ARTICLE: 'Picnics, Games and Culture Shock: Parks Work to Tailor Services While Educating Immigrants on Rules,' By Annie Gowen, Washington Post, July 1, 2007; Page A01
The parks story is fascinating, highlighting the historic role of public spaces as the daily mixing bowl of upper and lower classes (like sporting events and church services), and especially their role in conditioning new populations (i.e., immigrants) in how to act more American (when you think of it, public partying is a distinct cultural function--just consider tailgating).
Watch Ric Burns' docu-history of NYC and you hear the original social integration rationales for creating the greatest of public urban spaces known as Central Park. City fathers were intensely concerned that new immigrants were losing any and all chances for pastoral, restorative activities amidst the industrializing and increasingly crowded hustle and bustle of turn-of-the-century NY. Thus, Central Park was designed to serve as a social/class mixing bowl of sorts, with the distinct goal of lowering then-rising tensions between the born-here "haves" and the come-here "working-six-days-a-week-to-get-theirs" immigrants.
An interesting parallel.
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