ORANGE COUNTY PERSPECTIVE : Recreation’s Serious Side

The ordered housing tracts of Mission Viejo are worlds apart from the low-income housing developments of Los Angeles. Many suburbanites, in fact, made their way south to such planned communities in order to get away from urban ills.

But these vastly different environments pose a common problem for young people. In both, youngsters may lack places to go in their free time. Without appropriate facilities at hand, they can drift into trouble.

Mission Viejo recently has been doing some self-examination in the wake of several armed robberies and rapes. The community remains one of the safest of the comparatively crime-free Orange County suburbs. But its police chief, among others, points out that most crime is being committed by youngsters who live in town or nearby.

The youth crime problem, according to some local experts, is traceable in part to a lack of sufficient leisure-time facilities for youngsters. So while Mission Viejo has built a new community that works well for small children and adults, there is a growing awareness that more needs to be done for teen-agers.

In the more established urban areas to the north, the streets may be meaner and more neighborhood programs may have fallen victim to the budgetary ax, but both city and suburb face the same challenge. Every community’s commitment to its future is tested by the need to find things for youngsters to do.

Mission Viejo’s City Council has been discussing such projects as a teen center and skateboard park. But it, like Los Angeles County, inevitably is chasing scarcer dollars in tight times. Still, a way must be found for Mission Viejo to have more recreation facilities and for Los Angeles County to have more after-school programs. The importance of play and recreation has never seemed more serious business.