will drop 14 per cent by 2033, with the worst impacts felt in high-growth areas that are already deficient.

Leafy, vegetated spaces, both public and private, are already being eaten away. Statistics Canada recently released a national analysis that showed Toronto’s average greenness was almost 12 per cent lower when comparing the most recent five-year period to the period 18 years earlier.

All major urban centres lost greenness, with the biggest loser being Milton, one of the fastest growing communities in Canada. Milton dropped more than 30 per cent.

Developers are required to pay fees or set aside space to create parkland, a way to ensure that new housing is embedded in healthy communities. The industry disliked the system and lobbied for changes, and in recent years, the Ford government introduced a flurry of changes affecting that fee system and much more — changes that cities and planners say will result in less and lower-quality new parkland.

“Yes there’s a need for new housing to support the growth in population, and particularly affordable housing,” says Dave Harvey, co-executive director of Park People. “But these have to be part of well-built communities. If we’re building communities that don’t have parks or libraries or schools or critical infrastructure, we’re actually building these communities to fail in the long run.”

On the way home to his condominium, Wyatt stops his scooter dead in its tracks and urgently directs his mom’s attention upward: a huge, chattering flock of birds has alighted on a billboard outside the Rogers Centre.

“Wow,” she says. “Is that your buffalo for today?”

This is a game the family plays: “high, low, buffalo,” identifying the best thing, worst thing, and most surprising thing that happened that day.

When Wyatt’s parents are asked what their high, low and buffalo are for living deep downtown, both think carefully.

Wyatt’s mom’s buffalo is that they are still here at all: neither of them thought they’d be raising two kids in a condo. They explored moving, but were stymied by Toronto’s ludicrous housing market and their reluctance to compete all over again for limited daycare spots. They spent three years on the wait-list for the one the kids go to now.

They also genuinely enjoy living here. Their “high” is being in the centre of the action, where they can walk, bike and take transit to so many things. Experiences that would be a treat for most GTA kids are an everyday reality for theirs.

Ripley’s Aquarium in particular is like their backyard, Wyatt’s mom says: the kids have essentially grown up here and know animals by name, including Chewy and Spot the sea turtles and a slippery green moray eel they call “Avocado Guy.”

Their low is that the neighbourhood doesn’t always love them back. The area seems better equipped for office workers, tourists — even dogs.

The interior courtyard at Wyatt’s building has a larger off-leash area for dogs than its small play area for children.

“People say, oh my god, you’re raising kids in downtown Toronto?” Wyatt’s dad says.

When he first moved here, the elevators were jammed with college students going for beers. Now it’s mostly jammed with families carrying strollers and bikes.

“I’m not the only one. There’s lots of us.”