For most skaters, any patch of concrete will do. The commons, malls and parks of just about any town are open territory, depending on the level of security and attitudes of the local authorities. If all you want out of your board is reliable, nonpolluting transportation, the sidewalk or street is probably sufficient for your needs.

 But if you really want to push your vert riding to the limits, there really is no substitute for a fully-featured public skateboard park. For those lucky enough to live in a town equipped with one (if there isn’t any kind of skate park where you kick it, move!), skateboard parks are bustling center of  activity, where tricks and tips can be traded and skater communities thrive.

 Fortunately, skaters are an industrious crowd, and unless you’re stuck in Podunk without so much as a pool bottom, those who came before you have probably paved the way to a serviceable park. Pro-skating advocates and DIY organizations, often with support from manufacturers like Element work hard to demand recognition and respect from local park and recreation departments for what is now one of the world’s most popular athletic activities.

 Of course, there is sometimes opposition. Skateboard parks have a reputation in some towns for harboring other activities which are not as healthy as knocking around on a half-pipe. Some town councils, still voting from the Dark Ages, haven’t caught on that skateboard parks actually reduce crime by providing a place for young people to enjoy the sunshine and a sport which exercises body, mind and spirit.

 When skateboarding received its first burst of popularity in the 70s, private skate parks began popping up first in California and quickly spread to the four corners of the globe. Skate parks have historically had a short lifespan, subject to the vacillating public interest, and perhaps the aging and diaspora of core crowds to college or more sedate lifestyles.

 As skateboarding grows to be a more standardized and popular sport, many cities are granting permission for the construction of complicated private and even public city-funded skate parks.

 Most of the original private skate parks have been closed down in the interceding years, but a few of the original public parks remain monuments to the spirit of the original skateboard booms that birthed them. Derby Skate Park in Santa Cruz, California, still attracts daily crowds in one of America’s safest havens for motion sports.  Derby is the oldest continuously open public skateboard parks in the world, featuring some of the most eccentric slopes, sponsoring a structural art project that has resulted in some of the most beautiful and challenging courses in existence.

 Another old-school public skate park that’s been around since the early days is the Livingston Skatepark in Scotland, playfully dubbed the “Rock and Roll.” Livingston offers a multi-sport complex, perpetuating the tradition of the founders, who shared a vision of exhibiting the most revolutionary and cutting-edge vert skating props and  having helped innovate the now-famous use of severed sewer pipes for ramping material.

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