MSc Urban Design Thesis

RECLAIMING CHILDREN’S SPACES

Child-friendliness: A way forward to building urban resilience

A Resilient Glasgow

Aanchal Agrawal MSc Urban Design University of Strathclyde August 2020

RECLAIMING CHILDREN’S SPACES Child-friendliness: A way forward to building urban resilience

A Resilient Glasgow

Aanchal Agrawal AB947: MSc Urban Design Thesis University of Strathclyde August 2020 Word Count: 16,956 Turnitin Score: 23%

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Declaration of Authorship MSc Urban Design AB947 Thesis

Declaration “I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and has been composed by myself. It contains no unacknowledged text and has not been submitted in any previous context. All quotations have been distinguished by quotation marks and all sources of information, text, illustration, tables, images etc. have been specifically acknowledged.

I accept that if having signed this Declaration my work should be found at Examination to show evidence of academic dishonesty the work will fail and I will be liable to face the University Senate Discipline Committee.�

Aanchal Agrawal

Name:

____________________________________________________________

Signed:

_____________________________________________________________

Date:

_____________________________________________________________

17th August 2020

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Acknowledgement I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Sergio Porta, for his continued guidance and support throughout the research and writing of my work.

I also wish to thank Dr. Ombretta Romice for her encouragement during the course of time. Finally, I would also like to thank my family and friends for their continued support throughout my masters education.

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Abstract Children’s well-being and physical activity is seeing a decline as a consequence of undermined independent mobility and free play due to the structure and constraints posed by contemporary urban environments. This research aims to study the built environment of children as a responsive “third place”, a crucial spatial aspect moulding children’s lives within the disappearing childhood domain, discussing the space and scale of childhood and the challenges laid out in the urban environment. Exploring the themes of child-friendly urbanism as an integrated approach in building long-term urban resilience, the aim of the research follows around the questions, what led to the issues of loss of childhood, how the environment affects the key dimensions of children’s well-being and are children the key to building a sustainable resilient future. And so, the research reviews the concepts of child-friendly cities and describes different approaches to evaluate child-friendliness.

Engaging in a broad qualitative approach, using relevant literature and applied case studies at different scales across the globe, the research derives the role physical environment plays in the narrative of children’s urban experiences. By analysing the prevailing designing and planning of child-friendly environments, the research defines the benefits of child-friendly urbanism that resonates qualities of good neighbourhoods and cities with urban scales, proximity, walkability, mixed-use, public space, independent mobility and connectivity. Against the background of the emerging interest of resilient urban planning in Glasgow, the research examines the principle framework of child-friendly urban planning, promoting to reframe the structure with children being the catalytic driver of change.

The qualitative research concludes with a compelling exposition and acknowledgement of childfriendly planning to be incorporated and approached by urban analysis in masterplanning for change and designing resilient places.

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Contents Declaration Acknowledgement Abstract Contents List of Figures & Tables

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1. Introduction

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1.1 Background and Focus 1.2 Research Proposition, Aims and Objectives 1.3 Research Structure 1.4 Research Methodology

2. Literature Review

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2.1 Introduction 2.2 Loss of Childhood 2.2.1 Introduction 2.2.2 Urban Evolution of Childhood 2.2.3 Contemporary Conditions of Childhood 2.2.4 Child-friendliness: An Urban Agenda 2.3 Looking Out 2.3.1 Introduction 2.3.2 What is a Child Friendly City?

2.3.3 What is Child-friendly according to children?

2.3.4 Responding to Child-friendliness 2.3.5 Approaches to Child-friendliness 2.4 Looking In 2.4.1 Introduction 2.4.2 Dimensions of Children’s Well-being and Physical Activity 2.4.3 Space and Scale of Childhood 2.4.4 Vulnerabilities of Urban Childhood 2.5 Conclusion

3. Looking Beyond

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3.1 Introduction 3.2 What is Child-friendly Urban Planning and Design?

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3.3 Child-friendly Initiatives 3.3.1 City Scale Planning 3.4 Case Studies 3.4.1 Micro Space Scale 3.4.2 Public Space Scale 3.4.3 Neighbourhood Scale 3.5 In Context of Glasgow 3.5.1 Children in Glasgow 3.5.2 Policy Framework for Children

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4. Looking In, Looking Out

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4.1 Introduction 4.2 Built Environment: A Responsive “Third Place” 4.2.1 Theory of Third Place 4.3 Role of Physical Environment 4.4 Children as Agents of Change

5. A Way Forward

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5.1 Introduction 5.2 Intersection of Framework 5.2.1 Child Friendly City and Resilient Planning in Glasgow

6. Conclusion

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6.1 Introduction 6.2 Research Objective Findings 6.3 Concluding Remarks 6.4 Future Research

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References

Bibliography Sources of Listed Figures & Tables

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List of Figures & Tables

Fig. 1: Process as followed in the research structure Fig. 2: Children playing on the streets in USA and UK in 1930s Fig. 3: One of Aldo van Eyck’s roadside fence free playground Fig. 4: Unsafe roads, increased screen time, dilapidated facilities, poor green spaces— contemporary conditions of childhood Fig. 5: Framework presenting child-friendliness in terms of relationship between the environmental affordances and levels of children’s independent mobility Fig. 6: Horelli’s framework for Environmental Child-friendliness Fig. 7: Space and Scale of Urban Childhoods Fig. 8: Constraints of children in urban environment, based on taxonomy of children’s vulnerabilities mentioned by Krysiak and UNICEF Fig. 9: Rotterdam’s Child Friendly City strategy Fig. 10: Vancouver’s Child Friendly City strategy Fig. 11: Ghent’s Child Friendly City strategy Fig. 12: Boulder’s Child Friendly City Map Fig. 13: (left) Children playing in ‘Play Street’ within residential development; (right) A range of playable objects all along the street Fig. 14: PLAYce’s in city spaces (left) Bust Boredom- Lexington, KY; (right) Rail Trail Symphony- Charlotte, NC; (bottom) iPlay Miami Streets- Miami, FL Fig. 15: Antwerp’s neighbourhood ‘Play Web’ Fig. 16: Temporary street closure in Bristol for children’s safe and free play Fig. 17: Singapore’s intergenerational play space within residential development Fig. 18: (top) Children playing in the school grounds during the school hours; (bottom) Children playing basketball after the school hours, shared by the community Fig. 19: Structure of Scottish planning system Fig. 20: Public realm considered to be the anchor point between home and school Fig. 21: Car-centric children’s destinations Fig. 22: Network for child-friendly third places Fig. 23: The link between third place and physical environment facilitating opportunities for children’s development Fig. 24: Benefits of Child Friendly Urban Planning Fig. 25: The four strategic pillars of resilience for Glasgow Fig. 26: Intersecting Framework of child friendly city and resilient planning of Glasgow

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Table 1: Comparing the principles of child-friendly urban planning to that of urban design Table 2: Various policies and Initiatives for children adopted by Glasgow city.

Table 3: Report of children’s physical environment based on the identified indicators in Glasgow

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14 16 19 20 26 27 27 28 30 31 33 33 34 34 36 40 41 42 43 46 49 50

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Chapter 1 Introduction

“Children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people.”

— Enrique Penalosa, Mayor of Bagota

1. Introduction 1.1 Background and Focus There has been a long tradition of children playing informally on the streets and shared spaces outside their homes. It was an easy and natural way for children to play out on the streets within parental sight, until the very tradition of street play being largely taken over by urbanisation.

Urbanisation has its roots planted in the way our cities are designed—fragmented, limited centrality, lack of public space and no compactness in urban form (UNICEF, 2018); a design that has favoured cars and created environments keeping adults in mind. Children’s spaces have been pushed aside and have become institutionalised, limited to playgrounds and schoolyards, increasing the social fears of safety and well-being. What was once the notion of social aspects being the moulding clay of childhood, physical aspects came to be realised as the influence tied up with social change. Children’s well-being in the cities and neighbourhoods are suffering from growing encroachments in their spaces, time and freedom to play and movement.

Children gradually form an emotional connection with the things they like and “if the heart is excited then the mind always remembers” (Rancic, 2018). As children play outside, they form a relation with the environment, the yard becomes “my backyard”, the street becomes “my home street” and thus the neighbourhood becomes “my home town” (Kytta, 2003). The relationship that children form with the environment is through active interaction. Hence, the spatial quality of the environment shapes the narrative of physical and social development of a child. Children are “the canaries in the mines” (Malone, 2006) in our future cities. If children’s well-being is undermined in the urban environment, the future of our cities is at stake. Thriving and happy children with high levels of well-being are the indicators of a healthy and sustainable environment, an environment where children’s everyday experiences such as on the street during their transition to school and other public spaces, plays a fundamental role in shaping children’s urban spaces as a responsive “third place”.

Child-friendliness emerging as an urban agenda to be more playful, liveable, sustainable, safe and inclusive form of urban development, is lagging its definite place in the mainstream redevelopment of cities—concepts of placemaking and sustainability, way forward to urban resilience; as a consequence of urbanisation. The framework for Resilient Glasgow strategy merges with that of child-friendly cities, promoting to reframe the focus by putting children at the heart of the city, for benefits of the larger society and children themselves.

The research places a central focus on children and explores children’s lives in contemporary cities. The emphasis is on the interaction between children and their relationship with the material world that shapes their future. Secondly, the focus being on city and local level planning and design, this research contextualises the focus in Glasgow. The city of Glasgow has a long history of dealing with industrialisation and urbanisation, the challenges of childhood; and strategises to learn from its past to build a city better for all. Glasgow’s child population is estimated to decrease in the next 25 years by 7%, and there is no targeted strategies specifically focusing on children at national or local level (Understanding Glasgow, 2020). And finally, mark 2

the place of child-friendliness in Glasgow city.

1.2 Research Proposition, Aims and Objectives This research is rooted in the proposition that child-friendly urban planning is a more playful, adaptable, and a successful tool for building long-term urban resilience, complimenting to the current approaches with placemaking and sustainability. The main aim of the research is to examine the physical environment, particularly the built environment as an important “third place” in children’s urban experiences for their present and future well-beings. The intention is to explore the theme of child-friendly cities as an integrated approach following the questions of: what led to the issues of loss of childhood, how the environment affects the key dimensions of children’s well-being and are children the key to building a sustainable resilient future. And with Glasgow being a robust, flexible and efficient city, child-friendly urbanism to be explored in the urban planning strategies in the city to create a more integrated and inclusive city.

The research focuses on the following objectives to fulfil its overall aim.

Objective 1: To establish a comprehensive understanding of contemporary environment that gave rise to urban agenda of what child-friendliness is; and what covets do children have from their urban environment.

Objective 2: To establish a contemporary understanding of the scale, spaces and means in which the principles of child-friendly planning has been applied in various countries.

Objective 3: To develop an understanding of children’s relationship to their corresponding environment and how children act as agents of change in this urban environment that benefits all.

Objective 4: To establish an understanding of children and planning policies within Glasgow and how children fit into the framework of Glasgow’s resilient planning.

1.3 Research Structure The research has been divided into six chapters. First chapter explains the background and the research problem, including the purpose with aims and objectives, using a qualitative research methodology. In Chapter 2, literature expands to establish a broad understanding of children in the urban setting and their importance in shaping urbanisation. The first section of the chapter provides a brief background of children and their environment; and the contemporary conditions assigning to the urban agenda of child-friendliness post-industrialisation. The second section, looks out on the conceptual framework of child-friendly cities and the peculiarities of children’s perception of their urban environment, which has lead to responding to children’s needs with interdisciplinary approaches to evaluate child-friendliness. The final section of the chapter, looks into the key dimensions of children’s well-being involved with physical activity in child-friendly cities and neighbourhoods. Followed by prioritisation of spaces and varying scales 3

of childhood exposed with vulnerabilities of the environment.

Chapter 3, overviews principles of child-friendly planning with that of urban planning, examined through the lens of child-friendly examples deployed globally from macro to micro scale. These examples provide a practical understanding of approaches and lessons from methods of intervention at varying scales. Last section outlines children in the context and planning policies of Glasgow. In Chapter 4, the nexus between children and dimensions of children’s well-being in connection to the physical environment as a responsive third place is explored, highlighting children as agents of change in reaching urban resilience. In Chapter 5, the strategies of childfriendly cities and resilient planning in Glasgow meet at an intersection, providing a way forward in Our Resilient Glasgow. The last chapter, presents conclusions which contribute to the aims and objectives of the research. This also provide insights into future research to map opportunities in the neighbourhoods of Glasgow.

1.4 Research Methodology This research sets out to establish children as the natural agents of change in cities and neighbourhoods, who will help build long-term urban resilience. With the intent of this research, a broad qualitative research approach is to be implemented.

This research commences with an overview of literature on children in the pre and post-industrial cities, bringing the attention on children in current urban agenda. Proceeding from this, an extensive literature on the framework of child-friendliness is applied as an introductory setting to provide a base for understanding the relationship between children and their environment. The literature will form a foundation for perceiving the quality of environment that shapes the narrative of children’s experiences in the city. This will be achieved by analysing and exploring the articles and books of researchers, planners and designers who worked in the context of children’s well-being.

Further to support the literature, a series of case examples are evaluated, to demonstrate the influence of interventions and applications of child-friendly approaches in the city at different scales and environments. The case studies tend to give a brief description of the project initiated with its outcomes. The examples will be selected on pre-determined criteria’s that have been deployed on scales of development. This will allow for considerations of interventions in the urban environment of children when applied in context, continuing with the examination of children in context of Glasgow and planning policies in existence.

Building on the principles discussed in literature and case studies, the research proceeds to examine the framework for the built environment acting as a third place in the lives and wellbeing of children, drawing information for the condition of children’s physical environment in Glasgow. Further, discussing the role of children as agents of change in building long-term urban resilience and concluding with the framework of child-friendly being applied to strategies in Glasgow’s resilient planning.

To achieve the objectives, the research is structured accordingly, gathering sources from 4

secondary data. The process follows first understanding the problem and the approaches adopted; followed by formulating an integrated framework in the chosen context.

Fig. 1: Process as followed in the research structure

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Chapter 2 Literature Review

“Why do children so frequently find that roaming the lively city sidewalks is more interesting than backyards or playgrounds?

Because the sidewalks are more interesting. It is as sensible to ask: Why do adults find lively streets more interesting than playgrounds?”

— Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities

2. Literature Review 2.1 Introduction Children are born in a society that is primarily based on social construction. The character of childhood is moulded by the conventions of society in which the child is born. Childhood entails development and with this development comes the involvement of school and play, families and peers, and culture and environment. While the social world is clearly important to children, it is only half the equation. The places and spaces in which children grow up is the physical world for childhood formation (Freeman and Tranter, 2013). And this spatial world is part of a larger scale, varying between cities and neighbourhoods, and micro scale from homes and streets.

Over the last century, cities have undergone a paradigm shift. The process of industrialisation and urbanisation has led to alter the spatial world of children, hence reconstructing the social norms. To materialise the reconstruction of childhood, an understanding of broad theoretical context is required on the evolution of children and their environment. The first section, explores the evolution of childhood and their contemporary environment giving rise to the urban agenda.

In the second section, the concepts of child-friendly city will be considered along with the perceptions of children towards their spatial needs and the approaches that are in existence addressing the needs. In the third section, key dimensions of children in the space and scale of childhood and the challenges posed by their environment is examined.

2.2 Loss of Childhood 2.2.1 Introduction Over the past few decades, many studies have expressed concerns about the loss of the children’s spaces in urban context. Urban cities are portrayed as negative places to live in, particularly when it comes to children’s possibilities of exploring their neighbourhoods on their own (Karten and Van Vliet, 2006). Understanding the rise of this concern, first we need to examine the evolution of children’s lives in industrial cities giving birth to the urban agenda.

2.2.2 Urban Evolution of Childhood The experience of childhood is defined by children’s interaction with their corresponding environments. “The word childhood tends to evoke a time of curiosity and exploration, and for the most part, that exploration takes place in the environments where children live and play” (Danenberg, R. et al., 2018).

Wridt (2004) in her research demonstrates changes in experience of childhood over the period of time in New York city. The streets were a respected play space for children up in the early to middle decades of the 20th century (Nasaw 1985). The overcrowded dwellings didn’t offer 7

spaces to play inside and thus street became spaces for enjoyment, adventure and independence for young children. Though the streets created a problem for children as they shared it with adults, vendors, policemen and some number of automobiles, but this did not stop them from playing. Mothers allowed the children to play on the streets as they knew that there was always a watchful eye on the child in the neighbourhood.

Fig. 2: Children playing on the streets in USA and UK in 1930s

So the question of lost childhood arises. What led to the issue of childhood presence within public domain? In this context, Helen Penn (Dudek, 2005) defines the public domain as the shops, restaurants, railway stations and public areas that are separate from home. She also recognises the inclusion of traditional public domain that is public parks, streets, sports areas and accessible green spaces, which are suffering the presence of childhood.

Urbanisation is one of the most important factors of decline in landscape of childhood. During the 19th century industrialisation of UK and USA, modern cities were established, where buildings and urban spaces made life easier for people but lost space of children’s freedom. And thus, as stated by Tranick in 1986, “the radically changing economic, industrial and employment patterns further exacerbated the problem of lost space in the urban core.” The causes of lost space is a result of increasing dependency on automobiles, the modern movement which has left the development with large disconnected open spaces, land use policies that divided the cities and privatisation of public space. The children vanished from public spaces. They have been restricted with the vulnerabilities of social, economic and physical urban paradox and since then children have been marginalised from urban landscape.

The first turning point was in 1960s and 1970s, when it was realised that children have had a history and their presence in the city has been taken seriously. Colin Ward (1978), David Nasaw (1985) and Kevin Lynch (1977), have presented children’s changing lives in major industrial cities of Europe and United States. In a decade of post war, architect Aldo Van Eyck designed around 700 playgrounds in Amsterdam, filling the bomb sites, derelict and vacant lands with “tools of imagination” as he called them (Wainwright, 2019). His idea was not to fence the playing children and allow the domain of children thrown open and spilling out into the city. But the idea of being fence free were waved off in concerns of health and safety and thus rarely repeated 8

elsewhere.

Fig. 3: One of Aldo van Eyck’s roadside fence free playground

“Children are needlessly overprotected by adults” said one of the child’s rights activist Lady Marjory Allen in 1970s. And thus all the historical studies converge in deducing “a decline in multigenerational street life and an increasing segregation of spaces for children in playgrounds, schools and public spaces” (Chawla, 1994).

2.2.3 Contemporary Conditions of Childhood There is a widely recognised cultural change in the last two generations in many developed countries; and that change is in the experience in children’s life. Children are growing up fast these days but are still missing from urban landscape. Penn (Dudek, 2005) raises concerns about the very few opportunities that children have, to spend time without the supervision of adults and compares this contemporary condition of children with historical accounts of children’s freedom in the public domain.

Children aged 7-8 who went to school on their own was around eight out of ten in 1971, and it went down to less than one in ten by 1990. Similarly, in 1971, a 7 year old on their own could make trips to their friends or shops, but by 1990 that age went up to around 10, meaning that in just 19 years children had lost upto three years of freedom of movement (Gill, 2007). Urban planners like Kevin Lynch in collaboration with UNESCO, aimed to study “the way small group of young adolescents use and value their spatial environment” (Lynch, 1977). This study inspired other researchers to explore the conditions and relationships of children with urban areas. Ward (1978) explored these conditions and promoted children’s participation in urban planning.

Accessibility was considered to be the major concern by the end of 20th century with Gaster identifying increasing crime, automobile traffic and detonation or destruction of parks, playground and schoolyards as factors contributing to the change in urban environment (Gaster, 1991).

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The spread of new technology and the increasing stress on built environment started to change the very nature of childhood accompanied by alarming increases in children’s mental and physical health problems. Hugh Cunningham wrote in his 2006 book, The Invention of Childhood, about the differences between childhood today and as lived in the past: “Children in the past have been assumed to have capabilities that we now rarely think they have…so fixated are we on giving our children a long and happy childhood that we downplay their ability and their resilience.”

Fig. 4: Unsafe roads, increased screen time, dilapidated facilities, poor green spaces— contemporary conditions of childhood

Moving forward, recognising the rights of children and their well-being in urban expansion, UNICEF and United Nations in 1996 launched, The Child Friendly Cities Initiative (CFCI), to enact the resolutions passed during the second UN Conference on Human Settlements (Habitat II), which declared that “the well-being of children is the ultimate indicator of a healthy habitat, a democratic society and good governance” (UNICEF, 2018).

“The needs of children and youth, particularly with regards to their living environment have to be taken fully into account. Special attention needs to be paid to the participatory processes dealing with the shaping of cities, towns and neighbourhoods; this is in order to secure the living conditions of children and of youth and to make use of their insight, creativity and thoughts on the environment” (UNCHS, 1996). This initiative shifted the focus onto children’s rights and participation, but the values of this movement were beyond reproach having little influence on city design leaving child-friendliness as a concept than an approach.

2.2.4 Child-friendliness: An Urban Agenda City design is partially accountable for the decline in childhood (Francis and Lorenzo, 2009).

Before 1970s, children moved around freely and used selectively planned places for them but also ventured out to streets and found spaces (Jacobs, 1961). But, today, they have lost their touch with the city over the changing concepts of urban design. In response to a top-down approach to urban planning and design, there has been a gradual emergence of inclusive and participatory approaches. With the comprehensive understanding of the loss of childhood over time, architects, planners, and researchers all over the world value the involvement of children and youth in the process of improving the urban environment. Over the last decade, childfriendliness as a concept has spread at all levels from global to neighbourhood. This movement views the well-being of children as the ultimate indicator of a healthy sustainable community 10

(UNICEF, 1996). There is no standard model for what a child-friendly urban planning is but the common denominator is to create well designed neighbourhoods and built environments (SCYBC, 2004).

2.3 Looking Out 2.3.1 Introduction This section focuses on the conceptual framework of child-friendly cities and neighbourhoods.

This section discusses the concept of child-friendly cities and children’s perception of their urban environment, followed by frameworks developed in response to the needs and well-being of children; and exploring the interdisciplinary approaches that have been deployed in childfriendly urban development.

2.3.2 What is a Child Friendly City?

According to UNICEF (2018), a “Child Friendly City — is a city, town, community or any system of local governance committed to fulfilling child rights as articulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is a city or community where the voices, needs, priorities and rights of children are an integral part of public policies, programmes and decisions.” According to Newell’s workshop in 2003 at Innocenti Research Centre, he stated, “the aim is to improve the lives of children by recognising and realising their rights and hence transform for the better urban societies today and for the future” thereby with a goal to become a place where children: • Are safe and protected from exploitation, violence and abuse • Have a good start in life and grow up healthy and cared for • Have access to essential services • Experience quality, inclusive and participatory education and skills development • Express their opinions and influence decisions that affect them • Participate in family, cultural, city/community and social life • Live in a clean, unpolluted and safe environment with access to green spaces • Meet friends and have places to play and enjoy themselves • Have a fair chance at life regardless of their ethnic origin, religion, income, gender or ability (UNICEF, 2019).

The concept of child-friendly city is to ensure that the city decisions are taken in account of interests of children constantly and that cities are places where children’s rights are addressed in terms of being healthy, caring, protective, educative, stimulating, non-discriminating, inclusive and culturally rich in its environment (Riggio, 2002). The child-friendliness movement is a response to the emerging concerns about “health and well-being of young people in Western countries in the face of increasing urbanisation” (Gleeson and Sipe, 2006).

In Australia, the agenda of child-friendliness is growing and in 2006, Creating Child Friendly Cities Conference (in ARACY, 2006) was held highlighting children’s need in urban policy and understanding the built environment that shapes their well-being. They defined child-friendly community in its context as one where children’s well-being is everyone’s responsibility and are 11

places where children are able to: • Play a part - are included in decisions, are free to take part and express themselves and to receive information • Reach their potential - receive the education and opportunities required to fully develop socially, emotionally, culturally, physically and spiritually • Live well - receive all the basic needs of food, clothing, shelter and health • Be free from harm - are protected from all forms of abuse and neglect The approach to child-friendly city has been adapted in diverse contexts. For example, countries with high income largely focuses on urban planning, safe and green environments and childparticipation, where low income countries’ focus is on improving health, education and child protection. There is no one definition of what a child-friendly city is or should be, rather is adapting with the changes in local and global context. While the approach and response to child friendliness are context specific, the underlying challenge is often the same.

2.3.3 What is Child-friendly according to children?

In urban landscape, a child’s experience is different from that of an adult. Adults ask “What does it look like?” or “Is this a nice, good-looking place?”whereas children ask “What can I do here?” or “Is this a place to have fun?” (Francis, 1988). The urban evolution shows the most dramatic change in lives of children has been the loss of freedom to engage in exploration in their own neighbourhoods and cities, but share similar views with the contemporary children on what is desirable and what is not in terms of quality of urban environment. The large-scale project Growing Up in Cities (Chawla, 2002), found a remarkable consensus on how cities appear to children themselves. Be it children living in working class neighbourhoods in Northampton or historic city centres of Warsaw or cities like Trondheim (Norway) and Oakland (California), the project identified similar lists of positive and negative indicators of urban quality from children’s perspective. Positive urban qualities include— social integration, safe green spaces, varied activity setting and peer gathering places; and the negative urban qualities include— violence and crime, heavy traffic, lack of gathering and activity places and social exclusion (Chawla and Malone, 2003).

To further define child’s perception of their urban environment, studies have been conducted on environmental preferences of children of what children like and dislike or fear. According to the study by Hart (1979), children’s selection of places were diverse. These places were not limited just for the value of play but were selected because a best friend lived nearby or things where available easily or just for the appearance. Thus, Hart categorised these as: • Land-Use- places valued for play activities of children • Social- places valued for the spaces that encourage gathering and meeting of children • Commercial- places valued for the things that can be bought by children • Aesthetics- places valued for the appearance of the spaces where they felt good or liked to look at Further when asked what they dislike or fear in the study by Van Andel (1990), the places they liked became places of dislike and fear due to the change in place preferences given to adults.

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For example, the streets where children enjoyed playing and riding cycles became a place of dislike and fear due to speeding vehicles and traffic.

It is thus possible to comprehend environment’s influence on children. Neighbourhoods are a creation of adults and children are trying to fit in, adapt to the environment that they live in; compromising on their desires of play and exploration.

2.3.4 Responding to Child-friendliness In support of child-friendly initiatives, being of complex and multi-level nature there has always been emphasis on designing a framework of indicators in order to assess and monitor the childfriendliness of a city or neighbourhood. These indicators are integrated actions that measure a number of issues, including sustainability, health, well-being and quality of life. McAllister (2008; citied in Woolcock, 2019) searched on creating child-friendly healthy communities and concluded on four main themes that encompasses the rights and needs of children. They are: • Safety • Green spaces • Access • Integration She later identifies community design and land use as other factors responding to childfriendliness.

Similarly, the work by ARACY (2006) entitled What Constitutes Child Friendly Communities and How are they Built, for encouraging child-friendliness within communities identified nine indicators, namely: Welcome and connection • Value • Safety • Meaningful action and self- determination • Space • Learning and development places • Support There are a number of research with indicators of similar nature. They are main assessing tools for child-responsive environments for wider benefits, including resilient cities, neighbourhoods and communities. There is a gulf between the adults and children’s perception of the urban environment and in response, the indicators are an expressive result on the needs of children.

However, the need to understand children’s perspective, indicators are emphasised into approaches to child-friendly cities.

2.3.5 Approaches to Child-friendliness Planners, designers and researchers have established ways to map and monitor the things that matter to children as part of their everyday journey in the urban environment. The interdisciplinary approaches are used to link the environmental qualities appreciated by children 13

to the physical planning highlighting the issues and prioritising improvements.

The concept of affordance: The concept of affordances for child-friendly environment is based on actualised affordances or things to do, to the children’s independent mobility (Kytta, 2003). Freeman defines it as affordances of any object, person or place is an indicator of what they may offer to an individual, the individual being a child here. He gives an example of fencing, that provides affordances like boundary that separates spaces for different uses, however for children this fence provides an affordances like climbing and balancing. Similarly with trees, for adults the affordance is that it provides shade, privacy or noise insulation, however for children it is climbing, playing or carving. This model of affordance is called the “Bullerby model" by Kytta and is represented by four types of environment and the independent mobility that the environment offers. The more children can move around in the environment, the more there are places for children to explore and play in. Children growing up in a Glasshouse, live in an environment that has a number of things to do but the independent mobility in the environment is low due to the physical and social constraints. In the Wasteland, it reveals the dullness of the environment with possibility of independent mobility. Lastly in the Cell, children are living without the opportunity to form low to negative relationship with the environment.

Fig. 5: Framework presenting child-friendliness in terms of relationship between the environmental affordances and levels of children’s independent mobility

This approach has been applied by Kytta et al. (2018) to map the experiences of children in Finland and Japan. The findings are used to increase the understanding on ways children form relationship with urban environments. The study was to identify the main functions—land use, openness and communality of the environments. It agrees to children’s independent mobility being higher in both countries. Significant differences were observed between the countries based on the number of affordances marked, that being higher in Japan and the distance 14

between home and affordance higher in Finland. The social aspects were marked higher in Finland and the functional aspects in Japan. Kytta concludes that independent mobility is not based on context but rather how a child perceives the environment. Thus, this model can help understand the child-friendliness of the environment.

Two key concept: Part of affordance model has been adopted by ARUP (2017), to define their approach to childfriendly city. They identified two concepts fundamental to understanding and exploring: ‘Everyday freedoms' and ‘Children’s infrastructure’.

Everyday freedoms is based on above mentioned model and is defined by “the freedom to get around a neighbourhood or part of a city unaccompanied by an adult” (ARUP, 2017). The independent mobility is determined by many factors including proximity, choice and availability of things to do, the presence of road crossings, children’s age and gender, and perceptions of safety by both children and adults (Shaw et al., 2015). For a city to be child-friendly it needs to cater to the children’s perceptions and experiences with change in scale. For younger children focus of domain is at a smaller scale, where they tend to be close to parents. And later this focus shifts to playing and exploring the neighbourhoods, streets and to socialise in their area.

Therefore, everyday freedoms should be close to the residential areas such as pavements and sidewalks for first opportunity for unsupervised exploration and further to parks and public spaces as they grow.

Children’s infrastructure is “the network of spaces, streets, nature and interventions which make up the key features of child friendly cities" (ARUP, 2017). Children’s infrastructure can create a range of benefits for all its urban people with a more connected, multifunctional, intergenerational and sustainable public spaces. The focus is on the streets and spaces that are in front of people’s home. On average, these spaces make up at least 25% of a city’s space and has the potential to encourage everyday freedoms and social interaction (Peters, 2017). This means to look beyond parks and playgrounds, and create public realms where the communities and children alone can enjoy.

The scope of Environmental Child Friendliness: The framework of Environmental Child Friendliness (ECF) was constructed by Horelli in 2004 where she described it as, “a complex multi-dimensional and multi-level concept. It refers to settings and environmental structures that provide support to individual children and groups who take an interest in children’s issues, so that children can construct and implement their goals or projects” (Horelli, 2007). This framework has been drawn on the understanding of children and their environments based on environmental, community and social attributes, which does not insulate children to specific settings. ECF can be assessed on two criteria: individual and collective experiences, defined by ten dimensions (Fig. 6) of quality tapping on a desirable environment. The environment here refers to the physical, psychological, economic, political and cultural environments and not only the natural or built (Horelli, 2007).

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Fig. 6: Horelli’s framework for Environmental Child-friendliness

2.4 Looking In 2.4.1 Introduction The well-being of our “today’s children, tomorrow’s adults and our future society” (Neufeld, 2014) depends upon our ability to place children at the heart of city. Previous literature shows the things children like in their environment, but the ability to experience the environment is under threat, affecting the development of children. The decline in children’s well-being and physical activity has been an emerging concern for the rising problems of obesity, diabetes and other diseases. Freeman and Tranter (2011) lay down two elements for the cause of decline: first, the removal from the streets due to traffic concerns and second, concerns about children’s safety. Children’s outdoor play is one such other ingredient that affects their well-being.

Children’s well-being and environmental issues are inextricably linked. In this section, literature addresses the key dimensions of children’s well-being and physical activity that are associated with the quality of urban setting. To further understand the environment, space and scale of childhood are explored followed by the challenges.

2.4.2 Dimensions of Children’s Well-Being and Physical Activity Children’s Play: Children’s physical and social activities are all essential enjoyment of childhood, and one of the reasons for the decline in these enjoyments is the extent and quality of outdoor play. Play is what children do in their own time at any place, in various ways based on interests and abilities.

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Noschis (1992) suggests play has two functions: (1) bringing the child closer to the adult world which one day they have to enter anyhow and (2) helping the child to construct their own identity as opposed to that of parents. Thus, it is important that wherever children live they should have access to a variety of places to play freely. As Play England (2008) states, “Children should be able to play freely in their local areas. Children have the same right to use and enjoy public space as others. Local streets, estates, green spaces, parks and town centres should be accessible for children and young people to move around in safety and offer places where they can play freely, experience nature, explore their environment and be with their friends.”

Research suggests that children playing outside establish a relationship with other children in the community and thus affects their social well-being and gives opportunities for parents to form their own community network. In Finland, over 70% of the parents saw the play park to be a place that can get support and help with issues concerning children (DCSF, 2008a). But today, children have fewer opportunities for outdoor play and this has taken a toll on their well-being and physical activity.

Children’s Safety and Security: The safety of children has emerged as one of central concerns in modern childhood (Valentine and McKendrick, 1997). The increasing fears about the risks to children in urban environment is the reason often cited for loss of children in public realms. These concerns are highly projected by the parents but studies show children also express their concerns over the dangers in the environment preventing them to play and explore outside. The dominant concerns include: traffic, violence and crime, stranger-danger and in some cases bullying. A survey by Play England (2013) on the barriers to children playing outside in their area illustrates the mentioned concerns. Both children (35%) and adults (53%) mentioned the main issue being traffic.

Concerns on potential “stranger danger” was also mentioned in the survey, where 21% children feel this being the reason of restrictions imposed by their parents and 35% of the parents agree to this. Overall, the safety concerns expressed are a result of social and environmental norms acting against outdoor play. 28% of the parents fear of being judged by neighbours if they let children play unsupervised and 32% fearing the noise from outdoor causing problems with neighbours.

In one such study by Leonard (2007), he highlights that “the once innocent spaces of childhood such as streets, parks and other public places have become redefined as areas where children are in potential danger.” The Family and Neighbourhood Survey says that although parents are attached to their communities, they do also raise concerns on the characteristics of the environment in their neighbourhood leading to the fears of risk (Play England, 2010).

Children’s Independent Mobility: Many studies on health and well-being of children have concluded that contours of their childhood is framed by the urban environments and their mobility in that environment. The lack of independence and restricted mobility have surfaced as a focus in a number of literature stating that in a child-friendly environment, children’s freedom of movement in tandem with varied environmental resources facilitates outdoor play (Tranter, 2006). Children’s physical, social, cognitive and emotional development is influenced by their levels of independent mobility (Kytta, 2003). A recent study in Sweden states that the majority of children in Sweden do not 17

meet the daily required amount of physical activity due to limited freedom of movement (PHAS, 2019). For instance, Britain (O’Brien et at., 2000), Australia (Tranter, 1996) and USA (Gaster, 1992), have seen decreases in the mobility from home to school due the restrictions posed by the environmental vulnerabilities or lack of play opportunities. The study “One False Move: A Study of Children’s Independent Mobility” by Hillman et al. (1990), conducted a research on mobility comparing England and Germany schools in 1971 and 1990. The study showed German children had higher levels of freedom compared to the English children. Furthermore, in England the number of children allowed to travel independently went down from 80% in 1971 to a mere 9% in 1990.

The complexity of children’s mobility as seen earlier is determined by the fears of risk posed by the social and environmental factors, and differs between different nations. But Freeman and Tranter, interrelate the reasons of decline with differences in urban forms, transport, local differences in planning, culture and community. Comparing European and Japanese cities, where children’s higher levels of independent mobility is higher than cities in USA and Australia, it is seen that the latter cities are more disperse, with longer travel distances between home and schools, shops or other activity areas, thus likely to have car based access. Walking, cycling and public transport are sustainable and child-friendly modes of transport and by increasing the distance beyond immediate neighbourhood will eventually decrease the active travel of children. The socio-economic nature of housing density has also been identified as a responsible factor for the decrease. There is more independent mobility among children living in high density areas to children of suburban areas who are more likely to be driven by parents. But also extremely high density areas lead to lack of spaces for children, due to cramped situations and thus affecting the health and well-being of children.

Achieving mobility has become difficult where there is a lack of walking and cycling that connects children’s homes to community activities, play and services. Therefore, walking, cycling and places for children to go outside are meaningful indicators to activate independent mobility in child-friendly environment.

2.4.3 Space and Scale of Childhood During a day children accesses a multitude of different spaces: home, school, park, shops, playgrounds, activity centres, and street environments. These are not places that children use, but are spaces that construct the definition of childhood. The physical environment for children has become more complex, fragmented, dispersed and feared. Urban settings contextualises where children grow up and is a determining factor for their well-being and development, thus defining the space and scale of children is essential. The use of spaces starts from micro-scale where they use the fronts of the house to macro-scale where they access different parts of the city (Freeman and Tranter, 2011). When this space is planned and designed with respect to children’s needs, it solves the space-based paradox of the physical environment.

Responsive to the needs of children, UNICEF (2018) identified urban scale and spaces of childhoods that impact the comfort, safety, play and independency at various stages. Each of these spaces and scale are interdependent and are the defining spatial solutions for a 18

sustainable neighbourhood and city.

Fig. 7: Space and Scale of Urban Childhoods

Urban Scale: children grow up along the spatial scale of home, street, neighbourhood and city, reflecting the model of children’s development. Accessibility to desirable urban services needs to be adjusted according to a child’s age, needs and daily activities (UNICEF, 2018).

Proximity: the distance between home, school, play and public places is important in determining the mobility license granted to children (GLA, 2020). Closer the distance between different uses and spaces, the greater independent mobility. Proximity is supported by a mixeduse and multi-functional urban setting.

Walkability: children are liable to walk as they don’t drive. Walkability has decreased due to urbanised development of neighbourhoods and cities, leading to a more car-oriented street design and policy. The proximity to urban services and public spaces has increased, decreasing the walkability.

Mixed-use: the planning of urban environment should incorporate the basic services for children such as health, education, community services and shops, etc. For children to thrive, the mixeduse development ensures proximity and thus independent mobility, further enabling natural surveillance.

Public Space: the outdoor environments are the spaces where children play and explore, and should be designed ensuring good accessibility and use of play. Public spaces are social spaces for children to meet and increase their connections.

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2.4.4 Vulnerabilities of Urban Childhood Children shape and influence the city, colonise streets and create their own spaces in neighbourhoods. But they are in a constant fight for their claim on the spaces beyond parks and playgrounds. Children have the curiosity to explore spaces be it at home, backyard or a street.

But are targeted by the vulnerabilities of the environment, either by social fears over the risks in the outdoor environment, or due to unavailability of spaces or just because of the quality of the physical environment. They need to grow and engage with the world to become a part of the future. In order to increase children’s involvement in their physical and social environments, various barriers must be understood. For instance, Wheway and Millward (1997), in their study found that even though there are opportunities in the neighbourhood for children to explore and play, but due to the inaccessibility, the spaces are of limited value.

Fig. 8: Constraints of children in urban environment, based on taxonomy of children’s vulnerabilities mentioned by Krysiak and UNICEF

Children look for spaces where they can go, how can they get there, who can they go with and what can they do there. Thus, it is important to categorise children’s vulnerabilities, specifically prominent in urban settings. The core challenges of urban childhoods are (ARUP, 2017): Traffic and pollution: they are global challenges, impacting children’s overall development and 20

limiting their freedom of movement (Shaw et al., 2015).

High-rise living and urban sprawl: dense high rise living leads to isolation and cramped conditions, while urban sprawl leads to car-dependency, increasing traffic and pollution and thus lack of independent mobility and social fears.

Crime, social fears and risk aversion: the perceptions of risk in terms of accidents, crime, stranger-danger and traffic has led to decline of children’s access to spaces.

Inadequate and unequal access to the city: poor quality and lack of access to green spaces and uneven distribution of playscape in proximity of children has been the urban scenario.

Isolation and intolerance: children have always been considered to be dependent, discouraging their presence in spaces and are living in an urban setting focusing on needs of adults.

2.5 Conclusion The literature review has explored the conditions of children and the environment that is being offered to them. The environment has been in constant change and this has affected the needs and well-being of children that is seen in the long run. The study has shown an increase in the acknowledgement of children being a factor in designing urban settings by analysing their wellbeing and physical activity, but children are still missing from the planning of urban landscape. In order to change the situation there needs to be an understanding of children’s needs in terms of play, safety and independent mobility in the spaces and scales of childhood to overcome the challenges posed in the environment.

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Chapter 3 Looking Beyond

“Unfortunately, most cities have not prioritised children in their planning and design. We should move beyond designing our cities for the 30-year- old athletic person and think about the needs of our most vulnerable users: children, older adults and the poor. We can and must provide safe, playful and stimulating everyday experiences for the child in the city.� — Gil Penalosa, founder and chairman of 8 80 Cities

3. Looking Beyond 3.1 Introduction Literature shows the way our cities and neighbourhoods are planned and developed having a major negative impact on children in numerous ways. Rapid urbanisation and densification of urban areas have been the trend that was followed in the last century. Now the face of urban planning has changed where it focuses on bottom-up approach to improve the quality of life of people to foster stable, safe and sustainable communities. So the question unfolds, could indicators for child-friendly environment be the key to a resilient urban growth? But to answer that we need to understand the matter of child-friendly urban planning and design.

This chapter materialises the child-friendly urban planning linked to the principles of sustainable urban design. Case examples are presented from different regions and countries, implementing the principles of child-friendly at varying scales. Further, looking at children in the context of Glasgow and outlining the city’s policies and initiatives focused particularly on children.

3.2 What is Child-friendly Urban Planning and Design?

As defined by Gill (2017), Child-friendly urban planning and design is an evolving set of ideas about shaping cities so that children are active and visible in the daily life of urban streets, parks, squares and other public spaces. It is a set of planning and design initiatives that take into consideration the needs of children and aims to expand their opportunities of play affordances and movement in their neighbourhoods or cities through design interventions in the built environment. It embodies that the presence of children in the urban public realm is a sign of healthy environment.

Creating healthy and liveable environments for all is the main aim in urban planning. The trend of urban planning suggests, the cities that do not take into consideration the issues addressing environment, mobility, public health, economic success, resilience, quality of life and community cohesion in inclusive (Gill, 2017) ways will eventually fall out. There needs to be a more clear narrative that provides insights to resolve the complex urban issues. The current forms of development and new urban principles namely, New Urbanism, placemaking, liveable neighbourhoods, sustainable green cities, etc, offer potentials for creating better urban environments. The enlightened urban environment in some cities and neighbourhoods do offer good environments for children, however does not address children in particular. Gleeson (2006) writes about what he calls “toxic cities”, explaining how cities like Australia are becoming economically wealthier, its children are becoming “fatter, sicker and sadder”. The problem is not simple and neither is about economic strength. Freeman and Tranter (2011) mentions two parallel strands for improving the urban environment for children: (1) physical improvement through urban design and (2) the inclusion of children in the process of urban planning.

In order to comprehend the physical planning of urban environments, the principles of current 23

urban design are compared to that of priorities of child-friendly urban planning.

Table 1: Comparing the principles of child-friendly urban planning to that of urban design

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The comparison table, evidently reveals common set of principles, access to services, walkability, physical and social connectedness, green spaces, safety, to name a few. Thus, the principles that prioritises children’s needs accords with those of good design principles.

The major challenge of 21st century is to achieve resilience through sustainable development— “development that meets the needs of the present without comprising the ability of future generations to meet their needs” (IISD, n.d). Chawla and Heft (2013) claim, children stand at the centre of it in two aspects, first, the concerns of future generations, that is the children, drives development of this kind and second, if development consistent with sustainable ways are to be carried forward in time, then children are the bridge to convey the ways and values. This is where child-friendly urban planning takes its part.

One such influential example of child-friendly design overlaid on sustainable planning principle is the masterplanning of Vauban, Germany. This neighbourhood was designed to be compact, environmentally sustainable and liveable neighbourhood with emphasis on well-designed, accessible green public spaces, play areas, good walking and cycling networks. The large masterplanning of the ‘eco-district’ was based on the study in children’s play and independent mobility. The neighbourhood has low-energy housing typically in the form of 4-5 storey apartments and all the dwellings overlook public spaces or play spaces. Even in spaces when no one is present, there is a passive natural surveillance in-between the houses and outdoor spaces.

The neighbourhood offers car-free access to these spaces. 40% of the residents do not own a car and those owning cars, solar parking spaces are provided on the edge of the development (CABE, 2008). Majority of the outside space is utilised in green child-friendly playable spaces and has a few traffic calmed roads with 5km/hr speed limit. With the neighbourhood being carfree, the green and playable spaces are designed fence-free in order for play to happen everywhere. This masterplanned neighbourhood incorporates what is needed by both children and adults. It encourages walking and cycling and to be environmentally aware.

It makes the case for cities and neighbourhoods to be a better place and good space for children to grow in and wider public to live in. It unifies the central urban issues on building our desirable urban future.

3.3 Child-friendly Initiatives Globally, there are signs and evidences growing in the interest of child-friendly cities and neighbourhoods. Play is the key ingredient in child-friendly urbanism, followed by the other dimensions of safety and mobility. The policies, guidelines or strategies, all supports the creation of play spaces at all scales, to encourage children’s exploration in their environment. Many countries have taken up the theme of child-friendly urbanism and have initiated strategies in context at a national and local level, best suited to support the children be more active and be a part of the city.

In UK, UNICEF officially began Child Friendly Cities and Communities Initiative in 2017.

According to the review report of Child Friendly Planning in the UK (Wood et al., 2019), children’s participation in planning in the UK has been paying close attention to three of the 25

rights by UN Convention of Rights of the Child. They are: Article 12 – A right to be heard and taken seriously in all matters affecting them; Article 15 – A right to gather and use public space, providing no laws are broken; and Article 31 – A right to play, rest, leisure and access cultural life. In essence, this is a right for children to participate in places, linking participation in process to participation in outcome (UNICEF, 1996).

Though child-friendly planning in UK advocates to these rights, but child-friendliness is not robustly addressed in child-friendly schemes like in European countries. This comes after assessing UK’s four systems: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (Wood et al., 2019).

3.3.1 City Scale Planning Comparing city scale planning policies and initiatives at a global level: Rotterdam: How to Build a Child Friendly City (City of Rotterdam, 2010)

Fig. 9: Rotterdam’s Child Friendly City strategy

In 2007, Rotterdam set up programme with the intention of retaining and attracting more families into the neighbourhoods in order to stimulate the economy, enhance the image of the city as a residential location and improve the quality of life for children (City of Rotterdam, 2010).

The programme is based on methods of urban planning and focuses on four ‘Building Blocks’ that can be used to identify the strengths and weakness of neighbourhoods. Building Blocks for a Child Friendly Rotterdam include, (1) Child Friendly Housing, (2) Public Space, (3) Facilities and, (4) Safe Traffic Routes. The assessing tool charts specific neighbourhoods to establish the extent of child- friendliness and opportunities for improvements. The project stressed on local and regional authorities to be the intermediaries and main providers of public services to the people, particularly children.

A subsequent 11 neighbourhoods were assessed in the pilot programme that has been successful in increasing pleasant living, safety and play for children and their families. The implementation of the building blocks provides a roadmap for making neighbourhoods an appealing place for all, including children with not just participation but interventions that make a difference in children’s lives.

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Vancouver (CA): Child, Youth + Family Friendly Strategy - CNV4ME (City of North Vancouver, 2015)

Fig. 10: Vancouver’s Child Friendly City strategy

The city of North Vancouver has vested its interest in inclusive design for children, youth and families. The citywide strategy “CNV4ME- Connecting Children, Youth and Families” initiated in 2015, addresses the promotion of healthy development, engage community and voices of children to increase the overall health and well-being of children and families. The strategy is to increase opportunities for children in the city and connect the families with the community. They seek to create spaces for children that are easily accessible and welcomed. The strategy focuses on five key themes: (1) Community Engagement, (2) Community Spaces, (3) Housing, (4) Programming and Services, and (5) Community Participation. The strategy, developed after surveying 1000 city residents, ensures to build vibrant, resilient and complete community (City of North Vancouver, 2015). Under these themes, the identified areas of actions are: public gathering spaces, private gathering spaces, playgrounds and walkable and accessible neighbourhoods.

The initiative has seen a positive impact on post-school children, walking and cycling. Also the special events and infrastructural improvements under the programme has been drivers of change in improvement among children and families. The participatory approach adopted by Vancouver has created opportunities for making the city fun, safe and affordable.

Ghent: Child and Youth Friendly City (City of Ghent, 2015)

Fig. 11: Ghent’s Child Friendly City strategy

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Ghent was bestowed with the label of ‘child and youth friendly towns and cities’ in 2014. The vision of Ghent’s child-friendly city follows the rights-based approach of UNICEF defining it as, “a city, committed to fulfilling children’s rights. It is a city where the voices, needs, priorities and rights of children are an integral part of public policies, programmes and decisions.” The action plan focuses on 15 spearheads. Two out of 15 spearheads address the built environment and other two aim to create more greenery and spaces for children to play and socialise; and allow safe and easy travels. Under easy and safe travel in the city the actions developed the network ‘Trage Wegen’ (Slow Streets), by limiting the vehicle speed in the city centre and residential areas. The cycling infrastructure has been developed and road safety is provided in school environments.

The project has strengthened the involvement and participation of children in a proactive way.

There has been visible improvements to spaces and streets, increasing walking and cycling among children and youths. The plan showed 58% drop in car traffic in residential areas and a 25% increase in cycling citywide (Gill, 2017) Boulder (CO): Child Friendly City Map (Growing Up Boulder, 2019)

Fig. 12: Boulder’s Child Friendly City Map

Growing Up Boulder (GUB) is Boulder’s child and youth friendly city initiative established in 2009, with a mission to make Boulder child-friendly by empowering children with opportunities for inclusion, influence and deliberation on local issues that affect their lives. In 2019, GUB initiated a community wide collaborative project ‘Child Friendly City Map’, where they developed a bilingual city map that is distributed in schools, public places and communities.

The idea is to use the map to educate public about child-friendliness in their city. It also highlights the amenities and places for children where they can explore and enjoy the cityscape in a healthy and improved way. It is also an assessment tool that helps to identify the gaps and areas for growth regarding child friendliness. The map highlights children’s favourite educational, cultural and recreational locations in Boulder.

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The community response has been positive and the initiative has received many compliments from children and their parents for the map. Through the map project, GUB learnt that their city has many qualities of a child-friendly city. Children’s and parents identified 125 favourite locations in the city and those were marked on the map. This has helped to increase and intervene in the areas most liked by children and parents to make the city safe, fun and interactive.

3.4 Case Studies The cases described here may differ in focus and context but according to Riggio (2002), they all follow the one goal of transforming cities into communities that are inclusive for children, recognising that a city-friendly to children is the one friendly to all. In order to develop a process to help build and adapt to the course of action of child-friendly urban planning, it requires a practical insight to child-friendly projects and interventions which have been implemented.

These illustrative examples will be used to substantiate the position of child-friendliness, to configure the ability as a valuable tool, deliver multiple benefits and bolster long-term urban resilience; and understand a range of scales and interventions within its context.

This is to be seen through the implications on repeated concerns of urban childhood which can be addressed at mixed scales of childhood and levels of interventions. The urban scales of childhood domain are identifiable as Micro Space Scale, Public Space Scale, Neighbourhood Scale and City Scale (Danenberg et al., 2018).

The first criteria for selecting the case examples is based on scales as mentioned above. The second criteria for selection is based on the cities that have seen physical design interventions as an integral part of the approach. And the final criteria for selection is based on cities that have focused on the key dimensions of children’s well-being and physical activity; and have seen a holistic vision of “what is good for children, is good for all”. For the urban context of the selected case areas, each of the city has seen a decline in children’s well-being and recognised the inclusiveness of children as a key to child-friendliness.

3.4.1 Micro Space Scale At Street Level Project: Play Street, 2018 Location: Kings Crescent Estate, London “Play Street” at Kings Crescent Estate, designed by Muf Architecture is an example of a street, thoughtfully kept children’s play in mind. This street is part of a regeneration scheme of the estate and is the centrepiece of the public realm, a route and a destination connecting it to the park. This playable street is shut off permanently for play and leisure. In order to create the space for a multitude of recreation, the street has been incorporated with traditional play equipments along with natural elements such as logs, rocks and water, props for imaginative play such as theatre, a large table, along with amenity areas for all ages (Muf, 2018). The long street surface provides space for children to learn to ride a bike, skate and even draw with chalk 29

for new ways to play. The street is carefully designed with trees all along the lane incorporating different natural elements around the trees that provide play spaces for children, gathering area, benches for elderly and socialising area for all.

Significantly, the ground floor apartments have direct visibility over the street, ensuring active movement from residents (Krysiak, 2019). The direct connection between the residential building and the play street also means that children can easily move and access the space. This combination with passive natural surveillance from the residents and pedestrians stimulates the social behaviours and entices children with independent free movement.

On reflection, the micro scale intervention acknowledges a positive physical and social output among children and families. It demonstrates an outcome carried out by an intervention in the neighbourhood to increase the quality of life of children and families. The project hits the key dimensions of children’s play, safety and independent mobility.

Fig. 13: (left) Children playing in ‘Play Street’ within residential development; (right) A range of playable objects all along the street

3.4.2 Public Space Scale Project: Play Everywhere Location: USA Play Everywhere is a part of a non-profit organisation KaBOOM that is dedicated to provide community-designed play spaces for children. The nationwide initiative aims to inspire and guide people and cities to think about everyday spaces that could become PLAYces — a laundromat, grocery store, sidewalk, bus stop — any unexciting situation can turn into a stimulating, creative outlet for play (KaBOOM, nd). The initiative works on seven fundamentals to explore, encourage and develop child-friendly cities with equitable access to safe, quality play experiences. They are: (1) Wondrous, (2) Convenient, (3) Inviting, (4) Shared, (5) Unifying, (6) Challenging and (7) Intentional.

50 cities have taken up on the initiative with an overall goal to increase the rate of plays, 30

changing mindsets and culture of the community about where play can happen. The design for play focuses on seven types of city spaces: (1) Parks and Open Spaces; (2) Transit Spaces; (3) Streets, Sidewalks and Trails; (4) Moveable/ Pop-up Play; (5) Multi-family Housing Spaces; (6) Commercial Spaces and (7) Civic Spaces.

Communities across the US have been thrilled to have more opportunities of play and have a positive outcome with even the smallest investment into their everyday spaces. The project shows even a small and quick investment provides a long term platform for children and communities to come together to reimagine the potential of their city spaces. Children are more active and learning while community connections have increased. The safety levels have increased from traffic and crime.

On reflection, the small scale project helps to illustrate the potential of public spaces that can be incorporated into innovative and new experiences of play to foster long term benefits. The interventions in public spaces not only helps make spaces enjoyable for children but engages a wider community. The geography of use displays many of the mentioned indicators and dimensions of children’s well-being including accessibility, flexibility, social connectedness and inclusion.

Fig. 14: PLAYce’s in city spaces (left) Bust Boredom- Lexington, KY; (right) Rail Trail Symphony- Charlotte, NC; (bottom) iPlay Miami Streets- Miami, FL

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3.4.3 Neighbourhood Scale Two case examples at neighbourhood scale are presented here. The first case study comprehends on mapping children’s spaces in the neighbourhoods to provide a framework for infrastructure improvements, whereas the second case is of varying small scale interventions in the physical environment implemented and designed in the neighbourhoods that encourage children’s everyday freedom and be part of the environment.

Case I Project: Play Space Web Location: Antwerp, Belgium The Play Space Web is linking neighbourhood by neighbourhood child-friendly public space improvement program. In Antwerp, the council believes in providing every child a play opportunity near their home (preferably on their door steps), but the city is also serious about ensuring that play spaces throughout neighbourhoods are to be linked with pedestrian and cycling infrastructure to enable active mobility (Krysiak, 2019). In Antwerp’s each neighbourhood, the programme analyses the quantity and quality of spaces for play and its accessibility by foot or bike. In collaboration with Kind & Samenleving consultants, they map the areas and streets children use and prefer, using available municipal resources and information from children, to start building a child-oriented public realm masterplan “Speelweefselplan” or a “Play Web”, which networks children’s infrastructure including parks, playgrounds, public spaces, schools and sports facilities along with the on-route cafes and shopping areas.

This in turn provides the city council with a framework to make informed infrastructure improvements and interventions along children’s common travel routes and further increase the playability of neighbourhoods and create more accessible journeys. Any gaps located in public spaces or connecting routes are filled in with opportunities of children’s safety and play, with networks of sustainable infrastructure (Krysiak, 2019). The initiative is largely a result of the municipality involvement. It enjoys the political support because of the objective of encouraging families to stay in the city, rather than moving outside (Gill, 2017). The process of developing the web involves routine and systematic surveys with children. The children are asked about their play experiences and the places they like to visit and where they would like to see improvements.

Creating a neighbourhood ‘Play Web’ has ensured that spaces can be accessed independently with interventions leading to active mobility. There are around 100 play streets across the city with improvements and reconfigurations of unused and dull parks with more lively play and accessible routes. Overall, the approach has led to measurable improvements in the quantity and quality of accessible play spaces.

On reflection, the approach highlights the importance of local council taking initiative in the creating child-friendly neighbourhoods to improve the liveability and sustainability of cities.

More importantly, there has been an officer assigned to coordinate the project ensuring that the programme is not a one time exercise. Also the children’s voices are heard and their suggestions are valued, giving them a sense of belonging and ownership to improve their neighbourhoods.

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Fig. 15: Antwerp’s neighbourhood ‘Play Web’

Case II Cases mentions the design interventions in the physical environment for children. One such intervention is car free neighbourhoods. The micro scale case study is an example that can be adopted by neighbourhoods to shut down a street permanently for children’s free play and movement.

Intervention: Temporary Street Closure Project: Playing Out Location: Bristol, UK

Fig. 16: Temporary street closure in Bristol for children’s safe and free play

Playing Out is an initiative where the neighbourhoods close their street for a couple for hours, creating a safe space for children to play without the dangers of traffic. It started out in 2009, as two residents used a street for children’s free play. This led to the initiative which has seen its success in Bristol. The initiative believes in children’s free play, being active and making friends on the streets, while also building community and encouraging active citizenship. The key features of this model are, (1) Resident-led and organised, (2) Short, regular road closures, (3) Free, child-led play, (4) All neighbours consulted and included, (5) Road legally and safely closed to through traffic, (6) Stewarded by residents, (7) Car access at walking pace, and (8) Simple, ‘normal’ – not a street party (Playing Out,2011).

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Intervention: Intergenerational Play Project: The Three-Generation Play spaces Location: Singapore “Three-Generation” play spaces are situated in almost every block of residential developments, providing playgrounds for children, game zones for youth and exercise equipment for the elderly besides one another (Krysial, 2019). The idea is for the residents to be active and be a part of wider community. Providing adjacent spaces for children and elderly fosters a sense of responsibility and care for others. This also includes having small eatery places, community facilities and seating areas near by which allows the everyday play to occur naturally. It also builds a sense of security by placing amenities adjacent to each other which allows passive surveillance for children by both parents and community at large.

Fig. 17: Singapore’s intergenerational play space within residential development

Intervention: School as Community Heart Project: Fiep Westendorp Community School Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands Designed as part of large mixed-used block with 71 social housing units, the school is conceived as a community hub in the neighbourhood from a spatial and social aspect. It provides places for various activities for school children during school hours but also provides places for children of the neighbourhood after school hours. The school includes a kindergarten, youth centre, neighbourhoods meeting areas and a multi-functional space for community children’s activities. Other areas within the school, such as the main hall and gym and outdoor play areas are open to public after school hours (Krysial, 2019). This contributes to the quality of life of the neighbourhood children and the neighbourhood thrives from the support of the school as a community heart.

Fig. 18: (top) Children playing in the school grounds during the school hours; (bottom) Children playing basketball after the school hours, shared by the community van Eyck’s roadside fence free playground

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On reflection, these interventions are some of the mentioned examples that have been implemented in the environment of neighbourhoods that encourages inclusion and brings out the spaces of childhood. The interventions are not only in the physical environment but are interventions in children’s active mobility, play, social connectedness and brings a sense of belonging and ownership. To support the efforts of creating child-friendly neighbourhoods, the possible design interventions help create inclusive play environments ranging from simple actions to complex which includes the support of local authorities and community as a whole.

3.5 In Context of Glasgow 3.5.1 Children in Glasgow Glasgow recognises children rights and well-being in the city. With the aim to create accessible resources and monitor the health and well-being of children, ‘Understanding Glasgow’ in collaboration with city council and other partners, developed children’s indicators in 2011, covering seven domains: health, well-being, poverty, safety, lifestyle, learning and population.

Glasgow is the largest and most populated city in Scotland with population of over 600,000 citizens of which 16% is under 16 years. Understanding Glasgow estimates a decrease in child population by 7% in the next 25 years (GCPH, 2019). The size and structure of Glasgow’s child population has fluctuated over time with the city’s growth. In 1921, children’s population in Glasgow was around 310,000 and the city has developed rapidly since then, but has seen a substantial drop in children’s population to around 99,939 in 2018 (Understanding Glasgow, 2020). Much of Glasgow’s population is known to live in deprived areas than the rest of Scotland. Deprivation is the most important factor in determining Glasgows children’s not benefitting from improvements in the city.

In city’s child population, 39% of Glasgow’s children live in 10% most deprived areas of Scotland, while only 4% live in least deprived areas of Scotland (Understanding Glasgow, 2020). As of 2014-2015, 5.9% of primary school pupils are obese and this is due to not meeting the required 60 minutes of daily physical activity. Scottish Health Survey informs that 27% of Glasgow’s children do not meet the required physical activity. This comes with a drop in active travel to school to less than 50% in 2018.

One other detrimental factor in children’s health, social and economic outcomes is child poverty.

Understanding Glasgow believes that children living in poorest neighbourhood are expected to live 14 years less that those in wealthier areas. Over 28% of children in Glasgow are living in poverty in 2018/19. In response to child poverty, as part of Glasgow’s Community Plan a place based approach has been initiated, Children’s Neighbourhood Scotland in 2018, identifying 10 neighbourhoods of Glasgow with high level of poverty. The approach is to improve outcomes for children and young people in the neighbourhoods.

Further, the well being and development of children in school has shown to have low selfesteem. 18% of school children have reported bullying. In terms of community safety, Glasgow tends to have a higher level of crime and incidents in the neighbourhoods. 16% are related to 35

anti-social behaviour with over 150 crime of violence reported by children under the age of 18 years in 2012. It is noted that these are crime related to teenage years.

3.5.2 Policy Framework for Children The planning structure of Scottish Planning Policy is“to set out national planning policies which reflect Scottish Ministers’ priorities for operation of the planning system and for the development and use of land.” (SPP, 2014). The SPP sits alongside other SG planning policies.

Fig. 19: Structure of Scottish planning system

In reviewing the place of children in Scottish Planning Policy (SPP), Wood et al. (2019) identifies that National Policy Framework (NPF3) emphasises on the principles and importance of designled placemaking and inclusive communities; and SPP contributes to the objective of sustainable growth, yet children are not explicitly mentioned in the policies, just once in SPP: “Providing play space and other opportunities for children and young people to play freely, explore, discover and initiate their own activities can support their development.”

Consequently, Designing Streets and Creating Spaces recognises benefits of good design allowing children’s outdoor play and suggests prioritising children over traffic, but statutory standing is lacking.

The Scottish Government (2013) paying close attention to rights of children to gather and play (Article 15 and Article 31), has developed a vision for play in the national play strategy: “Children’s play is crucial to Scotland’s well-being; socially, economically and environmentally.

Our people are our greatest resource and the early years of life set the pattern for children’s future development.”

In 2013, the vision for Play Strategy for Scotland states: “We want Scotland to be the best place to grow up. A nation which values play as a lifeenhancing daily experience for all our children and young people; in their homes, nurseries, schools and communities.” (Scottish Government , 2015) Another approach joining up to the policy area is development of ‘The Place Standard Tool’ (A&DS, 2015), aiming to provide a framework to structure conversations about place. It has 36

14 indicators of assessing the place, out of which one indicator focuses on play and recreation.

A few policies and initiatives focusing particularly on children at Scotland and Glasgow levels.

Strategy/Policy/Initiative

Initiative Published by Key Theme Year

Play Strategy for Scotland

2013

Play Scotland

Aims to create Scotland a best place for children to grow, by increasing their health and well-bring by introducing play as a fundamental part of childhood.

Living Streets: WOW

2011

UK Government

A pupil-led initiative rewarding challenge, encouraging school children to walk once a week

Sustrans: I Bike

2009

Sustrans Scotland

The initiative promotes cycling, walking and scooting to children to travel actively, safely and confidently to school in order to create happier and better communities

Curriculum for Excellence: Outdoor Learning

2010

Scottish Government

Offers opportunities for children to experience outdoors, whether within the school grounds, in urban spaces or wilder environment. The curriculum sees outdoor learning as a smarter, healthier and greener way for Scotland’s children to be successful

Children’s Neighbourhood Glasgow

2018

Glasgow Centre for Population Health

The place based approach brings together the community to work collaboratively towards making better lives for children living under poverty.

Undestanding Glasgow: Children’s indicator project

2011

Glasgow Centre for Population Health

The indicator project is a way of assessing children’s indicators in Glasgow, to show the inequalities and differences in the city, in order to create better lives for children

Hands Up Scotland Survey, Sustrans

2008

Scottish Government

The survey was developed to provide insights on children’s journeys to school across Scotland

SPACES

2013

SPHSU

Studying Physical Activity in Children’s Environment across Scotland

Table 2: Various policies and Initiatives for children adopted by Glasgow city.

It has been noted that the strategies and policy in context does not robustly follow any childfriendly city or neighbourhood strategy in matters related to the built environment in particular.

There is scope with the recent policies and strategies but for Glasgow to access its full potential to be a children’s city, scaled interventions are required.

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Chapter 4 Looking In, Looking Out

"Children remind us to slow down and design a path where the journey is as important as the destination.� — Mara Mintzer, TEDxMileHigh

4. Looking In, Looking Out 4.1 Introduction Children’s interactions with the physical environment tends to be direct. For children who desires exploration and movement; and develop their physical skills, their immediate environment then becomes the foremost medium for learning. Thus, David and Weinstein (1987) state, “although learning becomes increasingly abstract with age and settings seem to grow less important, the environmental experiences of childhood continue to be influential.”

This chapter explores the nexus between children and the built environment as a responsive “third place”. Within this context, it explores the role of physical environment and understand the nature of children as agents of change in reaching urban resilience.

4.2 Built Environment: A Responsive “Third Place” “From a very young age, children develop feelings and emotions about their everyday environments which induce powerful, positive or negative images. The role of affect is not only important in explaining how children learn about the place, but also, as children’s place reactions are often very different to those expressed by adults, it provides a pointer to what sorts of environments children find most satisfying” (Matthews, 1992).

The growing interests in children and their well-being as a focus of the study has been paralleled by developing interests in children’s environmental relationships. Literature suggests the nature and characteristics of the environment is seen as a backdrop against which the lives of children are panned out. This is the case from the beginning where Newsons in 1976 summed up the problem, it is between home and school that the difficulty arises, and here mothers become consciously ambivalent about the friendliness or independence which in other ways they value (Thomson, 2013). And this is still a problem with regards to place based relationships.

Proshansky and Fabian (1987) claim in terms of a child’s physical world socialisation, the home is undoubtedly an important primary environment. However, as the child grows this environment tends to extend beyond home, bringing in school and play areas in the picture. These are the three overlapping physical and social realms in the life and experiences of a child, wherein the public realm is the anchor point between home and school (Fig. 20).

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Fig. 20: Public realm considered to be the anchor point between home and school

Children spend most part of their life at home than anywhere else. Home is the first place where early learning occurs and reflects dominant societal ideologies. Knowledge of oneself, others and the environment all begin at home and this knowledge persists and later determines the form of experiences a child is likely to have in later settings. School is the second place and when the child is of school-age, most of the day is spent in school. The school site, the building and the environment of the institutional setting provides the infrastructure which supports learning and development outside of home and is thus the second place of children’s place identity. But then, there comes the public realm or the built environment which is the anchor point between home and school. This environment also determines children’s well-being which is not supervised and regulated by the adults. It is the informal learning place where children develop their social and physical understanding of their experiences that moulds their future.

Therefore, the built environment is the “third place”.

4.2.1 The Theory of Third Place In 1989, Ray Oldenburg, an urban sociologist, released an influential book, in which he described his concept of “third place”. Third places are nothing more than informal public gathering spaces, derived after considering home to be the “first” places and work places “second” (Oldenburg, 1997). In children’s world, third places are more accessible public spaces separate from the more defined and confined physical and social environment of home and school (school being the second place in children’s context). They are theorised as anchors of life experiences and well-being of children, facilitating social connectedness and establishing a sense of place and belonging. Third places presents possibilities for important experiences and relationships; and are distinctively equipped to sustain a sense of well being (Oldenburg and Brissett, 1982). Oldenburg attributes eight characteristics in defining third places (Dolley and Bosman, 2019): (1) Common meeting place (2) Places that encourage and are inclusive of social and cultural diversity (3) Places that are easy to access (4) Regular patrons (5) Informal places (6) Places which foster a playful atmosphere (7) A home away from home (8) A place where conversation is the primary activity 40

For children, going outdoor to play is not just the places of play, like parks or playgrounds, but the built environment as a whole, a place to socialise, be physically active, explore and have fun when in contact with the environment. As described by Krysiak (2018), parks and playgrounds have become ‘destinations’ which require parents to drive children and usually remain for the duration of children’s play. Their presence on the streets, in public and natural spaces has become a source of disquiet (Freeman and Tranter, 2012), and thus leading to an absence of children’s visibility in urban areas.

Fig. 21: Car-centric children’s destinations

According to Oldenburg’s (1997) observations, thirds places only work when they are local and work best when within walking distance. On the basis of opportunities for children’s play, physical activity, independent mobility, exploration and socialisation; third places are divided into three domains of public realms, destinations (parks, playgrounds), transitory spaces (streets and public spaces) and thresholds (driveways), (Gardner, 2011; cited in Carroll et al., 2015).

Destinations are described as highly accessible, welcoming and providing a space to hang out.

Transitory spaces are the “places between places, on the way to someplace” (Gardner, 2011).

For children, these are micro spaces of the city such as streets, sidewalks, staircase and any other space along the way that offers opportunities for play and socialising. Thresholds are semi public third places between the first place, home and the wider neighbourhood (Gardner, 2011).

Thresholds include driveways, backyards, courtyards and car parks, all other potential sites for play.

The third places, particularly destinations and transitory places portray physical characteristics, that fit in the domains of urban design (Carroll et al., 2015). Third places can either facilitate or constrain children’s opportunities in public spaces. Therefore, in order to entice third places, the entire urban fabric needs to considered as a canvas for providing opportunities of play and exploration. To fulfil Oldenburg’s purpose of third places, a walkable child-friendly networks should be overlaid onto the urban fabric integrating opportunities that occurs with active independence and safe travel (Fig. 22). Play England (2008) states, “a successful play space is a place in its own right, specifically designed for its location, in such a way as to provide as much play value as possible.” According to Noschis’s (1992), functions of play place should not be set aside from other neighbourhood places, rather integrated into the make up of neighbourhood environment.

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Fig. 22: Network for child-friendly third places

Further, third places play a role in improving the safety of children in the neighbourhood with the concept as termed by Jacobs (1961), “eyes on the street”. Third places enables natural surveillance. They benefit the wider community and are social connecters. Jacob states “excellent community surveillance of children at play occurs where the community is at its strongest—on the sidewalks.”

4.3 Role of Physical Environment The physical environment is both the built and natural environment that makes up children’s urban setting. And this physical environment poses a significant challenge when it comes to measuring and monitoring its characteristics (Woolcock and Steele, 2008). The role of physical environment in child-friendly cities and neighbourhoods permeates through almost every aspect of the literature in some way. Be it Chawla and Malone (2003), Francis and Lorenzo (2009) or Freeman and Tranter (2011), all have identified the impacts of physical environment in terms of traffic and pollution, the quality and quantity of play spaces, the connectivity and proximity of child-friendly activity and services, the availability of natural spaces and play in children’s resilient growth. For example, levels of adults physical activity is influenced by the presence or absence of good quality, accessible green spaces, similarly, children are more likely to be allowed to walk or cycle to school and other public spaces if there are safe, segregated cycle routes, safe pedestrian crossings and low traffic speeds (Understanding Glasgow, 2020).

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So then, how is the importance of children’s relationships with physical environment linked to third places? Extensive literature concludes children’s experience of environment being different from their adults. Some research concludes, third places in child developments is about ‘texture and variety’, diverse and accessible places rather than function (Talen and Coffindaffer’s, 1999; citied in Woolcock, 2019). The study by Chawla (2002, citied in Woolcock and Steele, 2008), highlights the priorities of physical environment, that can be concluded as required characteristics of third places. The priorities are: (1) Green Areas (2) Provision of basic services (3) Variety of activity settings (4) Freedom from physical dangers (5) Freedom of movement (6) Peer gathering places (7) Reductions in traffic (8) Minimal litter or trash (9) Geographic accessibility and connectivity It is not just about fundamental importance of independence and play, but the physical environment as a whole in shaping a child’s development and future prospects and hence their adult lives. Based on the model for opportunities in neighbourhood environments (Christian et al., 2015), Fig. 23, depicts the pathway through which physical environment can be linked to third places.

Fig. 23: The link between third place and physical environment facilitating opportunities for children’s development

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In Glasgow, the project, Understanding Glasgow, identifies trends and patterns for a selected set of indicators that describes and measures the physical and social environment in which children and young people live. Focusing on the physical environment, indicators includes, proximity to derelict land and green spaces, air quality, active travel to school, child pedestrian injuries and houses in disrepair, are assessed on 'Red Amber Green’ traffic light system (Understanding Glasgow, 2020). The following table shows the current situation of physical environment.

Table 3: Report of children’s physical environment based on the identified indicators in Glasgow

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The environment is to be understood as one that is part of children’s urban world rather than some “shelter from threats” (Noschis, 1992).

4.4 Children as Agents of Change Adults say kids are our “future citizens”, and that their opinions will matter some day. But children make up a quarter of the population, so why not now. By 2050 around 70% of the worlds population will live in cities. The majority of these urban residents will be under the age of 18 (UNICEF, 2012). Children’s rights are universal and therefore children’s health and wellbeing becomes a universal concern. Children are future’s “becomings” and today’s “beings”.

Basically, children want the same things as everyone else from the urban environment: safe and clean streets, access to green spaces, clean air, things to do, ability to get around, the freedom to see friends and somewhere to call home (ARUP, 2017).

The phrase “everyday freedoms” adopted by ARUP, sums up the vision for children’s play and mobility with the needs to have an infrastructure that defines the potential of performing the activity. The global trend of urbanisation shows urban expansion has taken place in a fragmented way, with limited centrality, lack of public space and no compactness in urban form (UNICEF, 2018), thus leading to urban sprawl. For children, this means unhealthy and unsafe environment, limiting their options to walking and playing, decreasing connectivity to social networks, local services and creating barriers within the local area.

This goes beyond just children. The benefits of children’s infrastructure is not just about providing parks and playgrounds, it goes beyond to the wider contextual environment of children and their families in the neighbourhoods and cities. Extensive literature shows, children’s behaviour is shaped by their constant interaction with the urban built environment, and therefore, children’s participation and involvement in shaping our neighbourhoods and cities becomes a determinant driver of change. Child-responsive urban settings share qualities similar to the aforementioned conceptual standards of sustainable neighbourhoods and cities: urban scales, proximity, walkability, mixed-use, public space, independent mobility and connectivity (UNICEF, 2018).

There is a ripple effect, the pragmatic impacts on the health and well-being is not just at an individual level, but the benefits add value to all citizens in a more holistic and integrated manner. Mintzer in her TEDx talk in 2017, speaks about “How kids can help design cities”. She says, “when kids dream up a space, they include fun, play and movement in their designs.” Even though this is not what adults prioritise, eventually this is what adults desire — fun, play and movement, to stay healthy too. She talks about how children design for everyone, be it for their grand parents or living creatures, children will include them in their designs. And to create safe and happy cities, one such initiative 8 80 Cities tasks to prioritise people’s well-being, based on the belief that if everything they do in the city is great for an 8 year old to an 80 year old, then it will be great for all people (8 80 Cities, 2007).

And thus children can be powerful and beneficial agents in the design and delivery of better urban environment. Mentioned are the highlighted benefits of child-friendly cities (ARUP, 2017).

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Fig. 24: Benefits of Child Friendly Urban Planning

Where efforts to address the issues of urban settings and mitigating the negative consequences of existing urban environments, approaching child-friendliness highlights the powerful benefits of urban interventions and be extremely effectual in driving catalytic change.

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Chapter 5 A Way Forward

“Cities that meet the needs of children will not only create more resilient children, they will help to create more resilient cities.”

— Claire Freeman and Paul Tranter, Children and Their Urban Environment

5. A Way Forward 5.1 Introduction Decades ago, Jacobs wrote, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, an intensifying plea to create feasible communities through urban planning. More than anything, indicating to improve urban lives by freeing people living in distressed cities. With urbanisation and climate change in picture, environments catering to positive developments and urban experiences is what is needed (ARUP, 2017). Recently, considerations are given to resilience in the context of governance, community well-being and social sustainability (Chawla et al., 2017).

This chapter explores the intersecting point between child-friendly cities and the framework of resilience in the city of Glasgow, to get insights on including children as a specific group in the resilience framework.

5.2 Intersection of Framework 5.2.1 Child-friendly City and Resilient Planning in Glasgow Freeman and Tranter argue that rather than being overwhelmed by the distressing challenges of climate change and urbanisation, the focus should instead be on the positive vision of creating child-friendly cities. Today, it is the death and life of children’s landscape that is bound up with planning. In many ways, the principles of child-friendly urban planning has the potential to make our cities resilient in the face of current challenges, as they help create healthier, more liveable and sustainable cities for all.

Glasgow is a city which learns from its past and builds on its strengths (GCC, 2014). In 2013, Glasgow embarked on the journey to build urban resilience in the city, through Rockefeller Foundation—100 Resilient Cities. The vision for Our Resilient Glasgow is “to be thriving, inclusive and resilient city, where all Glaswegians can enjoy the best possible health and wellbeing, and have the opportunities that need for our city to flourish” (GCC, 2014). The strategy of urban resilience in the city builds on “four pillars” (Fig. 25) based on the indicators of City Resilience Framework: Health and Well-being, Economy and Society, Infrastructure and Environment, and lastly, Leadership and Strategy.

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Fig. 25: The four strategic pillars of resilience for Glasgow

Currently, the strategy for resilient Glasgow, does not particularly address children as a separate group, but the framework for child-friendly cities and resilient planning in Glasgow share the same thinking. Bringing the framework and principles of child-friendly city and urban resilience together enlarges the conceptualisation of well-being; and unlocks the community and environmental potential, highlighting the importance of children as agents of change. Concerns for multilevel, multi-sectoral governance and social equity, a strategy shared by both childfriendly city and resilient Glasgow planning, provides opportunities for expanded vision (Fig. 26).

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Fig. 26: Intersecting Framework of child friendly city and resilient planning of Glasgow

Therefore, within the changing profile of cities, urban planning and design can play an underlining role in validating the agency of children’s geography in its planning process. Thus, the values that children express extends beyond the concepts of playgrounds, but merges with the frameworks of resilient cities to build a stronger and more adaptable future, a future that is for children, our future citizens.

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Chapter 6 Conclusion

“Every learning experience is about getting the pupils to have an emotional connection to it because if the heart is excited then the mind always remembers.”

— Ivanka Rancic, Delany College

6. Conclusion 6.1 Introduction This research has been built on the acknowledgment that children have lost their spaces in the cities and neighbourhoods; and are invisible in the public realm. With rapid urbanisation came the crisis of lost spaces in the city, and much to the unknown, adverse effect can be seen on children. What was known as children’s lives being decided by the society in which a child lives, has evidently shown to be half the equation, the other half is decided by the physical environment in which the child grows up in. The emerging concerns in the late 20th century were children and spaces; and the relation that children have with their spaces, especially the city children, who were alienated from the urban world thereby affecting their play and movement. This has been the continuing concern since then, where the well-being of children has become the central focus in many contexts. Over two decades, the concept of childfriendliness has caught the eye of many cities as a tool in urban development to reclaim children’s spaces and in turn their presence; and integrate them into agents of opportunities to bring a playful and liveable city for all.

The research sets out to find the answers to the questions: what led to the issues of loss of childhood, how the environment affects the key dimensions of children’s well-being and are children the key to building a sustainable resilient future. The highlighting point for this research was with the proposition that examines the physical environment, particularly the built environment as an important “third place” in children’s urban experiences and the place childfriendly urban planning takes in the framework of Glasgow’s resilient planning. Thus the main intention was to identify the indicators and principles of child-friendly urbanism so as to find its place in building long-term urban resilience. In doing so, the objectives identified in the research are to be considered.

6.2 Research Objective Findings Objective 1: To establish a comprehensive understanding of contemporary environment that gave rise to urban agenda of what child-friendliness is; and what covets do children have from their urban environment.

The last few decades have seen a constant change in the urban environments throughout the world and is still expected to change. This upsurge of urbanised world noticed the loss of childhood and the impacts of urbanisation on the health and well-bring of children. The physical environment and the city design has been identified as the main challenges in declining opportunities for children in the public domain, therefore limiting their presence to indoors with increased screen time. Research on children’s lives and their environments provides an empirical evidence of childhood being determined by quality of physical spaces in the city. The implications of the urbanised public domain recognises certain challenges posed on children’s environment, namely, (1) Traffic and pollution, (2) High-rise living and urban sprawl, (3) Crime, 52

social fears and risk aversion, (4) Inadequate and unequal access to the city and (5) Isolation and intolerance.

Children are the future of our cities and their existence depends on their today’s well-being.

Reviewing the needs of children and their well-being, the research identifies the urban environment which offers children with rights and opportunities for exploratory play, safety and independent mobility; to build the model for city’s child-friendliness. Thus, child-friendly environment is one where children have access to spaces that welcomes them and values their rights.

Objective 2: To establish a contemporary understanding of the scale, spaces and means in which the principles of child-friendly planning has been applied in various countries.

Children have the capability to achieve various activities in a day. These activities takes place in a myriad of spaces, be it home, school, park and other activity areas in between. The places in between have been identified as spaces that construct the experiences of children in the neighbourhood. It is the anchor point between the home and school, where interventions are possible. Thus the study explored the spaces of children which acknowledges that the dimensions of children’s well-being is shaped at different scales. This study is verified by the case examples presented in the research. The presented case examples exhibit three outcomes, first an interdependency of childhood scale and the role chidden play in defining a spatial solution for the contemporary urban environment as the urban scale and space increases for children. Second, the case studies discloses the potential of city’s affordances in facilitating children’s physical, social and independent experiences. And lastly, the child-friendly interventions in the city’s urban environment at the mentioned scales delivers a city or a neighbourhood that is today’s sustainable urban agenda for all.

Objective 3: To develop an understanding of children’s relationship to their corresponding environment and how children act as agents of change in this urban environment that benefits all.

The relation between children’s well-being and their freedom to play and move in their neighbourhoods without adult supervision is startling. The study reflects the aspects of children’s well-being measured by the children’s level of play, safety and independent mobility in the built environment. Research develops an understanding of children’s environment to be the one place, that is outside the settings of home and school. This environment is a “third place” that acts a background for the narrative of children’s physical and social development. The research identifies destinations and transitory places to be the domains of urban design that provide the opportunities to children. It can be communicated that by broadening our definition of environment to “place”, we can recognise the interactions between the environment and the third places; for which each component of the built environment can be planned to have a positive influence on the health of children today as future adults.

As outlined above, the research continues to narrate the role children play in shaping our future urbanisation, by highlighting the benefits of child-friendly environments. The mentioned third 53

places play an important role in defining the benefits. Research distinguishes third places to be different from backyards and school grounds, but in principle to be accessible to everyone, regardless of where they live (Woolcock, 2019). And thus it can be concluded on this point that children are the powerful indicators of urban interventions and act as agents of change for the future cities.

Objective 4: To establish an understanding of children and planning policies within Glasgow and how children fit into the framework of Glasgow’s resilient planning.

One of the focuses of the research is on urban planning and design, within the context of Glasgow. The study identifies the challenges faced by children in the city, in terms of the current physical environment of Glasgow, including, green spaces, derelict land, air quality, active travel to school, pedestrian injuries and housing quality. It is revealed in the research that there are no targeted strategies and planning policies definitive to children, that oversees the condition of physical environment. One such tool “The Place Standard Tool” developed has the potential to identify the challenges, but to develop a child-friendly Glasgow, children need to be placed at the heart of the city’s planning framework through participation and inclusion. Reviewing Glasgow’s resilient planning strategy has revealed to be agile and demonstrates great levels of approach in identifying the gaps and opportunities. The strategic framework visualises to be thriving and inclusive and has the capabilities of intersecting with the framework for childfriendly urban planning, thus establishing an integrated approach to build a city which is healthier, liveable and resilient for all.

6.3 Concluding Remarks Urban planning and design plays a highlighting role in defining children’s geography in the planning process within the ever changing urban environment. It is thus essential to differentiate the part of urban planning and design in outlining the importance of children’s geographies, the space and scale of feasible interventions; and bottom-up and top-down approaches. In conclusion, child-friendliness can be a driver to build long-term urban resilience as it is an integrated theme, looking in, looking out and looking beyond the future needs. The fine-grain differences between child-friendly city and resilient urban planning needs to be exposed and acknowledged. Child-friendly cities calls for a socialised, cohesive community and celebrates multi-level civic participation. Thinking through children’s perspective can provide resourceful solutions to overcome the urban challenges and deliver an integrated policy system; and thus embrace the key role to build a sustainable future.

6.4 Future Research This research proposal is initiated as part of Urban Design Theory, in understanding the challenges that urban design is addressed with today. This study is considered to be an exploratory pilot study using qualitative literature research. The research provides valuable information regarding the context of methods and considerations for child-friendliness. This study can be further approached by urban analysis and assessment of the physical environment 54

to measure the affordances and map opportunities. Based on the priorities of neighbourhood built environment (Fig. 23), in depth analysis could help provide the needed information. This would present a quantitative research and could be incorporated along the road to masterplanning for change and designing resilient places.

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References Bibliography ARACY. 2006. What Constitutes Child Friendly Communities and how are they built?. The Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, Perth [online]. Available at: https://www.aracy.org.au/ publications-resources/command/download_file/id/165/filename/ What_constitutes_child_friendly_communities_and_how_are_they_built.pdf [Accessed:10 July 2020].

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Sources of Listed Figures & Tables Cover Page: Author Cover Page: Introduction: https://www.ice.org.uk/news-and-insight/ice-thinks/growing-cities-and-buildingresilience/the-evolution-of-cities-putting-children-first Cover page: Literature Review: https://rsa.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23748834.2018.1550850 Cover Page: Looking Beyond: Francis and Lorenzo, 2009 Cover Page: Looking In, Looking Out: https://kaboom.org/play-everywhere Cover Page: A Way Forward: https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/policy-and-resources/our-policy/20mph Cover Page: Conclusion: https://playingout.net/ Fig. 1: Author Fig. 2: https://www.archives.gov/research/american-cities https://rsa.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23748834.2018.1550850 Fig. 3: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/oct/31/were-cosseting-our-kids-the-war-againsttodays-dangerously-dull-playgrounds-wellcome Fig. 4: https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/feb/28/child-friendly-city-indoors-playing-healthysociable-outdoors Fig. 5: ARUP, 2017 Fig. 6: https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/10.7721/chilyoutenvi.17.4.0319.pdf? refreqid=excelsior%3A3b56901260b963c77f2958aacc153974 Fig. 7: https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/ UNICEF_Shaping_urbanization_for_children_handbook_2018.pdf Fig. 8: Author Fig. 9: https://docplayer.net/34800827-Rotterdam-city-with-a-future-how-to-build-a-child-friendly-city.html Fig. 10: https://issuu.com/cityofnorthvancouver/docs/cnv4me_report_-_final_2014 Fig. 11: https://stad.gent/sites/default/files/page/documents/ Ghent%20summary%20action%20plan%20child%20and%20youth%20friendly%20cities.pdf Fig. 12: http://www.growingupboulder.org/printed-child-friendly-city-map.html Fig. 13: http://muf.co.uk/portfolio/kings-crescent-2018/ https://greenblue.com/gb/case-studies/kings-crescent-estate-london/ Fig. 14: https://kaboom.org/playbook/case-studies Fig. 15: https://www.citiesforplay.com/lessonsfromantwerp Fig. 16: https://playingout.net/how/exhibitions-projects/playing-exhibition-bristol-central-library/ Fig. 17: https://www.citiesforplay.com/child-friendly-neighbourhoods Fig. 18: https://archello.com/project/primary-school-social-housing-project-amsterdam-nl Fig. 19: https://www.rtpi.org.uk/media/1633/childfriendlyplanningintheukareview2019.pdf Fig. 20: https://www.citiesforplay.com/portfoliowhere-do-the-children-play? utm_medium=website&utm_source=archdaily.com Fig. 21: https://www.citiesforplay.com/portfoliowhere-do-the-children-play? utm_medium=website&utm_source=archdaily.com Fig. 22: Author Fig. 23: Author Fig. 24: Author Fig. 25: https://www.glasgow.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=35134&p=0 Fig. 26: Author

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Bartlett, S. 2005. Urban Children and the Physical Environment. Cited in: Woolcock, G. And Steele, W. 2008. Child Friendly Community Indicators: A Literature Review. NSW Commission for Children & Young People. Griffith University [online]. Available at: https://s25924.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ Child-friendly-Community-Indicators-a-Literature-Review_2008.pdf [Accessed:2 July 2020].

Table 2 Hands Up. 2020. Hands Up Scotland Survey. Sustrans. [online]. Available at: https://www.sustrans.org.uk/ media/6695/hands-up-scotland-survey-2019_statistical-news-release.pdf [Accessed:27 July 2020].

Sustrans. 2019. I Bike [online]. Available at: https://www.sustrans.org.uk/our-blog/projects/2019/scotland/ i-bike-increasing-physical-activity-and-tackling-the-school-run/ [Accessed:27 July 2020].

Living Streets. 2011. WOW. Walk to School [online]. Available at:https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/walk-toschool/primary-schools [Accessed:27 July 2020] Scottish Government. 2010. Curriculum for Excellence through outdoor learning [online]. Available at: https://education.gov.scot/Documents/cfe-through-outdoor-learning.pdf [Accessed:28 July 2020] Muirie, J. 2017. Active Travel in Glasgow. Glasgow Centre for Population Health [online]. Available at: https://www.gcph.co.uk/assets/0000/6211/Active_travel_synthesis_WEB.pdf [Accessed:25 July 2020].

Play Scotland. 2013. Play Strategy for Scotland: Our Action Plan. Play Strategy [online]. Available at: https://www.playscotland.org/about/play-strategy/ [Accessed:25 July 2020].

SPHSU. 2013. Studying Physical Activity in Children’s Environment across Scotland [online]. Available at: http://spaces.sphsu.mrc.ac.uk/home [Accessed:15 June 2020].

PPS. nd. What is Placemaking. Project for Public Spaces [online]. Available at: https://www.pps.org/article/ grplacefeat [Accessed:4 August 2020].

Table 3 Understanding Glasgow, 2020. Children’s Report Cards: Environment. Children’s Indicators.

Understanding Glasgow: The Glasgow Indicators Project [online]. Available at: https:// www.understandingglasgow.com/profiles/childrens_report_cards/environment [Accessed: 10 July 2020].

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