If you are a parent, and likely, even if you’re not, you can understand the desire to provide a better life for our children than we had.  We’ve certainly done well - better than our parents, by and large - so we can provide an abundance of material goods for our children.  But think back a moment to your own childhood when the most important ingredient in happiness was the ability to have fun.  Will our kids be happier today, if we give them more material goods, or will they be happier if we just provide them the freedom to have more fun?  We’re convinced that kids today are sorely lacking in what was the greatest joy of our own childhoods: free, unstructured play.

Free, unstructured play (or what we refer to as simply “play”) has virtually vanished from the lives of most children in North America.  We are committed to doing whatever we can to bring it back for our children and yours.

Oakville North is the second local neighbourhood site to join the Playbourhood network. The first was created by Playbourhood’s founder.  Not only will you be able to learn more about Playbourhood’s plans to provide our kids more freedom to have fun, but you’ll also find information and resources that are specific to our own community.  Feel free to join the discussion, to share ideas and help make our neighbourhoods better places to live for everyone.  If you like what you see and hear and want to help, . 

Playbourhood was founded by Mike Lanza (see below) to provide a framework for building a community of parents across Canada and the United States, and perhaps even the whole world, that will become more aware of this problem, discuss solutions, and implement the best of those solutions.  To find out more about how and why, he’s doing this check out Mike’s Manifesto.

, Intergalactic Adventurer, has lived in a number of communities in Southwestern Ontario and recently settled down in Oakville where he hopes to establish lasting roots.  His adult journey began by studying architecture and then graduating with a degree in political science and history from the University of Western Ontario.  He immediately set aside all that learning to pursue a career in communications which he still does today as a consultant, advising small businesses, corporations and not-for-profit organizations across Canada and in the U.S.  With two young children, Chris can’t help but remain young at heart.  His involvement with Playbourhood allows him to combine his professional skills with his determination to share the best of his own childhood experience with his kids and his neighbourhood.

, Founder and Chief Play Officer of Playborhood.com, won’t stop until he finds the right neighborhood for his two boys so they can go outside and play any time.  A veteran founder and CEO of five software/Internet companies, he just might make Playborhood.com his sixth.  Mike holds way too many degrees from Stanford University - an MA and BA in Economics, an MBA, and an MA in Education.  He lives in Palo Alto, CA, but he was born and raised in a suburb of Pittsburgh, PA, where he played outside pretty much every chance he got.