So not only outdoor areas, and water-based activities must be open to the public but also the first floors of ALL other buildings. There are lots of ingredients that make great public places. A citywide coalition, including Adaptive Environments with support from The Boston Foundation, has long promoted the South Boston Waterfront as a place that can be an international model of universal design at the urban scale. It assumes that differing physical needs are not the exception but rather the rule, and that our abilities inevitably change over time. And universal design assumes that function and aesthetics can and should be seamlessly integrated into good design.
Universal design makes sense, particularly now.
We find ourselves at the start of the new century faced with a changed reality of human life. We live longer, on average, than at any other time in human history. We survive illness and injury at rates unheard of just twenty years ago. Our expectations are different, too. We don't want to be impeded by thoughtless barriers or limited by our environment.