Sustainability Issue #3 October 2009

Children know a little more of the physical environment than adults because they perceive it, see it and use it more intensively than we do. Child-friendly cities are sustainable cities!

However, integration of ecological, economic and social processes is by no means conflict-free. One obvious conflict of interests is when vehicular traffic is given priority over mobility by foot and bicycle. Disturbing reports appear all the time about the deterioration in children's health. Children are getting fatter, they move about too little, and their lungs are damaged by poor urban air.

The problem is often attributed to the child. It is the children who must be changed. Children's play and movement are however so interwoven that each movement is play and each play a movement. Children have the right to play, and they have the right to safe and stimulating environments. Children's routes to school and recreation are also their routes to play.

The nearer the city centre children live, the more barriers there are. The ongoing densification of city centres creates new restrictions on the opportunities children have  to be outside. Densification may however be carried out in different ways. Attention can be paid to the need of children for space and movement. Since many families with children want to live in the city centre, urban planning must be changed so that the perceptions and experiences of children are safeguarded.

The local environment is the children's world, and it must have much stronger protection in urban planning than at present. We claim, together with other international researchers of children's environments, that investment in a good neighbourhood environment is investment in sustainable development.

Children's perspective …

In our research we make use of two concepts which call attention to the fact that children and adults, to some extent, live in different worlds: the concepts children's perspective and child-centred perspective.

We have asked children to describe and examine their own neighbourhood environments – they had the role of informants. We therefore have the children's perspectives, i.e. how they themselves see and perceive their neighbourhood environment and surroundings.

We have focused on around 50 children aged 12 in different schools in the centre of Stockholm. To get a comprehensive picture, we used several methods. First of all, the children themselves photographed and, together with us, pointed out places in their neighbourhod environment which they appreciate or regard unpleasant. Landscape architects also developed GIS for children, where children, on computers, pinpointed good and bad places on the basis of their own perceptions and experiences – i.e. from the children's perspective.

… vs child-centred perspective

The aim of child-centred perspective is to take account of children's circumstances and to act in the children's best interest. Those who represent children – politicians, civil servants and other decision makers – play an important part in this respect in creating sustainable environments in a child-centred perspective. We acquired this knowledge through interviews and questionnaire studies with parents, educationalists, recreational leaders, and urban planners and other civil servants who are responsible for children's outdoor environments. In one of our projects, we make GIS analyses of a person who is an expert in the road safety of children.

Our theoretical point of departure in research on children's outdoor environment is a developmental and environmental psychological approach. This means that when children are given an opportunity to form their own experiences of the physical environment, they can form their own opinions and create their own value judgments as to what significance the physical environment has, not only for them and other people but also for animals and plants.

Clutter, traffic and stress

The physical environment talks directly to children. They therefore pay more attention to the physical environment than adults, and are more sensitive to this. Clutter, dirty surroundings and destruction are something which children in our studies regard as negative. Another phenomenon which children find difficult to deal with is traffic. The speed and other actions on the part of motorists and cyclists are difficult to estimate and to understand. Traffic creates disturbance with its noise and exhausts. Parents worry about  traffic in environments near children. This "traffic environment stress" is particularly common in city centre environments and, in turn, creates stress in children. In the middle of the large traffic apparatus into which Stockholm is being converted, children may have difficulty in finding places that they can use for their games and activities. Another consequence of traffic environment stress is that children are increasingly carried in cars. And this naturally further increases traffic.

Who represents children?

Who represents children in today's urban planning? In annual seminars in our network "Children, the young and the built environment", we highlight and discuss current urban planning issues and research results. Increasingly, we are hearing committed urban planners call for the day when child impact analyses in urban planning will be just as natural as environmental impact assessments in infrastructure planning.

Paying attention to children's experiences of the environment is not only a legal rght in accordance with the UN Convention on the rights of the child, but it is also a matter of giving a positive value to children's environmental experiences and paying attention to these. Children respond to the physical environment and nature with a sensitivity that has often been lost by adults. In our endeavours to bring about a better living environment for the future, we adults must remind ourselves of this sensitivity, with the focus on the qualities in the neighbourhood environment.

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