Tag Archives: Winston Churchill Memorial Trust

My new book ‘Urban Playground’: Sneak peek and seasonal discounted price

Posted on December 14, 2020 | 13 comments

Urban Playground book coverI am delighted to share news that my forthcoming book Urban Playground: How child-friendly planning and design can save cities, is available to pre-order from the RIBA website here.

The book opens with an overview of urban planning and children, setting out why the topic matters. A working definition of child-friendly urban planning (familiar to readers of this blog) is set out in Chapter 2.

2 dimensions of child-friendly cities imageChapter 3 looks in detail at Rotterdam, the city that has arguably devoted more time, money and energy to the approach than any other, and whose investment is grounded in hard-nosed economic priorities.

The geographical scope is expanded in Chapter 4, with case studies and precedents from a dozen or so cities around the world, from post-Communist Tirana to post-industrial Antwerp, from tropical Recife to Nordic Oslo, from historic Ghent to high-tech Vancouver (also taking in my home city of London).

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Posted in Child-friendliness, Mobility, Play spaces, playground, Public policy, Public space, Urban planning, Urbanism

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How to build cities fit for children

Posted on April 30, 2019 | 9 comments

After decades on the margins, child-friendly urban planning and design is emerging into the mainstream. What does this mean for children, for cities, and crucially for the decision-makers and professionals who will shape the futures of both?

My new report Building Cities Fit for Children gives perhaps the first overview of the decisions and programs of those cities that are at the forefront of the movement to reshape their neighbourhoods with children and families in mind. Based on my Churchill Fellowship travels in Europe and Canada, the report takes as its starting point not what I think cities should be doing, nor what agencies like UNICEF are promoting, but what leading cities have actually done. Continue reading →

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Posted in Child-friendliness, Mobility, Play spaces, Public policy, Public space, Urban planning, Urbanism

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How a focus on child-friendliness revived one city’s fortunes

Posted on April 26, 2018 | 9 comments

I have been aware of Rotterdam’s child-friendly cities initiatives for at least ten years. It is the most ambitious I know, with the biggest budgets and the clearest focus. I have visited projects in 2014 and 2017, and have been impressed by what I saw.

Rotterdam child-friendly city report cover

So I was excited to be back in the city last month as part of my Churchill Fellowship travels, and eager hear more of the city’s story. And I quickly learnt one thing: Rotterdam’s push to become more child-friendly is deeply linked to its history, economy, demographics and built form.

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Posted in Child-friendliness, Outdoor play, Public policy, Public space, Urban planning

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The city that got serious about child-friendly urban planning

Posted on April 3, 2018 | 10 comments

My last post on Antwerp showed how political priorities shape what is possible. That city’s ‘speelweefselplan’ or ‘play space web’ approach shone a light on how children get around their neighbourhoods. But in Antwerp, closing streets to traffic or losing parking spaces were steps too far for an administration fearful of being seen as ‘anti-car’.

So what happens when a city’s leadership faces up to the impact of traffic, and decides to do something serious about it? Ghent – Antwerp’s near neighbour and the second European city I visited on my Churchill Fellowship study tour last month – points to the answer. And the emerging results are impressive and revealing.

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Posted in Child-friendliness, Mobility, Outdoor play

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Antwerp’s Play Space Web: smart, child-friendly neighbourhood planning in action

Posted on March 7, 2018 | 6 comments

When it comes to making Antwerp more playful and child-friendly, Wim Seghers is the man with a plan. His role is to develop the city’s playgrounds. But his award-winning approach is to start not with the play space, but with the neighbourhood beyond, making full use of Antwerp’s world-class data in the process.

Wim – my host for the first leg of my European study tour of child-friendly urban planning – explained to me last week how his city’s ‘play space web’ (‘speelweefselplan’ in Dutch) approach works.

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Posted in Child-friendliness, Mobility, Outdoor play, Public policy, Urban planning

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Studying child-friendly cities, Northern European style

Posted on February 20, 2018 | 6 comments

This post shares news of the second and final leg of my Churchill Fellowship study tour, which starts on Monday 26 Feb. In the following four weeks the tour will take me to Antwerp, Ghent, Rotterdam, Oslo and Freiburg (dates below).

Along the way I will meet decision-makers, municipality officials and partner agencies to find out more about each city’s efforts to make their streets, parks and public spaces more child-friendly, and to make it easier for children to travel around their neighbourhoods and the city beyond.

I also plan to gain some insights into children’s own experiences of the neighbourhoods where they live and play.

Playful public space, Vauban, Freiburg

Playful public space, Vauban, Freiburg

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Posted in Child-friendliness, Urban planning, Urbanism

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