Where Do the Children Play?

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Are compact cities healthy cities? One argument for compact cities is that they are good for our health.  The New Zealand Public Health Advisory Committee in 2008, for example, cited four principles for healthy urban planning based on the density of development: urban regeneration, compact growth, focused decentralisation, and linear concentration.  The aim is less time in cars and more use of active transport.

One objective of Auckland’s Regional Growth Strategy, with its emphasis on CBD and centre-focused residential growth is “safe and healthy communities”.  But how far can that be achieved through residential intensification?  Does regulating for a compact city work for everyone?  Everywhere? 

Kids and consolidation

Research by Penelope Carroll and Karen Witten of Massey University, summarised here and in a recent article in The Aucklander, highlights the disadvantages for children in the inner city. 

Witten and Carroll suggest that traffic volumes, strangers on the street, and lack of outdoor play space mean that children in central city environments are likely to be confined indoors.  And that raises the disadvantages of high density dwellings: insufficient space, internal noise, lack of natural light, lack of privacy, inadequate parking, inadequate indoor play space, and the potentially hazardous nature of balconies.  Poor health outcomes is a major concern.

A key issue for children in compact parts of the compact city is lack of opportunity for outdoor activity.  Heavily trafficked streets are not good for bike riding, or even walking alone.  Auckland’s centre is devoid of segregated cycleways or play areas.  Getting to school or the park is a major mission, and may well need a car trip. 

Even the Auckland Domain, a splendid sprawling park on the CBD fringe, is surrounded by high intensity streets, remote from most central apartments, and is hardly child-friendly.  The much smaller Victoria Park is similarly difficult to access, isolated by major arterial roads.  Albert Park is about the only central green space of note, but this is a throughway between university and town, not an ideal area for children to play. 

Auckland CBD Green Space

Perhaps the well-being of children is not a major issue here, because only around 600 (aged under 15) lived in the CBD in 2006.  But it was up 130% over a decade.  And they do count.

Anyway, the limits of central city living for children – and families – flag more general issues:

  • The need to think seriously about how we cater for families in higher density living generally, in the CBD, in other centres, and in suburbs targeted for intensification;
  • How we provide safe, public green space, areas for play, and ease of movement in high density, mixed use environments; and
  • Just how healthy is the inner city residential for living generally?

CBD living – not so healthy?

The factors potentially stressing children in the CBD impact on adults too.  Research for Auckland City in 2003 (CBD Metadata Analysis by No Doubt Research) suggested dissatisfaction with inner city apartment living came from a diminished sense of security and safety, noise nuisance, small units, absence of outdoor living spaces, and lack of a sense of community. 

In the absence of outdoor recreation space adult residents may get some exercise in the burgeoning gymnasium sector (for between $1,000 and $2,500 a year).  But for many recreational and social activities a car is a necessity.  Simply to take advantage of the key benefits cited for living in Auckland – access to outdoor recreation opportunities, organised sports, beaches, bush and countryside – residential Intensification around centres means more time- and fuel-consuming car trips.

On top of a lack of open useable space the latest State of the Region Report documents the heaviest concentration of air pollutants in and around central Auckland, hardly a healthy living environment.

Central Auckland Haze
Source: Auckland Regional Council,
State of the Region, 2010

Community in the central city

Research by Larry Murphy of the University of Auckland (“Third-wave gentrification in New Zealand: the case of Auckland” Urban Studies 2008, Volume 45) described different communities in the CBD: the well-to-do with their spacious harbour edge apartments (and quite possibly a second home – a beach cottage or lifestyle block – outside the city); the student-dominated quarter to the east; and the low income population to the west.  Families may end up in the latter area, in cramped apartments in featureless apartment blocks, simply for reasons of affordability.

These are transient populations, some 52% of residents in the Central East and Central West Census Area Units had been in their current dwellings for less than a year in 2006.  This compares with 23% in Auckland as a whole.  These particularly high residential mobility figures contradict any suggestion that high density living might create a strong sense of community cohesion.

Okay for some, for some of the time

The CBD works for some people.  The proliferation of downtown bars and entertainment caters particularly for the young and well-to-do.  Gentrification of the harbour-edge works for the professional couple, the wealthy, and out-of-towners.  But the central city is not right for middle or low income households, or families. 

Two key ingredients of a compact city strategy are increasing residential densities and boosting inner city living.  But these raise health and equity issues.  At the least, they call for investment in the quantity and quality of public space in areas targeted for intensification, making potentially big demands on the public purse given the value of land in the CBD and other commercial centres. 

We may just have to acknowledge the benefits of suburban living for some time to come and seek opportunities for sustainable development that don’t oblige less well-off families to dwell in small apartments and featureless blocks around busy commercial areas for lack of affordable alternatives.

Phil McDermott is a Director of CityScope Consultants in Auckland, New Zealand, and Adjunct Professor of Regional and Urban Development at Auckland University of Technology.  He works in urban, economic and transport development throughout New Zealand and in Australia, Asia, and the Pacific.  He was formerly Head of the School of Resource and Environmental Planning at Massey University and General Manager of the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation in Sydney. This piece originally appeared at is blog: Cities Matter.

Photo by Pat Scullion



















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The children will be engaged

The children will be engaged in the fun- filled activities using gymnastic apparatus such as uneven bar, parallel bar and foam pit. The all- time favourite scooter boards and manipulative activities will be installed for them too. The children will also be playing teambuilding games such as the parachute play during the outing. The highlight of the outing will be the “super bouncy” trampoline programme for the young children!
child gymnastics

I am sure about children

I am sure about children should be protected form herpes for health care service. And hsv eraser program can help with results.

Again, if you want to bring

Again, if you want to bring people back into urban areas you have to make them SAFE. We're not talking about vehicle accidents, we're talking about getting shot or (god forbid) stabbed to death by 'peoples' prone to random acts of violence.

Thankfully for now they mostly kill each other, but people won't move back into cities until they can be assured they or their families will be removed from the senseless violence and thuggery, not to mention the diminished education the children of productive, stable families will receive from being around child thugs.

Urban Versus Suburban Safety

MAP's comments are typical but inaccurate. Many people assume incorrectly that cities are violent and therefore unsafe, but in fact, rural areas have higher homicide rates in both the U.S. (http://masteranswer.com/Why-is-the-urban-crime-rate-higher-than-the-rura... ) and in Canada (http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/070628/dq070628b-eng.htm ). Crime rates do increase with poverty, so murder rates are likely to be higher than average in impoverished urban areas, as they are in impoverished rural areas. As MAP acknowledges, most homicides involve family members or acquaintances. As a result, there is no reason to think that a typical, middle-class family that moves to an typical urban neighborhood increases their childrens' overall risk exposure.

Homicide is overall a minor risk to children, far less common than childhood traffic deaths. So, why does it get so much attention? I suspect that people who consider urban areas dangerous are expressing racism (cities have more mixed demographics), and have watched too many crime shows on television which bias their perception of risk.

Overall, cities are safe and healthy places to raise children, and with better planning can be more so.

Todd Litman is founder and executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org), an independent research organization dedicated to developing innovative solutions to transport problems.

Child-Friendly Urban Planning

Yes, to better accommodate people of all ages - not just children - central city neighborhoods should have adequate parks, streetscaping to improve walking and cycling conditions, affordable and diverse housing suitable for families, and address social problems, but it is inaccurate to claim that cities are dangerous or unhealthy places for children. All those families that move to automobile-dependent suburbs for their children's safety and health are mistaken. Research indicates that urban neighborhoods are far safer and healthier places for children overall due to reductions in traffic accident risk and increased physical activity (Lucy 2003; Ewing and Dumbaugh 2009).

Residents of smart growth communities have about a quarter the traffic fatality rate as residents of sprawl (Ewing, Schieber, Zegeer 2003), and since traffic crashes are the main cause of youths' deaths, this is a dominant factor in overall health. In addition, residents of smart growth communities walk more and are less likely to be sedentary than residents of sprawl (Frank, Kavage and Litman 2006).

I can speak from personal experience on this issue. We raised two children living in an older neighborhood at the edge of Victoria's downtown (admittedly, a smaller city than Auckland). Yes, our backyard is small and there are homeless people nearby (we are located near several social service centers), but there are also significant benefits. Our children had more independence than they would in a suburb, and we were always physically active because we walked and bicycled for transport. We are within walking distance of numerous parks and pathways, stores, restaurants, museums, and other attractions, which enriched our children's lives. City living integrates physical activity and social interactions into daily life rather than requiring special exercise activities such as organized sports. Housing is somewhat more expensive here than in suburbs, but this is more than offset by transport cost savings.

There are now useful guidelines for making cities more child-friendly (IIT 2007; McAllister 2008; O’Byrne 2006). Most of the recommended actions benefit everybody, not just children, and are fundamental objectives for smart growth planning.

For more information

Reid Ewing and Eric Dumbaugh (2009), “The Built Environment and Traffic Safety: A Review of Empirical Evidence,” Journal of Planning Literature, Vol. 23 No. 4, May, pp. 347-367; at http://jpl.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/23/4/347 .

Reid Ewing, Richard A. Schieber, Charles V. Zegeer (2003), “Urban Sprawl As A Risk Factor In Motor Vehicle Occupant And Pedestrian Fatalities,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 93, No. 9 (www.ajph.org), September, pp. 1541-1545; at www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1448007 .

Lawrence Frank, Sarah Kavage and Todd Litman (2006), Promoting Public Health Through Smart Growth: Building Healthier Communities Through Transportation And Land Use Policies, Smart Growth BC (www.smartgrowth.bc.ca); at www.vtpi.org/sgbc_health.pdf .

Richard Gilbert and Catherine O’Brien (2005), Child- And Youth-Friendly Land-Use And Transport Planning Guidelines, Centre for Sustainable Transportation (www.cstctd.org).

Helmut Holzapfel (2000), “The Outside World as a Learning Environment: Perspectives From Child-oriented Town Planning,” World Transport Policy & Practice, Vol. 6, No. 4 (www.ecoplan.org/wtpp), pp. 5-7.

IIT (2007), CityTalent: Keeping Young Professionals (and their kids) in Cities, CEOs for Cities (www.ceosforcities.org); at www.ceosforcities.org/files/CEOs_CityTalent_Kids.pdf.

Kids On The Move (www.kidsonthemove.ca) is a research program to develop guidelines for transportation and land-use policies that meet the needs of children and youth, and in doing so meet the needs of all people.

Todd Litman (2010) Affordable-Accessible Housing In A Dynamic City: Why and How To Support Development of More Affordable Housing In Accessible Locations, Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org); at www.vtpi.org/aff_acc_hou.pdf.

William H. Lucy (2003), “Mortality Risk Associated With Leaving Home: Recognizing the Relevance of the Built Environment,” American Journal of Public Health (www.ajph.org), Vol. 93, No. 9, September, pp. 1564-1569; at www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/93/9/1564.

Catherine McAllister (2008), “Child Friendly Cities and Land Use Planning: Implications for Children’s Health,” Environments: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies; Special Issue: Planning for Health Through the Built Environment, Vol. 35, No. 3, pp. 45-61; at https://twpl.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/ejis/article/download/10057/7... .

Dara O’Byrne (2006), Reversing the Trend: Strategies to Make Center City Seattle Livable and Attractive to Families with Children, Seattle Center City for Families (www.seattle.gov/DPD/Planning/Center_City/CenterCityforFamilies/default.a...).

Scott Sharpe and Paul Tranter (2010), “The Hope For Oil Crisis: Children, Oil Vulnerability And (In)Dependent Mobility,” Australian Planner, Vol. 47, No. 4, December, pp. 284-292; summary at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07293682.2010.526622.

WHO, Adrian Davis Editor (2003), A Physically Active Life Through Everyday Transport: With A Special Focus On Children And Older People And Examples And Approaches From Europe, World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe, www.euro.who.int/document/e75662.pdf .

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Todd Litman is founder and executive director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute (www.vtpi.org), an independent research organization dedicated to developing innovative solutions to transport problems.