THE CASE FOR ENGAGING CHILDREN IN PLANNING AND DESIGN (cont.)

However, as the harmful consequences of adult decisionmaking for our shared future become increasingly apparent, there is a gradual acknowledgement that if children and young people have a voice, decisions with future impact might be different. Consider, for example, the impact of the young Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg on climate change response.

Accepting children as citizens in the here-and-now does not naively imply that decision making is left to children. Influencing the future should be understood as a process of co-construction in which the skills and life experience of older people combine creatively with the skills, energy, sensibilities, and ways of seeing of children and youth. It is not a utopian exercise but a practical process of improving the quality of decision making as children bring their contributions which have been recognised in recent studies as including an environmental awareness, attention to detail, a sense of fairness, and, increasingly also, skills in relation to the use of new technologies. This engagement has the added benefit of strengthening the learning process for children – of building understanding, problem-solving skills, a sense of responsibility, and leadership qualities, with positive benefits for society as children become youth and then adults. Involving children in planning and design processes reignites the ‘All of Society’ Approach that we daily advocate for in our various functions in everyday life.

As before, there are the big arguments around children’s citizenships – urban citizenship in this case –the extension of democracy, and the legitimate right of children to influence the future world they will live in. There are however also strong pragmatic reasons for engaging children in built environment processes. Rojas (2013) argues that ‘children are natural born planners’3 because of their intuitive sense of the environment. Built environment professionals have however generally not been trained to tap into this value and so it is necessary to begin with some guidance on how to approach this domain.