Children as urbanites: mapping the affordances and behavior settings of urban environments for Finnish and Japanese children

Figures & data

Figure 1. The softGIS survey platform used with Finnish (A) and Japanese (B) children. www.softgis.fi/children.

Table 1. The classification of behavior settings used in the expert audit.

Place function	Openness		Communality		Land use
	Indoor	Outdoor	Child-specific	Shared
Shopping mall	*			*	Commercial
Small shop	*			*	Commercial
Bookstore	*			*	Commercial
Game/DVD shop	*			*	Commercial
Karaoke	*			*	Commercial
McDonald’s/Restaurant	*			*	Commercial
School	*	*	*		Educational
Cram school	*		*		Educational
Library	*			*	Educational
Field		*		*	Nature
Forest		*		*	Nature
Beach		*		*	Nature
River bank		*		*	Nature
Pond		*		*	Nature
Biotope		*		*	Nature
Sports hall	*			*	Recreational
Sports field		*	*		Recreational
Park		*		*	Recreational
Parking lot		*		*	Traffic
Street		*		*	Traffic
Train station	*	*		*	Traffic
Vacant lot		*		*	Other
Construction site		*		*	Other
Shrine/church	* (Fin)	* (Jap)		*	Other

Table 2. Proportion of affordances marked, by subcategories and country.

	Social				Emotional/contextual					Functional
	%	%	%			%	%	%			%	%	%
	Japan	Finland	Total	sig. (p)		Japan	Finland	Total	sig. (p)		Japan	Finland	Total	sig. (p)
Positive affordances
meet friends	11.9	20.5	16.5	.000	feel good place	16.7	19.5	18.2	.030	hanging out	22.3	18.1	20	.002
Lively	12.1	12.5	12.3	.714	relaxing	18.9	15.7	17.2	.012	recreational sports	16.4	10	12.9	.000
be myself	6.3	14.6	10.8	.000	good memories	11.6	22	17.2	.000	competitive sports	13.4	6.9	9.9	.000
make new friends	6.1	8.5	7.4	.006	safe	13.3	16.5	15	.008	city life	11.5	8.3	9.7	.001
meet boys & girls	0.7	11.3	6.4	.000	exciting	11.7	15.2	13.6	.002	games	13.8	4.6	8.8	.000
no control	4.7	6.6	5.7	.014	cheerful	9.6	14.9	12.5	.000	nature	8.3	6.8	7.5	.079
be with adults	3.9	6.1	5.1	.002	fresh air	6.6	13.9	10.5	.000	moving around	6.3	8.6	7.5	.011
privacy	2.9	4	3.5	0.084	calm	10.4	9.7	10	.503	exploring	4	8.4	6.4	.000
be with animals	0.8	4.8	2.5	.000	clean	8	11.2	9.7	.001	chores	2.5	6.9	4.9	.000
impress others	0	0	0		beautiful	4.4	9.6	7.2	.000	other activities	2.4	5.1	3.9	.000
Negative affordances
strict control	4.7	6.6	5.7	.014	bad memories	11.6	22	17.2	.000	nothing to do	2.5	1.3	1.9	.008
unpleasant gangs	0.9	2	1.5	.007	dangerous	6.3	2.8	4.4	.000	bad condition	1.1	1.1	1.1	.982
arguing	1	1.7	1.4	.059	dirty	3.4	2.8	3.1	.337	forced to go	0.2	0.9	0.6	.003
scary adults	1	1.5	1.3	.125	boring	2.7	3.5	3.1	.182	Parent’s don’t allow	0.5	0.3	0.4	.275
hectic & crowded	1	1.1	1.1	.763	stressful	3.5	2.7	3.1	.178	extreme weather	0.3	0.5	0.4	.325
bullying	0.7	1.2	1	.083	noisy	3.3	2.7	3	.295	physical barriers	0.2	0.4	0.3	.212
feel outsider	0.5	0.7	0.6	.632	polluted air	2.8	2.2	2.5	.274	company needed	0.4	0.1	0.2	.053
no one around	0.7	0.5	0.6	.419	feel bad place	2.2	2.4	2.3	.719	cannot afford	0.2	0.2	0.2	.710
lonely	0.6	0.5	0.6	.717	ugly	1.8	2.4	2.1	.212	closed	0.1	0.2	0.2	.693
kids not tolerated	0.2	0.5	0.4	.190	sad	1.8	1.5	1.7	.529	traffic danger	0	0	0

Figure 2. The meaningful places located in Finland further away from home and school than in Japan.

Table 3. Distribution of behavior settings by their type (in relation to the total number of behavior settings) and the share of positive affordances (in relation to the total number of affordances).

	The type of behavior setting				The share of positive affordances within the behavior setting
		Finland	Japan	Difference between the countries	Finland	Japan	Difference between the countries
		n (%)	n (%)		n (%)	n (%)
Openness	Indoor	30.9%	34.2%	n.s.	94.4%	91.3%	n.s.
	Outdoor	57.3%	58.2%		89.3%	75.0%	X^2 = 23.4, df = 1, p = .000
	Both	11.8%	7.6%		60.8%	78.9%	X^2 = 16.5, df = 1, p = .000
Communality	Shared	78.2%	83.5%	n.s.	92.0%	81.9%	X^2 = 24.6, df = 1, p = .000
	Child specific	21.8%	16.5%		65.9%	79.9%	X^2 = 12.4, df = 1, p = .000
Land use	Educational	22.9%	16.5%	X^2 = 24.6, df = 5, p = .000	65.1%	80.8%	X^2 = 16.2, df = 1, p = .000
	Commercial	21.9%	26.6%		96.0%	94.2%	n.s.
	Recreational	27.6%	30.4%		95.1%	86.3%	X^2 = 8.1, df = 1, p = .005
	Natural	22.9%	3.8%		90.3%	46.0%	X^2 = 36.0 df = 1, p = .000
	Traffic	3.8%	15.2%		33.3%	42.9%	n.s.
	Religious	1.0%	7.6%		25.0%	79.6%	X^2 = 6.0 df = 1, p = .015