Yes, children have some wacky ideas. But that’s no reason not to listen to them
This article is written by Ian Smith, strategic designer and coordinator for Child Friendly Edmonton with the City of Edmonton.
Here is a challenge for you: imagine you are an architect or a contractor constructing a new building in your city. If you failed to consider the needs of children, what could some of the implications be? Every adult used to be a child, but what should a city in 2020 or 2050 look like to be safe, playful, connected and ultimately livable for an urban childhood?
We shouldn't be trying to design the perfect city for children. Instead, children should be meaningfully participating in creating better cities for themselves, and for the rest of us, too. Now, I bet you're a bit skeptical about this idea. And honestly, you should be. It’s a new way of thinking about city building and it challenges us all to continuously advocate for children and their families, even if we’re not sure what that looks like.
How could children possibly understand complex and difficult ideas such as the affordable housing crisis, or how to develop a transportation master plan, or the role of mass public transportation or prioritizing density housing solutions? And even if they had ideas, wouldn't they be childish? Or not even close to feasible? Do our cities really need a park made out of foam pits, or zip lines, or free transit (well actually that one can be debated)? These concerns are very real and legitimate.
But while these questions shouldn’t be swept under the rug, I have found on many occasions that not including children in civic issues is a bigger design problem. It’s not about just designing parks, it’s about rethinking the values we hold in our collective city building.
After all, shouldn't we include end users and respect children's ideas and try to entice them to continue living and contributing in our cities? If we're building a park to be largely used by kids, then kids should have a say in the park's design. The same can be said for a mental health campaign, or policy on child care, or safety on transit, or public washrooms, or...the list goes on.The point is, child advocates grapple with assessing the potential impacts of decisions on children's well being.
At Child Friendly Edmonton we facilitate and work with children to come up with innovative city-design solutions. One recent example: as part of consultation for Edmonton’s City Plan, we facilitated a process that included feedback from more than 1600 children who provided their ideas for the future of Edmonton in areas such as making our city greener, ensuring people feel welcomed, and jobs in the future. We analyzed all of the feedback and designed a comic book to thank the children and remind us that everyday children need to be at the heart of city building decisions.
In Edmonton, we try to think of people of all ages and circumstances before we put another shovel in the ground, or sign off on another strategy. But too often, outside those laughter-filled rooms in our homes and schools, the city feels dismissive or hostile to our smallest citizens.
We’re one of the youngest cities on the continent, but to 150,000 of us, Edmonton can still feel out of scale, out of reach, out of touch. Since 2006, Child Friendly Edmonton has been cheerfully obsessed with rallying Edmontonians around this challenge. We’ve sparked meaningful projects and rallied experts and volunteers around this galvanizing idea of child-friendliness.
Here are a few lessons we’ve learned from our engagement with children:
Children in a Vision 2050 session brainstorming ideas for the future of Edmonton. Photo credit: City of Edmonton
Children bring valuable--and creative--ideas
Should every idea raised by a child be implemented? Of course not. Democracy and decision making is a messy process. Do well-informed adult citizens expect all of their ideas to be heard? Yes. But do they also expect everything to be implemented? Not always. Guess what, a nine-year-old doesn't either. We've now been using these principles of meaningful children's engagement for quite some time, and along the way, we've found some fantastic benefits of our commitment to designing cities with children.
Some realistic ideas directly from children --like a fully electric transit bus fleet, no fees for recreation and leisure centres, no bullying, and adventure playgrounds in every neighborhood--- aren’t immediately feasible, but still shouldn’t be dismissed. We need to seriously consider and use these ideas as visioning and concepts for the type of city we want to create.
As an example, in our Downtown Civic Precinct we had an idea to include play elements throughout the site. We started with some ideas and concepts, but they just weren’t sparking excitement. Then we took a step back and said “wait, we need to meaningfully work with children of all ages and abilities to see what they actually want!” Fast forward a year and, through engaging hundreds of children, we created an artistic concept for a whimsical creature that connects the civic precinct and is colourful, vibrant and has play elements that invite children to climb, balance, explore and imagine throughout all seasons. This is a perfect example of working in collaboration with children to co-create a vision for our public spaces. We definitely heard some far fetched ideas from children, but those guided us to get where we are now.
Adults think about constraints, children about opportunities
Kids think differently than adults, and that's a huge value we don’t appreciate enough. Adults think about constraints: how much time will a project take, how much money will it cost and what the potential risks are. In other words, "How can we avoid risk and build for safety?" This is obviously important, we need experts providing technical feasibility and advice. Kids, though, are experts in their own lives. When kids dream up a space they very often include fun, playfulness and activities in their designs. This is not what we always see adults prioritize for public spaces. But research shows that fun, play and movement are exactly what adults (and everyone) need to stay healthy.
Pocket park pop-up play event downtown at Michael Phair Park. Photo credit: City of Edmonton
Children can help us design more inclusive futures
Overall children have an inclusive mindset in their city planning. Without even being aware of it, they design for everyone, from their elderly friend with a walker, to their newcomer friend who is struggling to learn English, to the marginalized individual they see resting at the transit stop. Children design for people, not for cars, politicians, advocacy groups, egos or corporations.
Designing for children benefits us all
The last and perhaps most compelling discovery I have made is that a city which is friendly to children is a city friendly to all. In Bogota, Colombia, mayor Enrique Peñalosa observed that children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people. Think about that statement.
This reveals something important. Something that has for long been a blind spot: If we aren't including children in our planning, who else aren't we including in the process? We can't possibly know the needs and wants of other people without asking. That goes for kids and for everyone else.
Go forth and engage meaningfully with children!
So, adults, let's stop thinking of our children as future citizens, and instead start valuing them for the citizens and leaders they are right now. Go and read the Sixth Grade Science and the City of Tomorrow, and see if any of the ideas in there are too far fetched? Wouldn’t you wish to see children's ideas in our cities? Our children are designing the cities that will make all of us happier, more sustainable and healthier. Children are designing the cities we all want to live in.
In the city, we tell our children to follow the signs. Let’s start building an Edmonton that follows the children.
The goal is a generation of Edmonton children who don’t have to wait until they’re 18 to really feel a part of the city. They’ll feel connected, invested, engaged in a place that feels joyful and optimistic. A place designed for them.
Children and adults play together at a summer neighbourhood play street event. Photo Credit: City of Edmonton.
Ian Smith is a strategic designer and Coordinator for Child Friendly Edmonton with the City of Edmonton. Ian leads and connects a wide range of people, projects, ideas and challenges to ensure that Edmonton continues to be a vibrant, inclusive, safe, accessible and connected city for all children. He would love to hear from you about anything related to innovation in government, child friendly work or navigating change within your organization. Connect and catch him at ian.smith2@edmonton.ca or find him on Twitter @Ian_Smith7
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