Children's Changing Urban Lives: A Comparative New Zealand–Pacific Perspective

Abstract

Pacific Island countries are undergoing processes of urbanization and globalization. This paper asks what these processes mean for children's lived realities and for urban planning in the Pacific. It reports on findings from a study undertaken with children aged 9–13 years in schools in Suva, Fiji, and Dunedin, New Zealand, that looked at children's travel, safety, neighbourhood relationships and how they use their local urban environment. This research presents information and understandings that can inform the development of urban areas and enable planners to respond more effectively to meeting the needs of children living in a rapidly urbanizing Pacific.

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the University of Otago and the University of the South Pacific in this research. They also acknowledge the work of Kelesi Whippy and Rajen Prasad from the University of the South Pacific and of Robin Quigg and Jan Jopson from the University of Otago, who were the researchers on this project. The authors also thank the principals, teachers and children of all schools who so kindly gave them their time, support and provided the data that made this study possible.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

^1.Children's Urban Environments: Changing Worlds, by Freeman and Tranter (2011), explores children's use of and relationship with the spaces that make up the urban environment, home, school, neighbourhood, city centre etc.

^2. In this paper Fijian refers to indigenous Fijian and Indo-Fijian as children belonging to the Indian ethnic group.

^3. Altogether some 199 children from eight schools in Fiji and Kiribati have been interviewed as part of the wider study, but this paper only includes children living in attending the three city schools in Suva.

^4. An area surrounding the house and within its fenced or otherwise demarcated boundaries.

^5. Statistics for urban population are variable with this figure being higher than that used in the previously mentioned UN-Habitat report, but all population statistics regardless of which areal unit is used indicate a rapid growth scenario. These figures are World Bank Indicators: Fiji, density and urbanization; see http://www.tradingeconomics.com/fiji/urban-population-percent-of-total-wb-data.html/.