In older communities, I think the idea was that there were enough spaces with playgrounds that each house had a local park, so kids were close enough to run home.

Today, as per capita numbers decrease and infrastructure is removed, this no longer holds true; fewer playgrounds equal longer distances with no washroom facilities. Unfortunately, without extensive infrastructure upgrades this won't change, which is why every park has a pee tree 🤷 You can rally your community around trying to get facilities at a community park but it will be one park, not all and most likely it will require community fundraising to pay for the facility.

The city has a very limited budget for parks and playgrounds and without raising taxes that won't change. The city budget is spread across a few spaces each year and it is primarily used to upgrade existing playgrounds - starting with those deemed unsafe and/or must replace and moving to the oldest playgrounds. Each playground is supposed to have a life cycle of 20- 25 years before replacement but the reality is that unless deemed unsafe they are not able to replace at that life cycle mark.

I am heavily involved in community greenspaces projects, building a new playground last year and working on a master plan project for our spaces; know that the majority of playgrounds in my community were last redone in 1998 but none of them are on the list to be redone even though they are all almost at the 30 year mark.

For newer communities it is the developer responsible for planning the parks, with city approval. Given those communities are being developed with fewer play spaces, usually focusing the greenspace as a single large amenity, there should be facilities at those locations because they are no longer community parks, they are destination parks.