How Soccer Is Changing Land Use

In Los Angeles, the popularity of soccer is pushing planners to provide more playing facilities. Not only are existing and new parks incorporating soccer fields but planners are looking for creative ways to bring soccer recreation opportunities into communities. These efforts include re-purposing warehouses and underutilized parking lots; and investigating the use of semi-permanent and portable soccer field equipment. Clement Lau, a Los Angeles are park planner, writes,

This has been happening more often and has been carried out by both commercial interests and public agencies.  Warehouses, for example, have been converted to sports facilities for indoor soccer.  Another idea is the use of vacant or empty lots for recreation purposes (see this article).  For example, some of the more urban unincorporated communities in L.A. County are home to numerous small vacant or underused parking lots which have the potential to be used as temporary recreation areas.  Specifically, these lots can be made available for recreational use in the evenings and on weekends (or whenever they are not needed for their primary use) for sports such as soccer.

For more about the “soccerization of land use,” please refer to the source article.