Tag Archives: Tel Aviv

Announcing 2 launch events for ‘Urban Playground’

I am very pleased to announce not one but two online events on Weds 24 and Thurs 25 Feb 2021 to mark the publication of my book Urban Playground: How child-friendly planning and design can save cities. Each webinar features lively formats and diverse sets of expert participants, and both are free and open to anyone who signs up.

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A vibrant young city is building better neighbourhoods for early childhood. Can it sustain and broaden its impact?

It is not hard to see why early childhood should be a hot topic in Tel Aviv. The city has a booming cohort of young, aspirational parents, and recent unhappy memories of economic decline and falling populations. But why it should latch onto public space – rather than childcare – is less obvious.

The key to the story is a serendipitous, opportunistic partnership with the Bernard van Leer Foundation (BvLF). I have visited three of BvLF’s leading Urban95 cities now (the others being Tirana and Recife). My hunch is that the initiative has had a greater catalytic effect in Tel Aviv than in any of the other cities it has worked in. I visited the city at the end of February 2020 to find out more. Continue reading