MICRORAYON COURTYARDS: DO YOU ACTUALLY USE THEM?

Where is a microrayon, there has to be a courtyard. Always consisting with some rendition of a playground, maybe a gardening attempt here or there and accompanied by either a basketball court or washing line. They are often overlooked and forgotten, but how do you use one?

There is this courtyard right next to mine, it is so different in many ways from others - it is planned like a loop with only one driveway, in the middle there are two round parking lots, and somehow the residents of all 6 houses could agree on replacing the asfalt sidewalk to pavement. Don't underestimate the power of fresh pavement, it feels like the courtyard has had a facelift.

This courtyard has a big sandbox for the kids, and 3 years ago when I moved back to Mežciems, I knew I'd have a kid in the near future, so when I saw that there were resident initiative to freshen up the sandbox with new sand, I was on board and I pitched in. I don't know if this is a Latvian thing, or a microrayon resident thing, but community is a hard task to achieve, in my experience. This has been the only act of community that I've seen here and that should be noted. 

7 euros and 3 years later, today finally was the day I took my kid to play in the sandbox. I do like that there are toys already there for kids to share, I think that is some kind of Murphy law with kids, that other toys will always be more intriguing than their own, so this already works out great. The sandbox is quite big, we were the only ones there which also was nice for an afternoon activity after all day being inside, but when I was sitting there, watching my kid, it felt kind of odd.

We all know that I am buying the idea of microrayons and what they have to offer, and for multiple reasons I am their target audience - a new family with small children looking for financially accessible housing to fit their needs of child care, schools and public transport close by, including places for recreational activities. Mežciems has Biķernieku forest and the race track for that, and of course a smaller form of recreation is the courtyard playgrounds. 

When I was sitting there with my son playing, I felt uneasy and I am trying to pinpoint why as I am writing this. First of all, there is this sort of unspoken 'ethics' of courtyards I feel like, because this wasn't our courtyard, we shouldn't (?) be there. This specific courtyard is visually different from ours, so one can't help but feel somehow displaced, I don't know, I have to do an experiment of taking my kid to play in our courtyard and then I can give a better insight into the politics of courtyards. :)

Somehow it also felt unsafe. These courtyards are small, there are cars parked everywhere and when they drive through, they still are quite fast and probably because everything is so close, it feels a bit alarming (but take this with a grain of salt, this is purely from a parent perspective). And then I somehow connected the dots on what might be the issue. See, this is the thing I was researching in my thesis about microrayon public and private spaces and what makes them either public or private, same with livable space vs space that you pass through.

The best way to describe this uneasy feeling sitting in the sandbox is the same as if I'd sit with my kid in the mailbox room of the stairwell, in the way of others. Those are the spaces we just pass through, our presence in them is temporary, same with courtyards - you go through them because you are going somewhere, they are never the destination. And you start to see that you are not alone in this understanding. As it was 5 in the afternoon, I saw people getting home from work, getting kids from the kindergarten, people coming from the store and stopping at the courtyard for a smoke, to finish a phone call, or to find keys.

But what I am thinking about is, as I am not a person anywhere close to knowing urban planning, I want to know if my experience in the courtyard is purely my responsibility or is it shaped by someone else ie. urban planner?

Is there a way of making the courtyard a destination? Can you make a pass through space habitable and homey?