The head of a conservative think tank went out in a D.C. neighborhood one day and came away with more evidence for his view that childless liberals are leading America astray: a dog park.
To be more specific, a combination dog park and playground.
Located in the hip NoMa area of Washington — named for the fact that it’s north of Massachusetts Avenue — Swampoodle Park is only about 8,000 square feet, making it not much larger than a convenience store parking lot. Most of the space is home to a dog park, with one side set aside for a tall, narrow playground structure.
For Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts, who was a major force behind the controversial Project 2025 proposals to shape a second Donald Trump term, the park’s use of land is tilted too heavily in favor of purportedly childless dog owners and away from parents, something he blames in an upcoming book on “the antifamily culture shaping legislation, regulation, and enforcement,” according to galleys obtained by Media Matters.
When I’m driving around town with my kids, it’s the “green playground” at Swampoodle that they ask about the most.
I don’t have a dog, but I do have four young kids and I live in Washington, D.C. As a result, I have been to a lot of playgrounds in the greater metro area in the last few years. I have driven as long as an hour just to try out a new playground in some distant suburb in Virginia and Maryland and always get immediate feedback from my own focus group of four kids. After all that, I consider myself something of a playground connoisseur.
So trust me when I say this: Roberts is wrong. Swampoodle is awesome.
Now, it’s not in the top tier of D.C.-area parks. The best playgrounds are obviously the big ones: the zip line and climbing towers at the Beauvoir Playground next to the Washington National Cathedral, the cool metal structures at the Lafayette-Pointer Recreation Center, or if you’re willing to head a little farther out, the Wizard of Oz-themed playground in Maryland and the superlong slides at the suburban Wheaton Regional Park.
But when I’m driving around town with my kids, it’s the “green playground” at Swampoodle that they ask about the most.
If you visit the park with kids, you’ll quickly see why. The playground structure that Roberts criticizes is actually an intricate maze of slides and ladders that leads kids upwards. It’s such a brilliant use of a small space that the first time I went, I took multiple photos and texted them to my dad, who works as an urban planner. It’s even sturdy enough for an adult man to climb around inside, or so I’ve heard.
And that’s not all. While kids are moving up the structure — their favorite direction — they can see the dogs. More than a few games of tag on the playground have come to an abrupt halt because the kids wanted to gawk at a particularly cute Labradoodle puppy running around the dog park next door.
Roberts is right that this area of D.C. could use more parks. Once a rundown part of town, it rapidly developed when local property owners rallied to add a Metro station. Block-sized apartment buildings with a Starbucks store on the first floor sprung up seemingly overnight. The city surely missed a chance years ago to set aside some of that land for green space before property values skyrocketed.
But that didn’t stop its new residents. A few years ago, they began treating an undeveloped lot as an informal dog park. Eventually they joined together to petition the city to make it official. During that process, someone suggested that they add a playground and everyone agreed that was a good idea. The name Swampoodle, which comes from a nickname Irish immigrants had for the swampy puddle-filled area back in the day, was then chosen through a public vote. Earlier this year, the park was even expanded across the street with a new section for younger kids.
It’s a zero-sum vision of politics that’s also being promoted by vice presidential nominee JD Vance.
The nonprofit that supports the park, Friends of NoMa Dogs, put out a response to the book, noting that many residents have both dogs and kids and that everyone appreciates the “family-friendly environment where pets and kids can safely play.”
In Roberts’ book, he describes a country in which people without children and people with children are at war, with selfish apartment-dwelling liberal dog owners scheming to deprive long-suffering conservative parents of valuable resources. It’s a zero-sum vision of politics that’s also being promoted by vice presidential nominee JD Vance, who sees “childless cat ladies” as a problem.
The United States could do more to be family-friendly, as thoughtful conservatives like Tim Carney have written. But the very park Roberts singles out to criticize disproves his argument that this is because of some kind of aggressive war on families by the childless. Swampoodle is great for dogs and kids. The next time Roberts walks by a playground he doesn’t like, he should check to see if the kids actually like it.
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