Speaker
Description
Urban environments are seldom tailored to the needs of children and young people. Through car-centric development, children’s use of public spaces, opportunities for play, physical activity and social interaction became increasingly limited. This exclusion impacts their physical, socioemotional, and cognitive development. Child-friendly cities, as defined by UNICEF, prioritize children’s rights and inclusion in decision-making, requiring accessible, diverse, and well-designed spaces. But despite legal frameworks supporting children’s participation in urban planning, children are often excluded from designing the spaces they use most. Existing research with children’s direct involvement, is mostly limited to child-centric spaces (e.g. playgrounds) and to specific groups (e.g. school-attending, able-bodied children from high-income families). Broader urban challenges such as housing or land planning, remain unaddressed. Processes are often limited to ‘façade participation’ (e.g. consulting or informing). Even when a meaningful contribution is required, children’s ideas are easily misinterpreted or not taken seriously by decision-makers, leading to a limited impact of the process’s outcome. This demonstrates the lack of adapted methods to effectively and ethically involve children in the participatory design.
This research explores a framework for co-creation with children, enabling a better understanding of its potential as a tool for inclusive urban planning and policymaking. Using a comprehensive literature review with keywords searches on Scopus and Google Scholar, relevant peer-reviewed studies were analysed. The selected studies address topics such as urban planning (e.g. public spaces, rural areas), mobility (e.g. active transport, school streets) and child-centred spaces (e.g. outdoor play, child-friendly neighbourhood). The findings identified barriers and drivers influencing children’s participation.
A first finding is that granting children agency in designing the process and defining their roles, increases engagement and peer-to-peer collaboration. Flexibility in tailoring a process to a specific group enhances participation, while active listening, group-decision making, and mutual learning empowers children to contribute in a meaningful way. Prior training on the topic of participation allows for informed decision-making. Facilitators must create a “safe space” where children feel heard and can express themselves without judgement. This can be supported by training the facilitators on how to build trust and manage relations effectively.
Secondly, managing the power dynamics involved requires strategies to reduce the distance between adults and children, such as using informal language, explicitly asking opinions, and sharing personal insights. Parallelly, recognition of the differences in motivation of age groups allows for the methods and materials to be adapted accordingly (e.g. gamification and creative approaches).
Thirdly, stakeholder involvement is critical to demonstrate the value of children's contributions and ease possible resistance to the process’s results. And the other way around, children can learn and empathize through interaction with the local community, positioning themselves within it. Benefits from participation for children range from increased social skills, acquired knowledge on the topic to positive attitude effects.
Lastly, children generally produce more creative outcomes. Yet, the translation of children’s ideas into design might be a barrier, due to misinterpretation, misunderstanding of ideas and sometimes dismissing their input as impractical. Feedback might also be biased when the activity is grade dependent, obligatory to take part in or when responses come from a desire to please or misunderstood expectations. However, many methods lead to material-focused solutions rather than a structural transformation.
Based on these findings, recommendations for policymakers and planners to effectively and ethically co-create with children include maintaining children’s agency in the process design; fostering informed decision-making; managing power dynamics with adults; involving the community; using age-appropriate methods; and effectively translating children’s ideas into actionable outcomes. Practical applications of this framework aim to foster inclusive urban planning processes that value children’s perspectives and create structural transformations, advancing child-friendly urban development.
| Keywords | Children’s participation; Participatory Urban Planning; Inclusion; Co-creation; Mobility |
|---|---|
| Best Congress Paper Award | No |
