All work and no play! Rethinking Cities for children

The cities developed over the past four decades lack environmental sustainability and fail to prioritise public health. Their expansive layouts often leave residents distanced from essential elements like nature, parks, shops, schools, and libraries. These urban landscapes reflect a predominant focus on accommodating cars rather than fostering the well-being and happiness of children and residents

Now you may ask, why create cities that are specifically designed with children as their end users. After all, it is adults who run the cities. The point is that cities that are fit for children to live in are automatically good for everyone. Children experience cities differently than adults. Features of child-friendly neighbourhood design have been shown to be associated with indicators of community strength, including feelings of safety in the neighbourhood, pleasant social interactions with neighbours, and elevated levels of trust. For instance, research has indicated that mixed-use housing is associated with a decreased incidence of behavioural issues in school-aged children, and that walkable, mixed-use communities have better levels of social connectivity. Sustainable neighbourhoods have several characteristics in common with child-friendly neighbourhoods. There is not much traffic there. There are lots of shade-giving trees there, as well as conveniently accessible green public spaces for play, leisure, and getting in touch with the natural world. There are no dangerous pollutants in the air, on land, or in the water around them. Families may easily access the nearby businesses, services, and amenities on foot or by bicycle, and there are excellent public transit options to reach less important but farther-off locations.

Factors affecting a Child’s mobility in cities

While traffic is a nuisance for most of the urban dwellers, it is specially inconvenient, even threatening to children and the elderly. “During the last five years from 2017 to 2021, Top 10 Million Plus Cities have been sharing more than 47.7 per cent of total road accidents in India,” according to Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India. Not only does it make the streets unsafe for children, it also leads to lesser areas for a child to explore. Traffic is one major reason for a shrinking area of play and leisure in urban areas. For instance, in Sweden in 2018, road accidents were responsible for one in nine of all deaths of children aged between 5 and 19.

Air Pollution is another issue that plagues children living in highly polluted cities. In the spring of 2019, a a British High Court ruled on the unfortunate demise of nine-year-old Ella Kissi-Debrah, who passed away six years earlier following an asthma attack. The court acknowledged fresh evidence highlighting the correlation between her health issues and illegally high levels of air pollution in proximity to her residence, situated near the bustling South Circular road in London.

Child-friendly Urban Planning

A growing body of knowledge about how to design public areas such as squares, parks, and streets to encourage children to be active and visible members of the community is known as “child-friendly urban planning.” It values the opinions and experiences of children and seeks to increase their play, exploration, and mobility within their neighbourhood and the city through planning and design. Child-friendly urban planning overlaps with inclusive, sustainable and family-friendly urban planning in many ways. A green urban landscape, for instance, will be healthier for everyone in the city or having ramps alongside stairs is a design suitable for people with disabilities as well as children. But design in cities including residential neighbourhoods is centered on car mobility. For instance, for a family possessing a car, having a parking space would take priority over having a garden or open space where children could play.

Playgrounds are the obvious answer on the question of urban planning for children. Playgrounds and parks become safe haven for children in the cities of today, but even these are not accessible to everyone. They are especially out of reach for children of lower-income households and vulnerable populations. The streets are a more egalitarian public space if accessible and open to children. Colin Ward in his groundbreaking book The Child in the City, says, “One should be able to play everywhere, easily, loosely, and not forced into a ‘playground’ or ‘park’. The failure of an urban environment can be measured in direct proportion to the number of ‘playgrounds’.” Playgrounds were a response to two issues that were prevalent in American and European cities at the turn of the 20th century. The perceived threat that children in urban areas weren’t safe due to their close contact with adults living on the streets, particularly working-class adults, and the actual threat that automobiles posed to children. The calls for removing kids off city streets through education, playground construction, and even the use of the law increased along with the amount of urban traffic. Children were delegitimized as streets were transformed for the use of automobiles. Pedestrians, cyclists, elderly, PWDs and children: all became marginalized from the motorization of cities.

Rotterdam: A case study

Rotterdam is a classic case study for urban transformation into a child-friendly city. In 2006, Rotterdam was known as the worst municipality to bring up a child in the entire Netherlands. Because of poor image of the city and the city’s losing long-term tax base because of families moving away, the authorities decided to bring about transformative changes. Phase 1 of the project, dubbed “Child Friendly Rotterdam,” had a €20 million (`182 crores) budget and operated from 2006 to 2010. It was aimed at boosting the availability of family-friendly private homes, improving walking and cycling routes and networks, and make schoolyards and public areas greener, more playful, and more social. It was carried out with a comprehensive evaluation methodology that collected both objective and subjective data in eleven pilot local areas. The second phase of the project focused on mainstreaming between 2010 and 2014. Integrating child-friendly practises into city planning and execution was the goal. The third phase, which ran from 2014 to 2018, was an additional four-year investment plan named “Promising Neighbourhoods.” Its goal was to draw and keep families with kids. However, it extended its purview to encompassing major housing, public space, and education initiatives. It also prioritised citizen engagement (including that of adults and children).

Perhaps for the first time, a municipality has adopted a thorough, deliberate strategy to improving the built environment for families and children, as demonstrated by Rotterdam’s twelve-year commitment to child-friendly urban planning.

Conclusion

One important takeaway from the example of 12-year project implemented by Rottendam is that initiatives undertaken at the municipal level and within city boundaries are of prime importance. Critical policy tools and essential local services, including parks, schools, housing, planning, and transport, are typically administered at the municipal level. Although influenced by national governments and other entities, it is at the municipal level that the most actionable measures can be implemented.

Colin Ward in his groundbreaking book The Child in the City, says, “One should be able to play everywhere, easily, loosely, and not forced into a ‘playground’ or ‘park’. The failure of an urban environment can be measured in direct proportion to the number of ‘playgrounds’.”