Published: 19 April 2021
Cities for kids are cities for everyone
Gerry Gaffney
This is Gerry Gaffney with the User Experience podcast. My guest today is an independent scholar, advocate and consultant on childhood. He’s had an ongoing interest in this area for many years, and he was co-author for example of the first ever London-wide planning guidance on children’s play and recreation back in 2008. His work cuts across public policy, education, childcare, planning, transport, urban design, and playwork. He has described his work as being about expanding children’s horizons. .
in 2007, he wrote the book No Fear: Growing up in a risk averse society, and his excellent new book is Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities. And it’s a fascinating book that moreover is a pleasure to read.
Tim Gill, welcome to the User Experience podcast.
Tim Gill
Thank you very much, Gerry. It’s great to be here.
Gerry
I’ll remind listeners that as always a transcript of this episode is available at uxpod.com.
Tim, in introducing the book you write that “the vast majority of urban planning decisions and projects take no account of their potential impact on children and make no effort to seek children’s views.” I guess there are two aspects to that. One is, the first is why projects should consider the needs of children at all. And the second is why should children be consulted at all? Surely they’re not in a position to contribute to design.
Tim
Right. Well there’s the small fact that children are roughly 20% of the population. And obviously when it comes to public space, which is the focus of my book, the public realm they’re key users. And yeah, I think that’s just a sort of a basic moral position. But I think there is an argument and I make the argument that children are really a special case. It’s not just like any other population group, essentially because, you know, there are big challenges facing cities right now, and especially the challenge of responding to the climate crisis and, you know, other problems of poor urban planning and design. And one of the challenges is lifting the conversation so that it’s about the longer term and about collective consensus response. So traffic is a really good example and I think bringing a children’s lens into that conversation really helps with that shift to focusing not on, you know, me and now, but on us and later. And I think that’s something that I really want designers and planners to think about, that the children’s lens is an asset when it comes to rising to these really difficult challenges that we face.
As far as the kind of, “kids can’t help us,” well, I mean, that’s just demonstrably false. But there is a grain of truth in that kind of cynical view, which is that, of course children can’t solve the problems of urban planning or design, but we’re not asking them to and we shouldn’t be asking them to. What we should do is make sure, just like any other user involvement, that our responses and solutions take into account the lived experiences and the views and wishes of children. And that seems to me perfectly reasonable.
Gerry
You reminded me there when you mentioned children’s eyes. We had I think Debra Levin Gelman talking about designing for children a couple of few years ago now. And she talked about getting down on the ground with the kids, and you’ve got a couple of photos in the book. I think that show that perspective from about, you know, three foot above the ground.
Tim
Absolutely. And I think that’s, it’s almost partly literally and, you know there’s a wonderful VR resource, Urban95 scheme, which you’ve hinted at which, so that’s an initiative being run by the Bernard van Leer foundation, one of the foundations that funded my work that using VR kit you can see a busy street from three feet up and, hear it as well. And it is really striking how much more present the threats and the kind of hostile sensory experience of an urban setting can be, and, you know, cars loom really high you are having to navigate people’s legs and lower bodies. And I think, you know, it’s actually a really interesting kind of creative design challenge. I think, built into this line of thought.
Gerry
Now you have an aerial view of Sheffield in England near the star of the book showing how children’s ability to roam has narrowed. And it shows that a great grandfather as a child was allowed to walk six miles, which is around nine kilometres, in 1919, and then progressively decreases over the generations to the modern child who’s allowed to walk 300 meters to the end of the street. And of course, when looked at as an area, rather than a radius, it’s even more dramatic, it’s a very gloomy image isn’t it?
Tim
It is. And I really wanted, it’s the very first image in the book. And it’s an image I use a lot in talks and workshops and, and it also, it goes to what gets me out of bed and doing what I’m doing in the mornings which is inviting all of us to think about the way childhood has been changing and in particular this crucial, and I think very underexplored change. So I want people to feel that sense of loss. I’m not saying, you know, we can turn the clock back or that there was some golden age to grow up. And I know, you know, sometimes these sorts of lines of argument can be dismissed as nostalgia. I’m really clear, I think that’s too quick, but what this image captures is I think an essential ingredient of a good childhood, which is just having some space and time to get to grips with the people and places around us, to feel what it’s like to be an active autonomous, you know, agent who’s got some control over our own destiny. And that childhood is in part a kind of journey you know, from being really quite helpless and vulnerable and dependent of course through to, you know, being independent, responsible, resilient, confident, capable person. And that is not just a metaphorical journey. It is in part a literal journey about the gradual engagement with the neighbourhoods that we live in.
Gerry
And you use the words active and autonomous there that harks back, I guess, to your, to your earlier work when you spoke specifically about risk, and we do have a set of very risk averse societies, don’t we?
Tim
Yes, you’re right, that worry about the kind of well-meaning attempts to keep children safe is actually undermining their ability to learn how to deal with an unpredictable and uncertain world. That’s central to the line of argument in my first book, in “No Fear.” I don’t cover it in a lot of detail in this book, but it’s implicit in the very vision of childhood that I put forward. And I guess, I don’t, I just want people to… You know, the adults our age, or even in their thirties, who I think have strong memories of space and time for freedom and experiences are now seeing the next generation of children being deprived of that. And I really want that emotional power of those insights to be a springboard for change.
Gerry
You quote Enrique Peñalosa's description of children as being an indicator species for cities. What do you mean by that?
Tim
I mean it quite literally, I mean you know, in the same way that if you see salmon swimming up a river, then that’s a sign of the health of that habitat. If you’re in a neighbourhood and you see children of different ages, with and without their parents, active and visible in streets, parks and spaces, that’s a sign of the health of that human habitat. And so for me, it’s not just a slogan, it’s actually a pretty strong and practical indicator of the kind of neighbourhoods I think we should be working towards,
Gerry
I guess a lot of people when they think about child-friendly design would think automatically or fairly quickly anyway about playgrounds, but you talk about, you know, playgrounds almost being a contra-indication in a way.
Tim
Yes. I’m not the first, by the way to have that insight, looming the back of my mind is the figure of Colin Ward who was an amazing English, really a sort of Renaissance man, anarchist, planner, writer, campaigner, and his most well-known book was called The Child in the City. And in that book, he uses this quote that almost, you know, you can measure child friendliness of a city in inverse proportion to the number of playgrounds. It’s a very challenging line of thought. I’m not saying I entirely agree with it, but a couple of things about it, first playgrounds didn’t exist, you know, 150 years ago. Playgrounds were invented during the course of urbanization as a response to the problem that too many children were getting killed in streets with the growth of traffic, also moral worries about children being corrupted by, you know, working class communities.
So they’re not, there’s nothing natural about playgrounds. And what I’m arguing is that a neighbourhood that is truly child-friendly has to be one where there’s a basic ability for children to get around, particularly to get around on foot or by bike, because those, or scooter these days, those are the, you know, the basic modes of travel of children. And that if you don’t have that, you can have all the nice playgrounds you like, but the only way children are able to get to them is being escorted to and from by parents or carers. And that’s not enough now. Actually, I do think there is a role and a place for playgrounds, but I also want to see if you like the boundaries blurred between play spaces and other types of public space, and I’m very much opposed to the vision of a playground as a kind of segregated corralled space for children. The clear message there is that, you know, the rest of the public realm is not a place where children should be or perhaps it’s even too dangerous for children. And I think that’s a, that’s a fundamentally flawed approach to creating playful spaces.
Gerry
You’ve alluded very much to this already, but you talk about, you said that we have expelled children from city streets, and this in many ways goes to one of the core issues, which is the pernicious effect of motorized traffic in our cities. It seems such an intractable problem.
Tim
Yes Well, I mean, for much of the last 120 years, of course the way we build our human habitats has been entirely oriented around the needs of the car. In fact, I’m, I do hold the view that you could say that urban planning is, certainly in residential areas, is almost a story of the battle between children and cars. And for most of the last century, the cars have won. But the interesting thing is that is beginning to change. I mean, you know, I’m sure any of your listeners who follow debates on cycling, on urbanism, on sustainable cities, will be well aware of all of that. So I think there really is a growing, not just a call, but an actual movement and community of practice and design and thinking around reducing the impact of the car and, you know, opening up space and reclaiming space for other user groups, of course, crucially, including children.
So I’m, I’m cautiously optimistic about a fairly significant change. And I think it’s been interesting to see, of course, what’s been happening with the pandemic where that, you know, that debate, that conflict, sometimes it is very vociferous conflict, has been brought out into the open. Now some of that’s been pretty unpleasant, certainly here in London, but you know, these are difficult.... You’re absolutely right, these are difficult issues. In a way people like me are inviting everybody to turn on the heads, 50, 60, 70 years of thinking about, for instance, what streets should be for. That doesn’t happen overnight. But again, to come back to the point I made earlier, I think bringing children into the conversation is really helpful for that. Street are really important spaces for kids. You won’t get kids walking to school unless the streets between home and school are safe. Conversely if you do start to reduce the dominance of the car in the streets, all sorts of wonderful things can happen, not just about children playing, but about communities rediscovering their social links and their sense of their connections. And we see that with even modest schemes like the sort of playing out, play street schemes where you don’t make any physical changes to the street, but you just stop the traffic for a couple of hours a week, and it can have a really transformational effect not just for children and their parents, but for the whole of the community living on that street.
Gerry
So what did children want?
Tim
Well, it’s really quite simple. You know, children want places to go. They want to see their friends. They want variety in their neighbourhood. They want to feel safe. They want places to look like they’re well cared for. They like green spaces. If you like their shopping list, their vision is not that different, I think from most of us. And it’s surprisingly consistent. You can ask kids from wealthy neighbourhoods in London or Sydney and from the roughest favelas in Brazil or the slums of India, and they will say the same thing. So, you know, I guess one of my messages in my book is it’s kind of about time we stopped asking children these questions and we started doing something about it.
Gerry
Yeah. And in the book you do highlight several cities. You know I can’t remember how many pages approximately it is, but you’ve got like maybe 10 or 12 cities that you mention that have undertaken child-focused planning. They differ very widely. Like you’ve got London Tel-Aviv, Oslo, Tirana, Recife… Are there common or critical elements to all of them?
Tim
That’s a really good question. It made me think, I don’t think there are particularly common characteristics of those cities. You’re right, they’re a very heterogeneous mix, you know, size, political flavour, context, income or economy. I think one thing that connects a lot of them is actually a human is, you know, there is a catalyst, there’s either a political figure or sometimes even just an official within the municipality or perhaps an NGO that makes the case for child-friendly planning and design. And that’s in a way what I think is, I hope people will get when they read the book, this is an idea with immense potential, but is largely untapped. So… the pool of cities is varied but quite small, and there’s a huge number of cities, obviously that are really taking no interest in this topic whatsoever. But in a way, what I’m saying is that is a massive missed opportunity. If you really are serious about tackling climate change, if you’re serious about addressing the health of your residents and their long-term prospects and how they feel about living in a city, if you’re not thinking about children, you’re missing a trick. I think that that’s the message and, and the cities I’ve landed on happened to be the ones that have grabbed that insight.
Gerry
Now what you, what you describe there and describing the book is frequently a fundamental change to how local governments and other involved agencies or entities think about planning. How do you manage to identify those key individuals or key officials, and how do you influence those entities?
Tim
Right.
Gerry
I mean, that’s obviously a difficult question for first thing in the morning, but…
Tim
No, it’s all right. One of the things that I think my book, my book brings… there’s a lot has been written about children’s participation, child-friendly engagement and design, but it hasn’t focused very much on the municipality. And I think that, so that’s one thing I think, I think the local authority as an institution is really important and most of the levers of change are at that local level. And of course, national policy and programs are important as well, but that’s… I want to get that message across. So having a municipal… the unit of analysis is the municipality I think is important. And I want to get cities to learn from each other. I know in my own work over 20 years, some of my biggest insights have come from when I’ve met and seen projects in different parts of the world and met peers and, and just been able to get a little bit under the skin of their insights and lessons.
So rather than the book being kind of me beating people over their head and saying, you should do this, that, and the other, I’m saying, look, what they’ve done in Ghent. You know, look what they’ve done in Oslo. Think about how that experience and those lessons can be incorporated in your own work. And so it’s more about facilitating that kind of peer exchange. And, I’ll be honest, trying to get perhaps a bit of competition, cities beginning to think, a little bit like Rotterdam did, you know, 15 years ago, actually, we really need to up our game here, because if we don’t, the families we want to keep in our city are going to move to the cities next door.
Gerry
That brings me to something that you you’d mentioned early on, children being corrupted by the working class in, in you know, as a passing aside, I guess, but isn’t there a risk that when we create child-friendly neighbourhoods or child-friendly projects that we will gentrify those areas and it will be at the expense of the people who are less wealthy?
Tim
I think that is a risk. Obviously a lot of this depends on wider, you know, policies and, and, and so I guess it… there’s fairly good anecdotal evidence that, and it makes sense, you know, once a neighbourhood starts to improve, not just for children, but for everyone, so you get more green spaces, traffic’s less dominant, then more people want to live there. So you get some of those forces of gentrification coming along. Now, couple of things. I think programs need to tackle that head on. So any municipal program that takes seriously, the goal of equity and fairness needs to be alive to that danger. And that means proactively working with poorer communities. But I think also, you know, those of us who are working, looking at the public realm, we need to be a bit humble. We do not have the ability to sort of solve poverty and disadvantage. Actually what this raises is wider questions about things like housing, how the housing markets work in cities. I’ll give you an example. In Rotterdam, as you know, in the book, I focus on Rotterdam because it probably done more and spent more than any other city on this idea of becoming more child-Friendly. Now 65%, 70% of the population of Rotterdam live in subsidized housing. The subsidies in Rotterdam are not set by the municipalities, they’re set by the national government. So you just don’t have the mechanisms that would drive gentrification to anything like the same extent. So I think that’s a lesson for other cities, you know, in short, if you’re worried about the side effects of gentrification, you really need to look at how your housing markets work.
Gerry
The second part of the book begins with a chapter on principles, building blocks and tools. Now, you know, on a, in a medium like this, we don’t have time of course, to get into any depth, but I would like you to talk about the first principle, which is to embrace diversity, equality and inclusion.
Tim
Yes. And I think I try and present in the book some of the evidence-base, you know, around how poor planning affects children and how a child-friendly lens can improve things and to bring those, an awareness of the fact of inclusion of race and culture, of disadvantage. Because the basic image, I guess, the basic vision I’m offering is a Universalist one. And it is also the case that the poorest children suffer the most from poor planning. So for instance, with traffic casualties or air pollution, pick any indicator you like, it’s the poorest and the marginalized that suffer the most. But I want to take the conversation on from sort of, if you like, kind of bland aspirational statements about addressing inequalities and to try and give some practical examples and point out some cities that have taken this idea seriously. So Vienna is a good example. Not one of my dozen major case studies, but it is a city whose work on gender mainstreaming I mention, and how through involving young girls and young women managed to take a different approach to park and open space design and measurably improved the usage levels by women. So, I guess that’s, that was the approach I was trying to make, but I’m sure there is more to be said on these topics. And especially I’m conscious of just as we were talking about with around gentrification that I think, you know, for people like me and for many people working in planning design, one of the first things we need to do is just listen more and get into more of a constructive dialogue with groups who have historically not been given a lot of attention.
Gerry
And you do mention somewhere in the book too. I can’t remember where, but you, you talk about the need to listen to girls. You said that, you know, when designing child-friendly spaces that there has been a tendency to listen to the, well, I don’t know whether it’s that the boys are more vocal or they get listened to more or what the factor is, but that need to listen more to what girls want.
Tim
Yes, I think we do. And actually one of the backdrops to this section of the book is I also make a strong case for what you might call landscape led design, or a kind of naturalistic approach to public space design. And obviously particularly with what I call the KFC model, not my term, but, you know, the kit, fence and carpet model of the playspace, and in moving away from that I’m a big advocate of you know, a more naturalistic palette. And I think one of the ways in which that is a value is precisely because that does help to create more inclusive places, places where, you know, people come because of the experience of the senses, where we can become aware of the you know, the everyday qualities of dirt and plants and local species, where we can be attuned to the passing of the seasons, the stuff that, you know, the Children In Nature movement is writing about very eloquently, but I think it also speaks to the kind of spaces that often work well when it comes to inclusive design, whether that’s gender or culture, age, again, places, you know, moving away from a very kind of age segregated model. And so that’s an important theme in the kind of public space design passages in the book.
Gerry
You have a lovely story in the book about, I can’t remember the exact context, but a kid being asked you know, what he liked in the playground and in observing him, he had spent, you know, two or three minutes playing on some item of play equipment, but then, you know, a half an hour carrying water in his hands to the sand and playing in dirt. And when he was asked what he liked, he pointed at the piece of play equipment. And I guess you talk about, I mean, that’s a lovely story in and of itself, but it also highlights the danger of asking kids for, you know, getting them to focus on objects.
Tim
Yes, absolutely. It’s a lovely story and you’re absolutely right. What it reminds us a couple of things, you know, first is we need to be intelligent in how we engage with children. But also we need the adults who are in that process to have some insights into how children play, how children get around and, and, you know, we really need to move away from the kind of shopping list exercise that I think all too often, you know, on the rare occasions when children are involved or engaged in, in public space planning, it can often boil down to, you know, here’s seven items of equipment and which three you like which is hopeless as a way of, of you know, getting creative and effective design.
Gerry
Now, many listeners will be familiar with user research and collaborative or participatory design, but perhaps not so much doing that with children. Are there any particular methods or tips you’d like to highlight?
Tim
Just picking up on my last point, don’t ask kids which bits of equipment they want. More generally, I think helping to capture children’s everyday lived experience, you know, what is it like to be a child age eight or ten in this neighbourhood or using this space? And then in very simple terms, simple language, you know, maybe using creative medium, whether it’s video or even just face-to-face walkabouts when we’re able to do that again. But crucially also bringing their voices into a creative dialogue with adults you know, so that there is a conversation happening. It’s not just a kind of, we’ve asked kids these questions, here’s their answers now go away and do something about it. So, you know, I mean, I think for instance, it’s good to help at an early stage in a project, in a scheme to involve children in shaping the brief for that project, actually, you know, what kind of space or street or neighbourhood do we want? Then, you know, the designers can go away and do their work and hopefully it will be great.
And then at, towards the end of the process, you come back and say again to children, amongst others, here’s what we’ve we’ve come up with, you know, what do you think about it? I think that’s much more fruitful and also powerful in terms of, of getting that awareness of children’s perspectives and, and getting schemes that end up being better for everybody. And I do believe that the second half of the Peñalosa maxim, you know, that cities that work well for children work well for everybody is to a large extent true. There’ll be some differences of detail, but you know, for the most part, certainly when you look at those, that basic, the aspirations children have for their neighbourhood, they’re the same aspirations that we all have.
Gerry
Talking about kids being involved in the brief I was also amused in the book when you talk about Barcelona, you say one of the objectives was to remove all “no ball game” signs. I thought that was a, I love this child centric statement.
Tim
It is. And it also speaks to a kind of underlying moral thread. I hope that, you know, it runs through the book, which is that there are… the term spatial justice is sometimes used that there’s this kind of basic moral unfairness about the way children are seen and treated in public space. And, to put it bluntly, if it were any other group in the population, then it would be illegal and shameful. In the book, I also, I give the example of a device called the Mosquito, and I don’t know if many of your listeners will be familiar with it, but this is a an electronic device that is fitted outside of you know, cafes or in public spaces that emits a high-pitched sound that’s calibrated to be beyond the hearing of the average adult, but within the hearing of the average teenager and younger child. And it’s precisely designed to drive children and young people out of an area. And I cannot think of a more sort of dramatic example of a sort of indiscriminate callous, heartless stance on young people’s claim on public space.
Gerry
Indeed. Now you talk about getting making sure to involve parents and caregivers when you’re thinking about design, but you also you know, you caution against getting the parents involved as well, or getting adults involved at times. Can you pull that apart a little bit for us?
Tim
Yes. I guess it’s an insight from playwork. So this is, you know, this sort of extraordinary sort of rather niche group of people who are adults who facilitate play and in places like adventure playgrounds, or maybe in museums and other settings and they’re very alive to how children play and how their play is shaped and to the way that sometimes we adults can kind of mess things up. So I just wanted to raise that point that the views of children are not always aligned with the views of their parents. A good example is just around garden space. You know, most parents really want to have, you know, their own backyard, but actually for children that’s, especially once children get older, that really is not so important. There’s an interesting tension there. That’s the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one, but I wanted to make sure that when we’re thinking about, you know, engaging different perspectives, stakeholders to use the jargon that the people involved in the project are alive to those differences and don’t just assume that you can get the children’s perspective by asking their parents. You can’t,
Gerry
You talk about different housing models and specifically high density and low density. Which provides a better environment for creating a child-friendly place?
Tim
Yeah. I guess I come down on a sort of Goldilocks position, you know, not too warm, not too cold. Again, that’s the beginning of an answer, not the end of one. I think some of this is culturally influenced, you know, what counts as acceptable density in London is going to be different from Perth, it’s going to be different from Hong Kong or Singapore. Nonetheless I do think, you know, there’s a happy medium that outdoor space and, you know, outdoor space that has the kind of qualities we’ve been talking about that’s more or less traffic free, that’s easily accessible from the buildings, there’s enough space that people are not, you know, just literally on top of each other. That’s really important. But also that too much sprawl, you know, it’s not just bad because of why we know sprawl is bad generally. It’s actually bad for children for the simple reason that they’re no longer able to get to some of the places that they’d like to be able to get to, you know, that all of their friends live too far away or their school is 5k away. So I guess the closest I come to an answer is when I hold up the example of Vauban which is this eco-suburb in Freiburg, which I devote some attention to, and I hold it up as potentially, you know, the ultimate child-friendly neighbourhood. I put a question mark on the end of that, because again I don’t want people to see it as just a blueprint, but I do think that that sort of what’s sometimes called a human scale or gentle density, but also a very rich, accessible, attractive public space right outside people’s doors is the sort of area we should be aiming at.
Gerry
I’ve got a question I’m not even sure I should throw it at you because I don’t think it’s answerable, but I’ll read it out anyway. As we’ve seen in recent years, and perhaps it’s been emphasized during COVID, on the one hand we see a resistance to change and on the other realization that fundamental change is both possible and desirable. How can designers and planners leverage those conflicting desires?
Tim
Yeah, I think there’s an unavoidable tension there, and it almost speaks to a very human tension between, you know, on the one hand, you know, we want to keep what we value, but on the other hand, we don’t want to kind of remain stuck and boring. Actually, that’s very, the idea of being bored is a very interesting one for children. Children I think, you know, they’re sort of, they’re amongst other things, they’re kind of anti-boredom machines and there’s not much worse for a child than being bored. And I think it’s helpful for us adults to kind of tap into some of that impetus and energy of children’s insights. But taking a step back and I think you’re right about the context right now. You know, if there is ever a time when, you know, it’s both scary to be contemplating change, but also essential to be contemplating change it’s now.
And I do firmly believe that the next challenge that awaits all of us working in this space is around the climate crisis and that our design and planning has to be framed strongly around that. So in the book, and also in some of my more recent work I do like others try and draw some inspiration and some insights from some of what’s been happening in public space and in streets while we’ve all been living really hyper-local lives. And I know in my part of London, you know, huge numbers of families have for the first time discovered local green spaces five minutes away from where they live they’d never been to before. We’ve all become much more aware of that, you know, the local shopping and facilities and services and how important they are. And those are the kinds of things I’m arguing for big, you know, because of the strong links with making places healthier and making them more sustainable. And it’s that side of the tension that I’m wanting to focus on right now, do you,
Gerry
Do you believe in the future the typical city will be child-friendly?
Tim
Okay. So, the optimist in me says yes. There’s a stat in the book that you may recall which I got from one of the UN agencies I think that because of the global trends of urbanisation, in effect we’re going to have to build a city of 1 million people every week for the next 30 years. And that, I mean, I shiver when I say that sentence. So it would be ludicrously optimistic of me to say that, you know, oh yeah, job done, those cities are going to be child-friendly end of story. What I hope is that they will be… more of them will be more child-friendly than they would have been otherwise, and that as a result they will also be better for the planet and better for the adults who live in them and have brighter prospects. But I’m under no illusions as to the scope of the task.
Gerry
You’re hedging your bets.
I’ll remind listeners that Tim’s book is Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and Design Can Save Cities. I think anyone interested in how we design our urban spaces and how we want to support our children would enjoy it. And I’d also suggest that the print edition would be preferred to the online edition. It’s a very handsome book.
Tim Gill, thanks for joining me today on the user experience podcast.
Tim
Thanks very much, Gerry. It’s been a real pleasure.