ABSTRACT
The polar values of hedonism and puritanism are at the base of any discussion concerning leisure and recreation provision. The human spirit is cramped because even the most dedicated materialist finds an emptiness in an ever insatiable need for more things to consume. We eat, we diet, we jog, and we eat some more. We consume the necessity, send it to the rubbish dump, cover it up and make room for the next disposable necessity. We become lost in the mirrors of economic determinism. The public provision of recreation opportunities and services has been largely accidental and incremental with vague, abstract and ad hoc rationalization about the collective benefit. We are all actors in a multiplicity of human dramas. We are: children, parents, friends, neighbors; members of ethnic groups and regions; citizens of communities and nations. Each of these roles and continuing dramas require appropriate settings for their enactment.
