CITY KNOW-HOW
Human health and planetary health are influenced by city lifestyles, city leadership, and city development. For both, worrying trends are leading to increasing concern and it is imperative that human health and environmental impacts become core foci in urban policy. Changing trajectory will require concerted action; the journal Cities & Health is dedicated to supporting the flow of knowledge, in all directions, to help make this happen. We wish to foster communication between researchers, practitioners, policy-makers, communities, and decision-makers in cities. This is the purpose of the City Know-how section of the journal. ‘Research for city practice’ disseminates lessons from research by explaining key messages for city leaders, communities, and the professions involved in city policy and practice. ‘City shorts’ provide glimpses of what is being attempted or achieved ‘on the ground’ and ’case studies’ are where you will find evaluations of interventions. Last, ‘Commentary and debate’ extends conversations we are having to develop and mobilize much needed new thinking. Join in these conversations. In order to strengthen the community of interest, we would like to include many and varied voices, including those from younger practitioners and researchers who are supporting health and health equity in everyday urban lives.
Deborah McCracken
Social Media Editor, Cities & Health
Caroline Brown
Commissioning Editor, Cities & Health
The publication of this special issue of Cities & Health on the child-friendly city comes at a time when there has been an explosion of activity in research, policy and practice to promote children’s rights, child-friendly policies and places. 2019 is also the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the year in which children created a global environmental movement focussing on the climate emergency. It’s a good time to focus on the voices and needs of children, and this special issue includes seven original scholarship papers which cover important themes in the child-friendly city: play, transport, housing and the ways in which children can be involved in city-making.
It is well established that access to, and use of, open spaces by children is influenced by their design. What is lacking, however, is empirical research detailing the problems faced by children living in cities and establishing their needs. Understanding this issue,Krishnamurthy used observations, surveys, workshops and interviews to analyse the urban domains of streets, greenspaces and play spaces in Eindhoven, The Netherlands. This study found that children and families are not well represented within urban planning and design processes, and that there is room for improvement. The paper details tools and examples which can be used and learned from to create more inclusive neighbourhoods and cities.
In line with this understanding that children’s voices are not being heard when it comes to the planning of towns and cities, Winge and Lamm created a ‘public hearing for children’ as part of a co-design project for a design installation in a public greenspace. In this study, children were invited to take part in on-site design activities, with the Area Renewal Office visiting the site every day to interview the children. This study suggests that asking children “what do you want?” during the planning/design process can lead to ‘typical’ answers, whereas involving children in design processes – making plans, drawing, painting, creating artefacts – generates a richer series of answers. Making artefacts and using on-site interventions can become a tool for engaging local stakeholders and influencing the public planning agenda. The big take-away here is how co-design processes can engage children in the development of neighbourhood spaces, respecting the right of children to participate in decision making, and producing better places as a result.
Play is fundamental to the health and well-being of children, and a fundamental element in the child-friendly city. However, design does not always influence behaviour in a straightforward way. Shirtcliff’s study made use of social media video to explore how adolescents play in the city. The result show that young people use unconventional public spaces for play, and that their play behaviours are less well supported in designed and designated play spaces. Shirtcliff argues that cities should be encouraged to permit adolescents to discover and create a series of temporary and permanent places for play. As active participants in urban life, adolescents can play a transformative role in activating under-utilised places and creating a more vibrant city. Underpinning this is the notion of agency: being free to influence and control your environment. Rorabaugh also considers this and the way in which children’s agency is fostered – or not – in established adventure play grounds. This work examines several play grounds in the south of England which have evolved in different ways. The authors argue that maintaining the agency of children is very important, and as attitudes to risky and adventure play evolve over time, it is important for play spaces to be managed in a flexible way, allowing for experimentation and change. Maintaining a ‘static vision’ of adventure playgrounds could mean that these spaces may not survive, with a consequent impact on the children affected.
Nykiforuk et al. also explore free play in the city, but consider the needs of younger children. Their work explores the role of municipal indoor play-based preschool recreation program on free play. Drawing on the views of parents, preschool instructors and children about play experiences and behaviours, this study reflects on the community-engagement approach. It includes several suggestions about how we might improve preschool environments and create more child-friendly places within cities.
As the number of people living in urban areas increases, more children are growing up in cities than even before. In Australia, the number of families with children living in high-rise housing is also on the rise, and there is a lack of child-friendly guidelines for the design of such developments. In an interesting study using Photovoice, a research method which allows the telling of experiences through photography, Andrews, Warner and Robson explored how parents raised their preschool aged children in private, high-rise housing in an inner-city municipality. Whilst these developments offer positive aspect for the family, such as proximity to the parents’ workplace, the design of the housing had potential negative impacts for the health and development of their children. This included: the safety of windows, balconies and car parks; exposure to noise and limited access to sunlight and play space. This study raises the broad issue of the importance of developing inclusive design guidelines for high-rise housing developments, but also helps to explain why many parents are not content to raise their children in dense urban locations.
Finally, Taylor & Coutts investigated the impact of improved trails and greenways near schools in East Los Angeles. This community is predominantly Latino, and the authors set out to fill in a considerable gap in existing research which tends to excludes young people and minority ethnic groups. Their work explores school travel behaviour to assess the impact of trail and greenway developments. They conclude that these networks tend to be used for longer journeys, and could enable more students to travel actively. This would not only bring health benefits to the students, but could make school accessible to more people in the community. The authors are cautious about the broader applicability of their findings, and suggest that more research is needed. The key however, is that planning and delivering good infrastructure depends on good information. It’s important that practitioners consider what they know, recognising that some groups - children, people of colour, the poor - are often missed by surveys and data collection.
The message across this issue is that there are lots of ways in which cities can be designed to provide for our children, respecting their right to play, to be safe, and to participate in decisions which affect them. Whether we are researching or designing transport networks, housing or play spaces, including children in design processes and listening to their views and experiences leads to better results.
Reclaiming spaces: child inclusive urban design
I analyzed three important urban daily living domains – street, green spaces and play spaces using a mixture of observation, survey, workshops and interviews in the city of Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Although there are processes in place that contribute to supporting family friendly urban lifestyles, concerns over the importance of outside play, the nature of public green spaces, and safety remain high.
Table
What we know: With the expanding reach of children’s studies within the social sciences, corresponding urban analysis is essential to improve contextual understanding of children’s contemporary problems and needs in the city. In particular, the design of neighbourhoods influences the geographies of everyday life for children, and needs further articulation.Footnote
What this study adds: With growing diversity in urban areas, cities and planning needs to develop mechanisms through which the interests of young children and families are better represented and articulated within planning and design.
Implications for city policy and practice: By highlighting the role that urban design and planning can play in creating in more inclusive neighborhoods and cities, this study points to tools and examples that we can learn from.
It is important to distinguish between levels of design and planning interventions, bottom up and top-down. For policy and practice, we must acknowledge the changing demographics of cities and the implications for spatial and social requirements, and hence design with flexibility and scale in mind.
The role of design, use of child-friendly indicators, and identification and recognition of locally important factors all need to be strengthened
Full article: Reclaiming Spaces: Child Inclusive Urban Design
Author: Sukanya Krishnamurthy (@sukanyakmurthy)
City Know-how editor: Marcus Grant
Bringing children’s perspective into the local planning agenda through visible co-design actions in public space
Table
The problem: Children are not heard when it comes to the planning of our towns and cities and public hearings are not addressing children.Footnote
What we did: This live project made children’s perspectives visible through co-building actions for a design installation in a green public space. A ‘public hearing for children’ invited children to take part in design activities. The Area Renewal Office was open to the outcomes of the co-design hearing, visited the design process every day to interview the children and followed the built interventions. The office financially supported part of the project and a film.
What our study adds: When children are asked ‘what do you want’ their answers are often traditional. But by inviting children to take part in design activities, new answers appear through artefacts. This whole process became a tool for engaging local stakeholders about the future design of the site. Making artefacts and on-site interventions engaged stakeholders and influenced the public planning agenda.
Implications for city policy and practice: Co-design processes can engage children in the development of neighbourhood spaces. It is a method for identifying their interests and concerns and can produce better-informed outcomes. A co-design process itself can create resonance beyond the actors involved and provoke conversations about how visions and perceptions of the public realm are defined and verbalized.
Links to other resources and support: Move the Neighbourhood project description: Link; Making the red dot on map, project images: Link; Move the City, project images and film: Link
Instagram documentation can be found via #bevægbyenmedbørn #makingthereddotonthemap
Authors: Laura Winge (@Laura_Winge) and Bettina Lamm (@BettinaLamm)
City Know-how editor: Marcus Grant
Transformative power of city play: social media and place in a post-affordance world
Table
What is the problem
Adventure playgrounds originated as child-controlled spaces where children built with scrap parts, but cultural changes have brought about the formalisation of many of these environments. Many believe that these changes have had negative impacts on children.Footnote
What I did and why
I looked at how children’s agency has been affected by change in three adventure playgrounds in south England. Each of these playgrounds had undergone some degree of formalization since their origins and represented an array of approaches toward adventure playground management.
What this study adds
I found that the level of flexibility on adventure playgrounds varied and correlated with the management’s approach to risk and boundaries on the playground. Conflicts of agency were apparent in the issues of controlled access childcare, parents on the playground, restrictions on children’s use of technology, and the definition of ‘authentic’ adventure play. These issues stem from a struggle to avoid change.
Implications for policy and practice
An effort must be made to support children’s agency rather than maintaining a static vision of an adventure playground. If adventure playgrounds cannot adopt new understandings and experimental approaches for promoting children’s agency, they may not survive. This requires flexibility through the application of dynamic and experimental approaches.
The ‘junkification’ or addition of more loose parts on adventure playgrounds is one suggestion for increasing flexibility. Adventure playgrounds hold opportunities that are lacking in the broader environment e.g. the city, thus the findings of this study should be applied broadly in the pursuit of a child-friendly city.
Full article: Flexible futures: Children’s agency on the adventure playground
Author: Sharadan Rorabaugh (@sharadanchick)
City Know-how editor: Marcus Grant
Nowhere to play? Insights from social media demonstrate the limitless possibilities for city play!
Table
What is the problem: Youth are known to play in public space, like parks, and to be asked to leave and go elsewhere when in more adult-oriented public spaces, like plazas. Where and how adolescents choose where to play is not an easy to explore. Social media have been studied for consumer markets and product development but has only recently been used for non-consumer driven, behavioural research.
What I did and why: I studied thousands of YouTube videos from five U.S. cities for examples of where and how adolescents play in cities. I found that social media are influential in the transformation of public space into places to play. Observational data from online video create new opportunities for researchers to see what cities mean to overlooked and populations that can be difficult to research, such as adolescents. The interpretation of such data can help designers, planners, and policy makers create inclusive, youth-friendly cities.
What this study adds: A ‘big data’ multi-sited, multiple participant approach confirmed that formal public places to play were less successful in supporting adolescent play than places that were never designed or destined for play.
Implications for city policy and practice: Designated play places only serve a small percentage of the actual places adolescents play.
Cities should be encouraged to permit adolescents to discover and create a series of temporary and permanent places for play.
As active participants in urban life, adolescents can play a transformative role in activating under utilised places and creating a more vibrant city.
Full article: Transformative power of city play: Social media and place in a post-affordance world
Additional information: Link to two-minute lightning talk by author on the transformative power of city play: YouTube.
Author: Benjamin Shirtcliff (@CityPlayISU)
City Know-how editor: Marcus Grant
Investing in trails helps students go the extra mile to school
Table
Take note: Safe Routes to School coordinators, Public health professionals, Trail planners, Bike and pedestrian transportation planners, Park planners, School administrators, Parents.
We have a problem: Trail investment in the US has concentrated on infrastructure improvements: adding sidewalks, traffic-calming lights, and navigational signage. Some communities are reviewing trails for connecting students to schools. However, research on trails is falling behind forward-thinking communities who are already starting to route paths near schools.Footnote
In the predominately Latino community of Whittier in East Los Angeles, California; the City successfully established a rail-trail near schools. By adapting the Safe Routes to School survey to include trail questions, we are responding to the call of communities and researchers to think more inclusively about how trails can expand children’s travel options.
What this study adds: There is a lack of research findings featuring youth and ethnic minorities using trails for travel.
Just as drivers are likely to take local streets to reach nearby destinations yet use freeways to travel great distances rapidly; we found that students are using the ’grey’ infrastructure to travel shorter distances and the trails for longer distances.
Trails may offer an opportunity for youth to travel actively further distances with relative safety and convenience.
Implications for city policy and practice: What is needed now:
For policy; the indication is that trails and greenways should be explored as an infrastructure investment that could reduce the distance barrier for youth who presently live too far away from school.
For planning; investing in, and routing trails near schools; this may just help young students go that extra mile.
Future studies should evaluate if this relationship in southern California, USA holds in other cities and countries.
Full article: Greenways as safe routes to school in a Latino community in East Los Angeles
Authors: Crystal Taylor (@CrystalJTaylor1) and Christopher Coutts
City Know-how editor: Marcus Grant
How child-friendly is new, private, high-rise housing in inner cities? A case study from Melbourne, Australia
Table
We already know: Australian cities are changing, with increasing numbers of families raising children in new, private, high-rise housing developments. Housing design and conditions play an important role in children’s health and development.Footnote
Much housing is developed for residents without children and little is known about how families experience these settings. Unlike the situation in several Canadian cities, currently, there are no specific child-friendly guidelines for the design of high-rise housing in Australia.
What this study adds: We provide a detailed insight into the everyday issues for families. On a positive side, inner city, high-rise housing provides an affordable option for families to live close to parents’ employment. However, parents identified design elements of their housing that had potential for negative impacts on their children’s health and development. These included; safety of windows, balconies and car parks, along with exposure to noise, limited access to sunlight and places to play.
Implications for city policy and practice: Our research may help explain parents’ dissatisfaction with raising children in high-density areas reported previously and could form a platform for further research on declining child health outcomes in the municipality studied.
More broadly, developing explicit child-friendly design guidelines for high-rise, inner city housing could help to improve the situation for families raising children in these kinds of settings.
Authors: Fiona Andrews, Elyse Warner and Belinda Robson
City Know-how editor: Marcus Grant
Evaluation of a municipality’s free play preschool and space
Table
What is the problem: Despite compelling evidence confirming the benefits of free play, recent studies show a substantial reduction of time children spend in free play, in both formal and informal educational settings. Early learning and care environments can be optimal free play environments. Yet to our best knowledge, there is a little research focusing on free play promotion in preschool programs and indoor spaces offered by public recreation facilities.
What we did: This paper discusses lessons from a participatory mixed methods research partnership (multi-site case study) that evaluated the impact of a municipal indoor play-based preschool recreation program on free play. We explored the multifaceted nature of children’s play experiences and behaviours from the perspectives of parents, preschool instructors, and the children themselves.
What this study adds: Our findings indicate ways to enhance preschool environments, helping them become deliberate child-friendly places. We reflect on the successes and challenges associated with the community-engaged approach and the possibilities the findings might hold for creating more child-friendly communities and cities.
Implications for policy and practice: Child-friendly communities are inclusive of children and youth and promote their well-being in society. We provide stakeholders with evidence for future investments in children’s play. Lessons learned from studies of child-centered spaces, like this one on municipal free play preschools, can be used to enhance community environments, purposefully reorienting them as inclusive, child-friendly places.Footnote
Links to other resources and support: The Place Research Lab and team at School of Public Health University of Alberta.
Authors: Candace I. J. Nykiforuk (@nykiforuk_c), Jane Hewes (@JaneHewes1), Ana Paula Belon, Doreen Paradis, Erin Gallagher, Rebecca Gokiert, Jeffrey Bisanz & Laura Nieuwendyk
City Know-how editor: Marcus Grant
Research for City Practice Notes on Contributors
Fiona J. Andrews, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at Deakin University, School of Health and Social Development, Co-Leader of the Deakin Research Hub HOME, and member of the Centre for Health through Action on Social Exclusion (CHASE). She has research interests and has published on the relationship between neighbourhoods, health and families, with a particular focus on parents of preschool-aged children. She lectures in healthy cities; family health and well-being; health, place and planning.
Ana Paula Belon is a Research Associate with the Policy, Location, and Access in Community Environments (PLACE) Lab. She brings expertise on the impact of social and built environment on health behavior and social inequalities in health, applying quantitative and qualitative methods. Ana is interested in using photovoice to explore community perceptions of the built environment, and mixed-methods evaluation of community and public health programs.
Jeffrey Bisanz is Professor Emeritus in Psychology. His research interests are in cognitive development, with emphases on mathematical cognition, instruction, and assessment. Jeff is also engaged in community-based research on the development of children and families with the Community-University Partnership for the Study of Children, Youth, and Families (CUP).
Christopher Coutts is an Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University. Professor Coutts’s research examines the influence of the built environment and ecologically-sensitive land use practices on community health and health behaviour.
Jane Hewes is Associate Dean, Faculty of Education and Social Work. Jane brings expertise in children’s play, children’s rights, early-childhood curricula/pedagogies, and professional learning in the early-childhood sector to this research, along with professional experience in community recreation, community education, and community health promotion. She is committed to community-engaged participatory scholarship and was a founding member of the Community University Partnership for the Study of Children Youth and Families (CUP) in Edmonton.
Erin Gallagher worked as Recreation Programmer with Strathcona County from 2011 to 2016. Erin led staff and supported academic partnerships as children’s programs in Strathcona County transitioned into a more engaging and purposeful program experience for families focused on the development of social and emotional skills in young children.
Rebecca Gokiert is Associate Director, Early Childhood Measurement and Evaluation and Associate Professor with the Community-University Partnership for the Study of Children, Youth and Families (CUP). Rebecca utilizes a community-based research approach to examine cultural group differences and the validity of commonly used measurement tools in early-childhood development. Rebecca’s currently focuses on community engagement, partnership development and sustainability, and her research is primarily in collaboration with early-childhood stakeholders, immigrant, refugee, and First Nation communities.
Dr Sukanya Krishnamurthy is an Assistant Professor of Urbanism and Urban Architecture at the Faculty of the Built Environment at Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands). Her main focus lies at the interface of urban and cultural geography, where her scholarship analyses how cities can use their resources and values for better inclusive and sustainable development.
Bettina Lamm, Landscape architect and Associate Professor at the Division of Landscape Architecture and Planning, University of Copenhagen. She holds a degree in landscape architect and a Ph.D. from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Art, School of Architecture. Lamm’s research addresses the interaction between the urban environment and the lived life in the public realm. She studies through practice and theory how temporary interventions, play design and art installations can facilitate spatial practices and social interaction in public space. Lamm is project manager of the practice-based research project. Move the Neighbourhood that explores co-design processes of urban environments with children.
Laura Nieuwendyk is the Senior Program Lead with the Policy, Location, and Access in Community Environments (PLACE) Lab. Laura brings expertise on community engagement, partnership approaches, and capacity building for health promotion. Laura has worked on multiple projects to help understand the relationship between people, policy, and place.
Candace I. J. Nykiforuk is Director, Centre for Healthy Communities and Associate Professor, School of Public Health. She holds a CIHR/PHAC/AI Applied Public Health Chair in Public Policy and Community Environments. Candace is a health geographer and health promotion researcher with expertise in the role of built and social environments on health and health equity, and on the evaluation of population health interventions.
Doreen Paradis is the Recreation Programmer—for Preschool with the department of Recreation, Parks and Culture in Strathcona County. Developing programs for young children where they can grow to their full potential is her main focus. Doreen has a longstanding passion for play and its importance for developing social and emotional skills and strong foundation for continued learning in young children.
Belinda Robson, PhD is the Senior Policy Advisor at Yarra City Council and a freelance historian with expertise in welfare, mental health and women’s history. She holds a PhD in History from the University of Melbourne. She has published in Australian and international peer-reviewed journals on the history of community mental health, women’s volunteer organisations, child psychotherapy, and art therapy.
Sharadan Rorabaugh is an architect from the United States with an MA in International Architectural Regeneration and Development from Oxford Brookes University. She has studied childhood in relation to the built environment and is also interested in community engagement, vernacular architecture, and craftsmanship.
Dr Benjamin Shirtcliff is a scholar on urban ecological theory, built environments, and adolescent play, my work addresses inequalities between adolescents and health outcomes related to design, policies, and practices. I contend that opportunities to engage adolescents in public space will have long-term societal benefits. I have been actively researching, designing, and engaging adolescent-built environments for two decades. My award-winning design and research addresses opportunities for cities to support play in response to rising obesity rates, isolation, and condemning perceptions of risk.
Crystal Taylor is a visiting scholar of Urban and Regional Planning at Florida State University. Her healthy communities work focuses on addressing health disparities that impact vulnerable populations by promoting access to community amenities and advocating for inclusive policies. She is passionate about sustainable innovative projects that span from the urban core of our cities, to the suburbs, through agricultural lands, and connect to wilderness areas.
Elyse Warner, PhD, is a Lecturer in the School of Health and Social Development at Deakin University and member of the Centre for Health through Action on Social Exclusion (CHASE). Her research interests include the relationship between families and health, with a particular focus on the influence of housing and community, and she has published on the wellbeing of young adults and parents who return to co-residence. She lectures in human development and family health and well-being.
Laura Winge, Senior Design Anthropologist and Ph.D. student at the Division of Landscape Architecture and Planning, University of Copenhagen. She holds a degree from Institute of Visual Design, from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts School of Design. In her research Laura investigates co-design methods as a way to include citizens in the political agenda and the transformation of urban public spaces. She has many years of experience as an independent designer and consultant on the involvement of citizens in social design projects, co-design processes and public innovation. Winge is part of the practice-based research project. Move the Neighbourhood that explores co-design processes of urban environments with children.
Notes
Photo: Chalk marks of children’s play in public space. Credit: Krishnamurthy.
Photo: Co-designing a public hearing with children going from collages to constructing in public. Credit: Laura Winge.
Photo: Homerton Grove Adventure Playground includes many flexible elements that can be manipulated by children, giving them more control over how they play. Credit: Sharadan Rorabaugh.
Photo: School access to the rail-trail. Credit: The authors.
Photo: Concrete ‘non’ playground. Credit: photograph from study participant.
Photo: The ‘Love to Play’ space at Ardrossan recreation complex. Strathcona County, Alberta, Canada. Credit: Strathcona County Recreation, Parks, and Culture.