“Because we are all people”: outcomes and reflections from young people's participation in the planning and design of child-friendly public spaces

ABSTRACT

Child-Friendly Cities were conceived as a means to integrate children's rights into city decision-making and governance. Participatory research about child-friendly cities consistently finds overarching themes across ages and regions: children desire access to services, nature, and play; freedom from physical danger; and opportunities for inclusion within the city. This article explores a two-year visioning and participatory design process that engaged approximately 225 young people, aged 4–16, in the planning and design of a prominent public space in the City of Boulder. While participatory research with children has received much attention in the academic literature, much less attention has been given to what can be achieved through sustained integration of children into municipal planning processes, particularly in the USA. This paper thus moves children's participation beyond rhetoric and into the challenging reality of planning a city with children as a valued constituent.

KEYWORDS:

• Child-friendly cities
• participatory action research
• participatory design
• children and youth
• urban planning

Acknowledgements

Many people have contributed to this project, including Growing Up Boulder coordinator Mara Mintzer; Environmental Design interns and volunteers Jacob Accola, Kate Armbruster, Katherine Buckley, Travis Cobb, and Jaron Drucker; and graduate students Catherine Cartwright, Alessandro Rigolon, and Simge Yilmaz. GUB partners were critical in shaping the direction and impacts of the project, especially teachers Mike Codrey, Jennifer Douglas-Larsson, Jacqueline Esler, Lora Fike, Cathy Hill, Lester Lurie, Lisa O'Brien, Tamar van Vliet, and Lauren Weatherly; city staff and leaders Sam Assefa, Mike Banuelos, Tina Briggs, Jeff Dillon, David Driskell, Lesli Ellis, Paul Leef, Jeff Haley, and Jody Tableporter; Tom Leader Studio's Erik Prince; and University of Colorado's Louise Chawla and Willem van Vliet. Louise Chawla not only provides vision and support for Growing Up Boulder's work, but also provided valuable feedback on the manuscript. And finally, the work would not be possible without the enthusiasm and openness of Boulder's children and youth. Outreach in 2014 was supported through a University of Colorado Outreach and Engagement Award and by the City of Boulder.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Victoria Derr http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1116-7220