3 minute read
Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning & Design Can Save Cities
URBAN PLAYGROUND
BY TIM GILL
Child-friendly planning and design boost the case for healthy, sustainable, joyful public spaces and neighborhoods that work well for everyone.
Here’s something that you would never hear a parent say: “This is a great neighborhood, but I’ll never let my child walk to school.” Here’s something that you’d never hear a child say: “I love my city, but there’s nowhere for me to play.” These insights give us a clue as to why child-friendly urban planning matters and what it’s all about.
What Is Child-Friendly Urban Planning?
If we ask what makes neighborhoods work for families, it falls into three categories: suitable housing; services like school, childcare, and healthcare; and parks, streets, and public spaces. It’s that third plank where children start to enjoy life as citizens and claim their space in the city.
Child-friendly urban planning breaks down into two dimensions: things to do and mobility. A child-friendly city has a lot of choices for children. But that’s not enough. You need mobility: How easy is it for children to get around a neighborhood on their own?
Why Does Child-Friendly Planning Matter?
Cities fall into three groups in terms of reasons they were interested in this idea. The first was children’s rights, health, and the benefits to children themselves. The second was sustainability issues and realizing a sustainable city looks like a child-friendly neighborhood: green, compact, and easy to get around. The third was economics: A city unable to attract and retain families has a bleak future.
If we ask children what they like about their cities, their answers are surprisingly clear and consistent. They want the ability to get around and greenery; they don’t like traffic and untidiness. Their views map perfectly onto this framework I’ve adopted. When we look at the correlations between cities and economic growth factors, we see evidence of that link between a city’s economic prospects and the presence of families.
Which Cities Are Leading the Way?
Vauban, an eco-suburb of Freiburg, Germany, is essentially car-free, and any families or households that own a car have to park their car in one of the peripheral car parks. That means the whole of the public realm is available for play, recreation, and socializing.
Rotterdam is an example of a city that 15 years ago was having problems attracting and retaining families. So the city put money, time, and effort into tackling the problem. They improved parks, streetscapes, and sidewalks; created new play spaces and sports facilities; and introduced traffic calming. These measures helped attract families to the targeted areas in the city.
In Boulder, they are involving children in planning across the city. The city did a range of workshops with a varied population of children to develop a design for the city center. They also created a kid-friendly map for the city.
Kaboom! is an NGO looking to weave in play opportunities in cities across the U.S.— not just in conventional playgrounds but into other parts of the city.
If you pull all this together, you get a quote from the former mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa, who talks about children being a kind of indicator species for cities, that if we build a successful city for children, we’ll have a successful city for all people. I really like that image of the indicator species. Seeing children in a city is a sign of the health of human habitat, just like seeing salmon swimming up a river.
Boulder, Colorado
The city involves children in planning, including this playground at Boulder Public Library.
© GROWING UP BOULDER
Tim Gill
Global Advocate, Rethinking Childhood
London, England
Tim Gill is a global advocate for children’s outdoor play and mobility and an independent scholar, writer, and consultant. He is the author of Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities and No Fear: Growing Up in a Risk-Averse Society.
