The Houston Chronicle has a quick feature up this week profiling 36 year-old skate mom Lori Peltier and the Babes On Boards program at Houston's Jamail Skatepark. There's a big Babes On Boards ladies-only event at the park this weekend, Saturday March 21, featuring Mimi Knoop and Amy Caron.

As regular readers of this blog and my other work know well, I'm a huge fan and supporter of women's skateboarding. A couple of passages from the Houston Chronicle article and the reference to Houston Mayor Bill White's parks philosophy make for good food for thought. It's an interesting angle: Can a skatepark be successful as a public space -- the kind community leaders will want to support and build more of -- if it's a total sausage party?

"By every measure but one, Jamail Skatepark succeeds wildly as a public place. It’s exciting and full of life. The skaters are rich and poor, black, white and Hispanic. Most days, the park feels like a party.

The problem? It’s a party without many girls. William H. White, the patron saint of lively urban spaces, observed that a high number of women is perhaps the best indicator of a park’s health. Women, he thought, were more sensitive than men to danger, to ugliness and nasty smells and such. If men greatly outnumbered women at a public place, he observed, something was probably wrong.

The problem with Jamail Skatepark isn’t that it’s dangerous or dirty. It’s skating itself. Even at this safe, clean park, the macho vibe can spook all but the toughest girls. Moms and girlfriends sit on the hill, watching the action. But only a few females dare to roll on the concrete."

The Joe and Lee Jamail Skatepark, by the way, is a sick new Grindline park that opened last June. The 30,000 square foot park -- which, incidentally, claims it has the world's biggest cradle feature -- is a success story of the collaboration between PUSH (Public Skateparks of Houston) and community leaders like Mayor White.

More on Babes On Boards via MySpace