That's true, in the smaller towns they take a lot more pride in keeping up the parks and public areas. When I visit my mom in Kentucky there are some really nice parks.
I think part of the problem here in the city is that a lot of teens and young people in general like to go to public areas and spray paint everything as well as destroy property for whatever reason. At some point the city just stops fixing things, even stuff that falls apart from normal use. I guess it's just the downside of living in an overcrowded area.
No, that happens here too. We had a park in the town where I work. People kept vandalizing the bathrooms so they finally stopped cleaning them. So a person in the community cleaned the bathrooms themselves and posted on social media about it. The response then was to just lock them up. Horrible for families that wanted to visit the park.