When artificial is preferable: parents lean toward safety over natural environment.

With crime and kidnapping on the rise in Mexico City, many well-to-do parents now opt to take their children to huge indoor play areas at fast-food restaurants rather than neighborhood parks.

"It wouldn't even cross my mind to take my kids to a public park, never," said Margarita Elias, a mother of two, as her slim fingers picked at a pile of McDonald's fries. "We go to country clubs, something private."

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Mexico is second only to Colombia in numbers of annual kidnappings, with as many as 3,000 reported cases in this country last year, according to Kroll, Inc., a risk-consulting company. Anyone from executives to middle-class professionals are targets in this city where some 250,000 angry and frustrated citizens recently marched through the streets demanding an end to impunity and greater attention to public safety.

As the fears of parents for their families grow, so do the playgrounds at fast-food restaurants.

McDonald's, for instance, opened its largest franchise in Latin America in the upmarket neighborhood of Polanco in April. Towering windows nearly three stories tall announce not only a hamburger restaurant, but also a children's paradise that covers nearly an entire city block.

Outside, two uniformed guards protect the restaurant's entrance. Inside, nearly 100 children and nannies frolic in and on the red, yellow and blue tubes draped in plastic ivy as their parents sit calmly conversing at tables next to the ice-cream vendor.

At least 20 McDonald's restaurants entice families with large, enclosed, park-like areas in the more affluent neighborhoods of Mexico City. The supersized playgrounds are part of a global strategy to attract children, said Damian Fraser, head of Latin American research at UBS Warburg in Mexico City.

"But McDonald's has been particularly successful in Mexico," he said, "because people here don't feel comfortable going to parks, or because there aren't that many parks."

Other restaurant chains here have joined the trend of building playgrounds, but to a lesser degree than McDonald's. Burger King, for instance, has at least three Mexico City restaurants with huge play areas.

Representatives of both McDonald's and Burger King declined to comment on the subject despite several requests.

At the McDonald's in Polanco, Luz Maria Mejia looked up at her 8-year-old son crawling in the tubes above her. Below him, other boys and girls ran between banks of video games.

"He didn't even touch his fries," she said. "He gets so excited."

The indoor parks may not be green and airy, but that's exactly what worried parents here want. With the kidnapping scare running through the city, many middle-class parents have joined the wealthy in opting for enclosed, tightly controlled spaces.

"Today we live in paranoia," said Margarita Aguilar Chavez, who was at the fast-food restaurant with her three grandchildren. One of them lives in the United States and was surprised at the size of the Mexican McDonald's. "You simply cannot take your children to public places, because they'll get stolen," she added.

Aguilar, like many middle-class Mexicans, has joined the upper classes in expressing scant confidence in the city or federal government's ability to halt the kidnappings. She places greater faith in the ability of the private sector to offer a safer environment, isolated from the life and dangers of Mexico City.

Each day, an estimated 1,000 impoverished immigrants arrive in this megalopolis of 23 million. As the city's edges creep outward, poverty reaches inward to steal the peace of mind from the classes that have the money to protect themselves against it. Instead of fighting crime, they try to shield themselves from it.

Homes in Mexico City do not have front yards, but tall fences topped with barbed wire to keep the public out.

The rich are often escorted by a band of bodyguards, wires curling from their not-so-subtle earpieces.

For those who cannot afford membership at a country club, an oversized McDonald's or Burger King can offer some sanctuary.

"Fifty pesos may not seem like much," said Luz Maria, but the cost of a Happy Meal--the equivalent of about US$5 and the average daily wage for many in Mexico City--can buy about an hour and a half of exercise for her son and some peace of mind for her.

And even if parents were to prefer public parks over enclosed spaces, there aren't that many left here. Mexico City, a bit larger than Rhode Island but with 20 times its population, is fast running out of green spaces.

The city's central Chapultepec Park is the last remaining large tract of living greenery. Although open to the public daily until 4 p.m., it is gated and closed at night.

Parents at McDonald's said they would like to see their children play in nature instead of on plastic tubes.

"I wish my kids could be in the countryside where I grew up," said Luz Maria, from Campeche. "So they could see the crops sown and harvested."

But most of the children climbing over the plastic tubes at McDonald's did not seem to mind the lack of vegetation in their huge, air-conditioned play area.

Except for Martin Mendilarzo, a young Argentine.

"I prefer nature better," the six-year-old said. "I've seen it on television."