Not all playgrounds suck. There is a great new playground in my area (Roseville, MI, suburb of Detroit). It's huge with a giant structure for older kids and a slightly smaller one for toddlers. Both are metal with lots of slides (plastic, not metal, much cooler in summer), climbing bars, rock walls, spaces to run around and places to hide. There are good old fashioned belt swings and bucket swings for babies on large metal frames. There are several monkey bar and firepole and teeter totter contraptions. There is even a weird kind stucture where the kids hang and swing from one big, angled rotating wheel to the next. It's hard to describe, but it looks really dangerous and fun. It is all on a nice wood chip surface, which my daughter loves to play in, and is surrounded by mature trees. And there are always a lot of kids there. It all makes me wish I was 8 years old again.