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Seen and HeardJoostBeunderman,CeliaHannonandPeterBradwell

Reclaiming the public realm withchildren and young people

SeenandHeardUntil now, action to improve the lives of children and young people has tended to focus on

the spheres of home and school. Yet quality of life also depends on having access to shared

resources such as streets, parks, town centres and playgrounds. And here, in the everyday

spaces of our towns and cities, we increasingly exclude and marginalise the young. In the

pursuit of sustainable communities and urban renaissance, children and young people are

being left out of the picture.

Children and young people have limited independence both financially and spatially so theydepend on shared spaces more than others. With trends in Britain pointing towards less

outdoor play, increased parental anxiety and less tolerance for children and young people,

the impact of an unwelcoming public realm on their health, wellbeing and behaviour is

becoming increasingly clear.

Seen and Heard: Reclaiming the public realm w ith children and young people draws on

six in-depth case studies to explore the everyday experiences of children in public places.

It argues that we need a paradigm shift in the way we think about the built environment

one which addresses the deepening segregation between generations. The needs of the

young are not opposed to those of other users of public spaces, but closely aligned. With a

range of recommendations designed to empower frontline professionals and young people,

this pamphlet offers practical steps to create places that are welcoming for all.

Joost Beunderman, Celia Hannon and Peter Bradwell

are researchers at Demos.

Joost Beunderman

Celia Hannon

Peter Bradwell9 781841 801889

ISBN 1841801887

01000

10

ISBN 1 84180 188 7


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Who we areDemos is the think tank oreveryday democracy. We believeeveryone should be able tomake personal choices in theirdaily lives that contribute to thecommon good. Our aim is to put

this democratic idea into practiceby working with organisationsin ways that make them moreefective and legitimate.

What we work onWe ocus on seven areas:public services; science andtechnology; cities and publicspace; people and communities;arts and culture; global security;and amilies and care.

Who we work withOur partners include policy-makers, companies, publicservice providers and socialentrepreneurs. Demos isnot linked to any party butwe work with politiciansacross political divides. Ourinternational network whichextends across Eastern Europe,Scandinavia, Australia, Brazil,India and China provides aglobal perspective and enablesus to work across borders.

How we workDemos knows the importanceo learning rom experience. Wetest and improve our ideas inpractice by working with peoplewho can make change happen.Our collaborative approach

means that our partners sharein the creation and ownershipo new ideas.

What we oferWe analyse social and politicalchange, which we connect toinnovation and learning inorganisations. We help ourpartners show thought leadershipand respond to emergingpolicy challenges.

How we communicateAs an independent voice,we can create debates thatlead to real change. We usethe media, public events,workshops and publicationsto communicate our ideas. Allour books can be downloadedree rom the Demos website.

www.demos.co.uk

About Demos


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Play England is the nationalcampaigning, support anddevelopment agency orchildrens play and playprovision. Play Englandpromotes excellent ree playopportunities or all children

and young people. It providesadvice and support to promotegood practice, and works toensure that the importance oplay is recognised by policy-makers, planners and the public.

Play England is part o

the National ChildrensBureau, and is supportedby the Big Lottery Fund.

About Play England


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Reclaiming the public realm withchildren and young people

Seen and Heard

Joost BeundermanCelia HannonPeter Bradwell

First published in 2007 Play EnglandSome rights reservedSee copyright licence for details

ISBN 1 84180 188 7Copy edited by Julie Pickard, LondonDesigned and printed by Divamedia, Bristolwww.divamedia.co.uk

For further information and subscription details please contact:

DemosTird FloorMagdalen House136 ooley StreetLondon SE1 2U

elephone: 020 7367 4200email: [email protected]: www.demos.co.uk


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Contents

01.

02.

03.

04.

05.

06.

Acknowledgements 8Foreword 10Introduction 14

Part One

Making the case

Te promise o the public realm to children and young people 24Te everyday reality 37

Part wo

Spaces, stories and shaping places

Pressures on our built environment 53Our stories about children 70Shaping places or wellbeing 84

Part Tree

Where next?Conclusion and recommendations 104

Appendix 1 116Appendix 2 117

Notes 118

Open access. Some rights reserved.

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We want to encourage the circulation of our work as widely as possible without affectingthe ownership of the copyright, which remains with the copyright holder, Play England.

Users are welcome to download, save, perform or distribute this work electronically or inany other format, including in foreign language translation, without written permission

subject to the conditions set out in the Demos open access licence, which you can read atthe back of this publication.

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You are welcome to ask for permission to use this work for purposes other than thosecovered by the Demos open access licence.

Demos gratefully acknowledges the work of Lawrence Lessig and Creative Commonswhich inspired our approach to copyright. Te Demos circulation licence is adaptedfrom the attribution/no derivatives/non-commercial version of the Creative Commonslicence.

o find out more about Creative Commons licences go to www.creativecommons.org.


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We are indebted to manyindividuals who contributed toour work through part icipatingin interviews, speaking atseminars and ofering advice.Special thanks go to im Gilland Helen Woolley or their

helpul and insightul commentsthroughout the research.

Tanks should also go to thelocal place-shaping proessionalswho gave their valuable time toparticipate in, as well as oenhelping to organise, our casestudies. Finally, we would liketo thank the many children andyoung people who spent timetalking to us, guiding us throughtheir local environments andgiving us invaluable and honestinsights into their everydayexperiences in the public realm.

As always, all errors andomissions remain our own.

Joost BeundermanCelia HannonPeter BradwellSeptember 2007

Tis report was commissioned byand would not have been possiblewithout the support o PlayEngland, part o the NationalChildrens Bureau (NCB). IssyCole-Hamilton and Adrian Voceo Play England provided us with

advice and guidance throughoutthe project. Many thanks, also,to Becky McLauchlan o PlayEngland and Anna Kassman-McKerrell at NCBs ChildrensPlay Inormation Service ortheir input and assistance atdiferent stages o the project.

We are very grateul to MelissaMean and Hannah Green ortheir invaluable input andreections at every stage o theresearch and writing process.

We would like to thank JaneLeighton, Leila Baker and NickEdwards rom FundamentalArchitectural Inclusion or their

input into the case study researchor this project, and Ann Clareor additional eldwork. Teywere excellent collaboratorson this part o the project; thecase studies would not havebeen possible without their

intelligence, thoroughness andorganisational talent.

At Demos our thanks go to allthe interns who helped with theresearch, events and organisationo the project: particularly AmyHorton, Miranda Kimball,Morgan Saxby and Poppy Nicol.We would also like to thankAlessandra Buonno whocommented on the dra andsupported our eforts in thenal stages o the project. PeterHarrington guided the pamphletthrough to publication; he,Victoria Shooter and Mark Fullerhelped us at various stages tocommunicate our ideas.

Acknowledgements


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to a growing concern acrossthe political spectrum that thecreeping inringement into spaceand time that was traditionallychildrens own is causing real andpotential harm.

For nearly 20 years, theChildrens Play Council (CPC),an alliance o like-mindedorganisations led by theNational Childrens Bureau,has campaigned to promotechildrens play. It has researchedand highlighted the steadydecline in play opportunities inEngland and worked with manycolleague organisations acrossall sectors to ormulate a policyagenda to address the need ormore and better play provisionand play space or all children.

Underpinning this work hasalways been the recognitionthat, as a human right under

the United Nations Conventionon the Rights o the Child,the provision or childrensplay should not be le to themarket, but should be seen aspart o policy-making or thepublic realm. CPCs position is

that, whatever the market mayprovide, childrens essential,everyday play needs should bemet by the planning and designo accessible, playable publicspace wherever children live.In addition, reely availablesupervised play services stafedadventure playgrounds, orexample should be providedwhere the concentration ochildren and the premium onspace demands it.

Children will always ock tothe airground and theme park,and enjoy so play areas inshopping centres and the like,as long as their amilies can

by Adrian Voce

Some things are sel-evident.One is that children need spaceto play.

Tat is, the specic, measurable

outcomes o children playingcan be researched, evaluated anddebated, and will undoubtedlyneed to be (more than theyhave already) in order toprovide the reliable evidencebase that is the prerequisiteo policy development. So,too, the extent and the type ospace that best (and most cost-efectively) provides or thisneed or children in diferentcircumstances needs to bestudied and analysed.

But no one who has children,works with children or canremember being a childquestions that play is intrinsic

to a good childhood, and thatplaying needs some space.Almost by denition, childrendenied space to play arerepressed.

Ironically, the quintessential

nature o play has been one othe problems in getting it takenseriously as a policy issue. Itseems that play is conceived asso inseparable rom childhooditsel that the adult populationin the main, and policy-makersin particular, have simply takenit or granted. In a world thatvalues children mainly as theuture, this thing that they door themselves now seems lessimportant than training andequipping them or later in lie.

Nevertheless, accumulatingevidence rom a rangeo academic and mediacommentators has given rise

Foreword


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Nationally, too, we proposedthat resources be directed toresearching the evidence base,exploring the policy issues andmaking the case or the shiin government policy. We sawthis as necessary in driving a

long-term change in the prioritygiven to childrens needs inthe planning and design oenvironments.

Hence, Play England, awarded15 million over ve yearsas part o the initiative, wasable, in 2006, to commissionDemos to conduct this studyo childrens relationship withthe public realm. We thinkthe study is thorough and theanalysis thought provoking. Wehope that it stimulates debateand challenges policy-makers,planners and practitioners to takechildrens need or space to play and young peoples need or

space to socialise and live theirown cultural and recreationallives more seriously.

We hope that it adds urtherweight to the growing movementor a cultural shi in how our

society perceives and respondsto its children and young people.Central to that movement is thesimple recognition that childrenneed space to play, and that it isup to us to provide it.

Ultimately, we hope that thisreport takes us a step closer to asociety where children really areat the heart o their communities,not just rhetorically, butphysically, spatially: out, playing,where they belong.

Adrian Voce is Director oPlay England

aford the entry ee. But theprovision or childrens need toplay should not be conceived asequivalent to the adult leisureindustry. Tis is partly becausechildren are not independentconsumers and partly because

play is more undamentallyimportant or children thanleisure activities are or adults.For children, the opportunityto play is their equivalent toour reedom o movement,reedom o association, reedomo expression. Without regulartime, space and permission toplay, children are denied theright to be themselves, to ollowtheir own unique agenda. Teconsequences or their qualityo lie, health and development and, by extension, their uturelie chances too are serious.

When CPC was asked by the BigLottery Fund in 2005 to orm

Play England to help it to shapeand support its new ChildrensPlay Initiative, one o our maindiscussions was about how theinitiative should be strategic.We wanted the initiative topromote change across the

whole landscape o policy andpractice areas that impact on theplaces and spaces where childrenmight play. More and betterlocal childrens playgrounds, andsome good, inclusive supervisedplay projects like adventureplaygrounds, are, or many areas,going to be the best use o arelatively modest allocation ounds. But the ocusing o mindson producing local play strategiesthat address the broader questiono a playable public realm andhow to sustain cross-cuttingimprovements would give theinitiative a chance to have alonger-term and more prooundimpact.


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and their peers, who have lowexpectations and dont eel sae.8

Te heightened anxiety comesduring a period in which,arguably, government has beenvery ambitious in seeking to

improve childrens lives witha remarkable number o newinitiatives and high-prolestatements o intent. Tis Labourgovernment has introduced aMinister or Children, YoungPeople and Families; ChildrensCommissioners or NorthernIreland, Wales, Scotland andEngland; and now amilieshave their own governmentdepartment and cabinet post aspart o the new Department orChildren, Schools and Families.At the same time the 2004Children Act and the EveryChild Matters agenda, alongwith its companion or youngpeople, Youth Matters, seeks toput childrens and young peopleswellbeing at the heart o areormed system o public servicedelivery.

With all this efort some successhas been achieved. Te numbero children living in poverty

is alling, overall educationalachievement is improving andkey indicators or teenagers, suchas smoking, under-18 conceptionrates and drug use, show adecline.9

Moreover, ne words10 have beenaccompanied by some resourcesor play too. For example, PlayEngland itsel was established in2006, with a ve-year remit topromote strategies or ree playand to create a lasting supportstructure or play providersin England, as part o the BigLottery Funds 155 millionChildrens Play initiative toencourage ree, mainly outdoor,play opportunities.11

However, there remains asignicant gap between theseimprovements in the liveso individual children andyoung people and wider publicperceptions o how childrenand young people are aring ingeneral. Tis pamphlet arguesthat one important reason orthis gap is that until now actionto improve the lives o childrenand young people has tendedto ocus on the institutional

At the time o writing thisintroduction the twentiethannual Playday has just takenplace. Te day is designed tocelebrate the right o children toplay outside. Tis years theme Our streets too! highlights how

children want and need to playin their local streets and have alegitimate right to be there.

A survey commissioned by PlayEngland or Playday reveals howunder threat this right is. Amongthose polled, 71 per cent o adultsplayed outside in the street orarea close to their homes everyday when they were childrenwhereas only 21 per cent ochildren do so today.1

Tis stark statistic does not standalone. Recent years have seen aremarkable rise in the attentionpaid to the issues o childrenand young people in publicspace. Media headlines, researchreports, policy statements and,indeed, young peoples ownvoices convey a strong messagethat all is not well.

Media headlines rom the lastyear have declared that the UKs

teenagers are the worst behavedin Europe,2 that childhood isnow considered toxic,3 andthat Britain has lost the art osocialising the young.4

Tese ares o alarm are given

substance by a growing numbero weighty policy reports. Techarity 4Children warns thatschool holiday misery loomsor millions o teenagers.5 Techair o the Commons PublicAccounts Committee (PAC)spoke out claiming that drunkenyobs were turning town centresinto no-go areas, and that anti-social youngsters were behavinglike an occupying army andbringing misery and despairto communities.6 Perhaps mostdamningly, the UK drew heavycriticism in a report by Unice,which placed Britain at thebottom o 21 developed countriesin a league table o childrenswellbeing.7 Responding to itsndings Al Aynsley-Green, theChildrens Commissioner, said:We are turning out a generationo young people who areunhappy, unhealthy, engaging inrisky behaviour, who have poorrelationships with their amily

Introduction


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spheres o home and school andindividualised approaches toimproving quality o lie. Whilesuch an approach has value italso has its limitations.

For quality o lie is not just

about individual success. Italso depends on the quality oand access to shared resources in other words the healtho the public realm. And herechildren and young peoplesufer rom a mix o invisibility,segregation and exclusion. Teyare, or example, invisible ineconomically dominated towncentre regeneration strategieswhich prioritise commercialinterests and uses; they aresegregated spatially, temporallyand by age into designated playareas and supervised activities;and nally, they ace exclusionrom public spaces and placesthrough a combination o adultears and complaints, legalcontrols and dispersal orders,and even high-tech tricks suchas the inamous sonic teenagedeterrent, the Mosquito.12

At a time when investment andinterest in the public realm is at

a historical high under the tag othe urban renaissance, childrenand young people are simply notpart o the script. For example,one study ound that ewer thanone in ve (17 per cent) youngpeople thought that their area

cares about its young people andalmost hal reported that thereare no places or young people togo in their neighbourhood.13

Te research undertaken orthis report across six diferentneighbourhoods suggests thatthe governments ambitionsto improve the wellbeing ochildren, and its aim to createsustainable communities, will allshort unless the needs o childrenand young people in theireveryday environment are takenseriously by all those designing,delivering and managing thepublic realm in its broadestsense.

Tis pamphlet also showswhere this is already happening.Across the country, children andadults are engaged in improvingplaygrounds, parks and streets tomake them more welcoming tochildren and young people. All


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densities, the dominance o thecar, and the spatial segmentationo towns and cities into diferentunctions.

Chapter 4 shows how the declinein childrens places in public is

not just a spatialissue, but isalso socially constituted: culturalattitudes to childhood and tochildren and young peopleactively restrict where childrencan go and what they can do.Tis chapter investigates thetension between the earorchildren and the ear ochildrenand young people, arguing thatboth narratives have combinedto diminish childrens reedom inpublic space.

Chapter 5 explores how the tasko improving the public realmor children and young people ishampered by a lack o awarenessabout how the decisions madeby proessionals when deliveringspaces impact on children.Tis chapter looks at some othe barriers to better practiceaced by proessionals such asplanners, town centre managersor highways o cers.

Part Tree: Where next?Chapter 6 concludes byproposing a series o practicalactions and rst steps to realisethe potential o shared spaces,or children and young peopleand or everyone who uses and

inhabits the public realm.

o the case studies, despite theiroen challenging circumstancesand starting positions, have somepart o the story r ight, and in thatsense this pamphlet is a storyo hope.

However, such good practiceswill all at unless our cities,towns and neighbourhoodscome to terms with the act thatchildren and young people havethe right to be seen and heardin public: to play, socialise and,above all, to be themselves. Teprize lies not just in terms oimproving the individual loto children and young people,but also in making better, moreimaginative, more human cities,towns and neighbourhoods.

Tis pamphlet is divided intothree sections, containing sixchapters overall:

Part One: Making the caseChapter 1 gives an overview othe benets o a good public

realm. It introduces a broadconception o public space, itsdiversity, its benets to childrenand how such benets are relatedto wider society.

Chapter 2 outlines how thepromise o the public realmcontrasts with the reality ochildrens experience in theireveryday built environment. Tischapter outlines the symptoms owhat has become a dysunctionalrelationship between childrenand young people and publicspace.

Part wo: Spaces, storiesand shaping placesChapter 3 shows how someo the problems that childrenexperience are part o a widerset o pressures impactingon the quality o the builtenvironment. Tese pressuresinclude increased building

his pamphlet


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the town centres o She eldand Maidstone, Heywood Parkin Bolton and Spa Fields inIslington, London. We workedtogether with researchers romFundamental ArchitecturalInclusion, based in Newham,

London, to speak to more than60 children and young peopleabout their local environment about what possibilities theirlocal public spaces gave themto play, about their desiresand needs, the obstacles theyperceive, the worries they haveand their ideas or improvement.

Te children were aged betweensix and 18 and they showedthe research team around theirlocalities on walking trips,marking inormation on localmaps and in reporting booklets,as well as describing theirexperiences in group discussions,individual interviews andthrough interviewing each other*.

Te case studies were notdesigned to cover the ull rangeo places in which childrenand young people experiencethe public realm. Te aimwas to start with the children

and identiy the spaces andplaces that were importantto them. Tese incorporateda diversity o localities withmixed demographic and spatialconditions, but it must berecognised that they do not

orm a comprehensive accounto all possible types o spaces,particularly in rural locations.

* throughout the pamphlet, all names ochildren and young people have beenchanged to ensure anonymity

Demos was commissioned byPlay England to investigatethe social and physical limitson childrens access to thepublic realm, and to addressthe wider social, cultural andpolitical context in which it is

being shaped. Tis pamphlet isthe outcome o a nine-monthinvestigation into the experienceso children and young peoplein the public realm alongwith research into the role oproessionals in shaping thoseexperiences.

Te research or this reportbegan with an initial stage obackground research, drawingon existing academic literature,statistical data and policydocuments. Te subsequentmethodology, approach andresearch questions were testedat a joint Demos / Play Englandseminar in January 2007, whichbrought together senior policy-makers, academics, public spaceexperts and practitioners romthe play and urban design sector.Te seminar and a series oexpert interviews preceding andollowing it provided invaluableeedback on our early ndings

and suggestions or urtherresearch (see Appendix 1).

Over the next our monthsDemos undertook a serieso six case studies across theUK to investigate childrens

and young peoples everydayexperiences in the public realm,as well as speaking to a largeand diverse group o adultswho are proessionally involvedin creating, maintaining andmanaging elements o the publicrealm the place-shapers. Moreinormation on the range oproessionals interviewed can beound in Appendix 2.

Finally, in May 2007 Demosconvened a group o seniorplace-making proessionals roma wide variety o backgroundsat a place-shapers orum. Teaim o the orum was to discussthe case study ndings and localanalysis, and connect them tonationwide challenges in policy-making or children and youngpeople in the public realm.

Te six case study locations werethe Upper Horeld estate inBristol, West View in Fleetwood,

Methodology


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Part One

Making the case


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Te young of all creatures cannot be quiet in their bodies or in theirvoices; they are always wanting to move and cry out; some leapingand skipping, and overflowing with sportiveness and delight atsomething.

Plato14

States Parties recognize the right of the child to rest and leisure, toengage in play and recreational activities appropriate to the age of thechild and to participate freely in cultural life and the arts.

Article 31 o the UN Convention on the Rights o the Child15

Childrens play has always been a powerful agent of social and culturalchange. Yet, frankly, until relatively recently it has been a secret agent,undervalued by politicians and policy makers alike. . . play is socentral to what we need to achieve across Government: (reducing)obesity; better public space; safer streets; the respect agenda. . .

David Lammy, Minister or Culture, 200616

Te public realm

Te reedom o children and young people to roam around,to play independently and to discover the world is crucial totheir development and happiness. Much o this happens in theprivate domain such as the home and other amily situations,or in institutional settings like the school or the sports club. Asignicant portion, however, takes place in public spaces romthe oraging adventures o a day in the park to a simple walk toschool. Because o the importance o this process o discoveryand development, the way that children experience the publicrealm, and how they are treated in it, is an integral part o theirwellbeing.

Te benets o a good public realm or children and youngpeople are part o the benets it gives the rest o society. Whenit unctions well, public space is a ree shared resource or all todraw on, a realm or everyday sociability, and a sae setting or

01. Te promise of the public realm to children and young people

01. he promise of thepublic realm to childrenand young people

Part OneMaking the case

25


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public realm. It explores the potential or a better relationshipbetween children and place, and between children and otherpeople. Te prize lies not just in creating a public realm that canmore ully support the wellbeing o children, but in creatingplaces that are better or everyone.

Children, young people and the public realm

Children in cities need a variety of places in which to play and tolearn. Tey need, among other things, opportunities for all kinds ofsports and exercise and physical skills. . . However, at the same time,they need an unspecialized outdoor home base from which to play, tohang around in, and to help form their notions of the world.

Jane Jacobs19

With limited independence both nancial and in termso transport children and young people depend on the publicrealm more than other groups. Alongside home and school,public spaces and places are the mainstay o childrens everydaylives. Crucially, the public realm is one o the arenas or childrenand young people to engage in the dening elements o youth: itis where they play.

Play can happen in the traditional setting o the playground.But, play means more than swings and slides. It is better denedas activities which children choose to undertake when not beingtold what to do by others.20 In other words, it is what childrendo every day, alone or with riends, and in inormal yet oencomplex games. Play involves in-between activities and in-between places, as well as structured activities in designatedlocations. It is central to a childs healthy development, but atthe same time it is not something that can be instrumentalisedor rationalised it is not the behaviour characteristic o thepurposeul adult.


ace-to-ace interaction between strangers.

Although oen associated with great civic squares andboulevards, public space is also about the small and the inormal,encompassing a diverse range o spaces, such as streets andpavements, parks, community gardens, allotments even cul-de-sacs. A healthy public realm can support an equally diverserange o activities rom mass political demonstrations, to themost mundane activities such as waiting or a bus in comort,or watching the world go by. Indeed, the very vitality o a public

space depends on how it responds to the widest range o peoplesneeds, desires and aspirations, and how it acilitates peoplescreativity and imagination to engage with it.

In plural, democratic societies, the public realm, more thananything else, maniests what Doreen Massey has called ourthrowntogetherness, providing touchpoints rom which trust candevelop across the diversity in our cities and towns.17 Te valueo a well-unctioning public realm lies primarily in its potentialto create these bonds between citizens, across social cleavages,enabling relevant links with public institutions and communityresources. Tis is why the public realm is so important to peopleswellbeing: as a shared resource, it can sustain and improve peoplesquality o lie, providing the setting or new experiences, humanexchange and the creation o value in ways that are not possible inpeoples private lives alone. Far rom being something prescribedby policy-makers and urban academics, everyone cares about thepublic space around them. In a recent study, 85 per cent o peoplepolled even said that the quality o public space has a directimpact on their lives and the way they eel.18

Public space, then, can ofer something o a barometer o thestate o social relations within an individual neighbourhood andsociety overall by revealing how people relate, and are expectedto relate, to each other. Tis pamphlet maps how children arecurrently treated and what role they are permitted to play in the

26

Seen and Heard Reclaiming the public realm with children and young people Part OneMaking the case

27


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Figure 1. Quality-of-life framework

Source: G Tomas and G Hocking, Other Peoples Children: Why

their quality o lie is our concern (London: Demos, 2003).

Te rest o this chapter ocuses on the specic benets o ahealthy and accessible public realm or children. Figure 1 ofersa guiding hand in showing how quality o lie or children andyoung people depends on a range o actors, some o which aretangible and readily measurable, some o which are less so. Whatwill become clear is how the benets o a healthy public realm aremultiple, cutting across the individual and the collective interest.Good public spaces or children tend to:

support active liestylessupport personal development and emotional wellbeingacilitate learning about wider society


Individual standard of living

Happiness and emotional wellbeing

Money

Good health

Protection

Good parenting

Freedom / independenceBalanced emotional development

Shared resources

rust and inclusion

Public space

Clean air

Facilities

Support / social networks

for children and parentsIdentity and belonging

Education

ANGIBLE

INANGIBLE

INDIVIDUAL COLLECIVE

As play is about learning the opportunities, limits andgames o our social lives, some o the places play happens canbe very public rom parks to shopping malls. Interaction withadults can be a crucial part o this; they ofer saety, caution,encouragement and, on occasion, admonishment. But equally,places that are away rom the gaze o adults take on greatimportance in a childs lie world, such as the local woods, densand hideaways discovered and constructed in neglected or secretplaces with riends or alone.

What is important across all thesespaces is the sense o agency that spacesand places aford children and youngpeople. Can they help shape them andadapt them or their own purposes? Forexample, the ormal garden turned into aootball pitch; guardrails into a landscapeor skateboarding; tree trunks into astage set or a play. Tis adaptability othe public realm to childrens diferentand changing needs is a critical part oits quality and ability to acilitate a rangeo experiences and possibilities which inturn are important actors shaping andsupporting childrens quality o lie. Asa 2003 Demos report argues: Quality olie is not just about individual success.It all depends on the quality o sharedresources, or the commons, on whichchildren rely.21

28


29


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as language and literary skills. Tey also learn to be creative andexible, negotiate risk and build sel-esteem, develop a notion oidentity, and develop condence and a sense o responsibility, aswell as their interests in particular aspects o the world outside.25

Trough childrens and young peoples active engagementwith the physical environment and people around them, playand learning can be seen as inseparably together, with the builtenvironment outside the home taking on increased importance aschildren grow in age.

Social learning

Te process o learning happens in the creative tensionbetween autonomy and connectedness and is embedded in theidea o play as children choosing what they want to do, howthey want to do it and when to stop and try something else. Asopposed to more ormal settings or education, play has little orno adult-dened curriculum or goals.

Te process is deeply social, as children learn rom andwith not just their ormal guardians parents, carers andteachers but also with their peers and others in society. In thewords oPlanning or Play, much o childrens play is likely to bespontaneous and unpredictable, although there is a place or morestructured activities too where children choose them; adults roleshould be to enable, not direct.26

Te orging and maintenance o social relationships oeninvolves debate, conict and negotiation, a degree o whichshould be accepted and encouraged as part o the learningprocess.27 However, it can also be marked by bullying, and thedi cult discovery o prejudice and social divisions. Childrenin vulnerable groups such as those with disabilities or romminority ethnic backgrounds can experience these in particularlynegative ways.


encourage positive attitudes to nature and sustainabledevelopmentoster citizenship and participation in decision-making.

Te nal section highlights why it is not just individualchildren who benet rom a healthy public realm there arecollective benets or the wider community too.

Health

Te public realm is a place where children can be physicallyactive. Given the chance, children are naturally active and willrun around, hide, seek, hop and skip wherever they can. Childrenand young people are said to need at least 60 minutes o medium-intensity physical activity each day.22 Research shows that playand inormal recreation is one o the most efective ways to meetthis target or children. One recent study ound that unstructuredplay ranked second in terms o caloric intensity and concludedthat walking and playing provide children with more physicalactivity than most other activities.23

Unlike sport, play does not require signicant levels o skilland is less centred on competition and winning.

Child development and mental health

Play perorms a signicant role in child development andmental health. From their very early years, children use playto explore the most undamental concepts o sel, other andthe world around them. Teir learning takes place throughan incredible diversity in situations and experiences, throughexploring diferent materials, developing diferent bodilyskills, learning how to be attentive, expressing emotions andexperiencing peoples reactions.24

Trough this process, a healthy child will move romsupport to independence, and while learning basic skills such

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remark that the success o a particular public space is not solelyin the hands o the architect, urban designer or town planner;it relies also on people adopting, using and managing the space people make places, more than places make people.33 Tis isequally true or children in countless inormal and ormalways, children are part o what creates places. In Te Child inthe City,34 Colin Ward sketches his ideal o encouraging ullintegration o children into community afairs so that adults andchildren alike live compatibly in a shared city. Oen, childrenare an insightul resource or understanding neighbourhood and

community issues, and there are clear benets or tapping intosuch knowledge.

For children and young people, learning the game oparticipation in the worlds afairs and about the importanceo democratic responsibility occurs only through practicalparticipation. Involving children and young people actively indecision-making roles can benet the local environment as wellas strengthen childrens sense o belonging to a locality and alsobe an important step towards developing competent participatingcitizens.

Wider community benefits

Just as there are benets o drawing on young peoples localknowledge, there are wider benets that radiate rom a goodpublic realm or children to the wider community. Contraryto what is suggested by the dominant media discourse, placequality or children and place quality or the rest o society arenot opposed. A space that is good or children will oen begood or adults too. Among the benets o such a space are thepotential to grow local social contacts and trust, to integratedisparate generations and communities, and to grow participativeneighbourhood processes more generally. Additionally, a publicrealm that is healthy or children could help counter some o the


Part o the value o the public realm lies in the everydaysociability that takes place here, in which we can learn to livewith others through seeing diferent norms and ways o behaving.Richard Sennett sees the value o the public realm as being a placein which strangers can meet in saety, which is secure enough orpeople to take the risk o engaging with the unamiliar. 28 Play alsoprovides an important context in which children can counterthe efects o poverty and deprivation, through potentiallystimulating and welcoming environments. It provides a setting inwhich children rom diferent backgrounds can interact on equal

terms.29

Childrens agency in the built environment

As children and young people explore the outside world,they oen build intimate relationships with the places thatsurround them. Tey develop detailed knowledge, oenintertwining their own identity with that o the places they spendtime in. Tis active relationship between children and youngpeople and places provides an important oundation or seeingchildren not merely as objects o adults care and protection, butrather as citizens with a eeling o ownership and belonging withan active stake in a locality.30

For example, environmental campaigners argue that goodgreen spaces do not just have positive psychological efects andevident health benets in countering the impacts o pollution.Tere is also a lasting and important link between youngpeoples experiences and perceptions o their environment,and the attitudes they develop towards it.31 As such, play in thelocal environment enables children to develop the habits andcommitments that will enable them to address environmentalproblems in the uture.32

Speaking generally, Ken Worpole and Katherine Knox

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Playful places

Increasingly it is recognised that the distinction betweenchildrens playul behaviour and serious adult behaviour isa alse one, imprinted in societys consciousness in ways thatare damaging to adult health. Brian Sutton-Smith, the dean oPlay Studies at the University o Pennsylvania, argues that theopposite o play isnt work. Its depression. o play is to act outand be wilul, exultant and committed, as i one is assured o onesprospects.40 Te cultural historian Johan Huizinga, who coined

the term Homo Ludens, similarly argued that playul behaviouris key to human culture play is not just mindless entertainment,but an essential way o dealing with the world and with others,rom seemingly aimless wanderings through the city to the ritualso love and riendship.41

As writer and social commentator Pat Kane says: Tis isplay as the great philosophers understood it: the experienceo being an active, creative and ully autonomous person.42In contemporary societies, which value creativity as a crucialunderpinning o the economy, and in which leisure time andsel-realisation are more widely available to most than ever beore,such considerations are increasingly powerul.43 Public spacesthat are adaptable, that provide inspiration and stimulus orexploration, games and other non-regulated behaviour, thereorebecome even more important to sustain the needs o societyat large.

Public spaces have always been at the core o the debate owhat a good society ofers to its citizens. Te question o whetherwe can make the cities, towns and villages we want has alwaysbeen the subject o intense debate among those thinking aboutthe built environment. Normative visions o what constitutes agood city or good town guide the large and small interventionsin the spaces we use everyday and we need to continually reect


negative behaviours that surveys consistently show people areconcerned about, as well as meeting a deeper and largely unmetneed in society, namely or playul behaviour beyond the years ochildhood and adolescence.

A clear example emergesout o research by DonaldAppleyard, a researcher atthe University o Caliornia,Berkeley, who investigated

the social contact betweenpeople living on three streetswith diferent levels o cartra c intensity one o themain detractors rom qualitypublic space or children.35Te research showed that

the neighbourliness on less tra cked streets was signicantlyhigher. Research or the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, whichevaluated an intergenerational initiative in which people romdiferent neighbourhoods collaboratively debated play and publicspace, came to a similar conclusion. While working together,divisions between diferent generations were broken downand understanding grew.36 Tis is an important outcome incontemporary Britain, where successive social value surveys showthat trust in society is generally (though not always locally) indecline,37 where attitudes to children are requently negative, andwhere intergenerational contact is exceptionally low.38

Moreover, the same JRF research ound additional benetso the process. Participants reported that their condence in theircontacts within the neighbourhood and with policy-makers hadgrown signicantly, citing newly learned skills and sel-esteem.In other words, the citizenship learning processes that benetchildren are not irrelevant to the wider community.39

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02. he everyday

reality

on them to understand our places as they are, and imagine themas they could be.

At diferent times, children have explicitly been put at theheart o such an imagination or example in Amsterdam in thelate 1940s and 1950s, when the architect Aldo van Eijk questionedassumptions about the unctionalist machine cities proposed byhis Modernist peers, and created a dense network o play spacesin leover spaces across the city.44 Or more recently, when inBogot, the conict-ridden and polluted capital o Colombia,

the city embarked on an ambitious series o projects or parks,public transport and childrens play spaces, putting themsymbolically in prominent spaces in the city as well as dottedaround neighbourhoods. When asked about his policies, EnriquePenalosa, mayor o Bogot, amously said that i we can builda successul city or children, we will have a successul city oreveryone.45

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enough.46 Tere are long-running problems with litter, gra ti andanti-social behaviour, and many o the neighbours in West Viewat times eel rustrated or threatened by the presence o childrenon the street.

Such ears and rustrations rom children and adults are thereality in many places in Britain today. Te research undertakenor this pamphlet reveals children are repeatedly let down by theplaces they live in. For diferent reasons, and in diferent ways,children and young people experience the negative impacts o a

public realm that is neglected, unwelcoming, unsae or downrighthostile.

In the short term their sel-esteem is undermined byunwelcoming and uncared-or places, creating eelings opowerlessness and disrespect. In the longer term, by inhibitingthe reedom to explore the cities, towns and neighbourhoods theylive in, it endangers children and young peoples health and theirsocialisation into wider society.

What children and young people told us

Te estate

Interviewer How would you describe this place?

Mandy When were having people visiting like you it makes youfeel like its not a very nice place.

Abbie Its a horrible feeling that people chuck stuff. I mean itsonly about two quid to take it to the tip.

Interviewer What do you think of all the streets with the litter on?

Ben Disgraceful.

02. Te everyday reality

A lot of people are getting in trouble cos theres nowhere to go. . .theyre hanging around on the street. . . and theyre like making theirneighbours mad cos theres too much noise. . . weve got nothing todo round here. . . theres gangs of kids on the street all the time.

Hannah, 17, West View estate, Fleetwood

Hannah is making a point which is specic to her ownneighbourhood but her experience resonates with young peoplearound the country. When places let young people down, itimpacts directly on their behaviour, and by extension on theexperience o other users who share the space. A dysunctionalpublic realm displays a range o symptoms and this chapterwill explore how children experience those symptoms in theireveryday lives.

Hannah lives in a ward which is among the top 10 per centmost deprived in the UK. Tere is high unemployment ollowingthe closures o the local shing industry and petrochemicalplant, and the area is isolated geographically. Speaking aboutthe provision or children and young people on the estate,one proessional admitted that in many areas it just isnt good

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Interviewer What would you do to help out?

Nick Clean up the mess. Keep it all nice.

Like many postwar social housing estates, the West Viewestate has ample open space. However, most o it is run down.Across the country, the open spaces o housing estates are oennot considered to constitute public space as such, and thereorethey receive less attention than other public spaces. Yet theyare hugely important to local children and young people, who

experience the consequences o the decline on their doorstep.Tis requently compounds other problems that are concentratedon social housing estates, such as deprivation and ill health. Laterin the report we will see how the residents o West View tackledthe poverty o their shared space, starting with their collectiverecognition that the local environment was shaping childrensbehaviour and impacting on their wellbeing.

Te park

Deepah Its a good place to be, but its dirty.

Jenny It needs washing.

Gareth here was this thing where you could slide from one sideto the other that was really cool. . . but they burnt it lastyear and now you cant go any more. And there was alsothis big sandcastle place. But they took that away.

Dan I dont like this bin. Its been burnt, its sharp.

We visited Heywood Park in Bolton, a run-down spacewhich still played an important part o many childrens lives inthe area. As is oen the case, the children there were among theercest critics o littering and run-down acilities. In Heywoodthey particularly worried about its state o repair and the constantvandalism.

02. Te everyday realityPart OneMaking the case

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Te street

A newly designed residential street in Bristol should alsobe providing children with a range o opportunities or play andsocialising. Instead they are araid o cars, and many nd theirstreets barren and uninspiring:

Tim I hate the cars cos they come flying around the corner.

Debby here is nothing to do here cos they took away the

bench.

Tim All the cars parked around here should be in the privatecar parks but they dont bother because theyre too lazy.

Interviewer If there werent any cars here what would this space begood for?

Tim For football.

(many agree)

Katie I think this street is boring, I mean nothings happening.

Debbie Its a lot of concrete.

Te everyday disappointment

As we see in these examples taken rom our case studies,too oen the opportunities aforded to us by public space arelost to cars, litter or restrictions on reedom. It is these everydayexperiences that afect children. Crucially, this has consequencesnot only or adults and young peoples experiences o the placearound them, but or the relationships between adults andyoung people.


Te town centre

In She eld, the Peace Gardens would seem to provide a raregood example o a space that can be shared by amilies, youngchildren and teenagers. But positive physical space does notalways translate into positive experiences or young people. Fromone group we met we heard how oen they ound themselvesbeing moved on by city centre staf, regarded as suspect or madeto eel unwelcome simply or gathering in groups.

Robin hey should look at it in a positive way instead ofnegatively.

Lewis Everybody is different and I think they should look moreinto that and not just oh cos youre a teenager.

Interviewer How might that work?

Erin alk to them. Stuff that weve been doing thats in thenewspaper, they could look at that.

Lewis hey could see we are quite mature.

Youth worker Could invite them to something, to come to apresentation. . .

Ryan I dont think theyd be interested really cos theyvealready made up their mind.

Ruby Maybe they should be made to go on training. We coulddeliver the training.

Lewis hey could come over and talk to us and find out whatwere doing before getting us to move on.

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In 1993, a comparative study o German and English schoolchildrens travel patterns ound that nearly a third o Englishchildren in the survey were collected rom school by car almostour times the proportion o the same age group o Germanchildren.51 More recently, Department o Health data indicatedthat the number o 510-year-olds who walk to school ell rom61 per cent in 1992/93 to 52 per cent in 2002/03.

Children play outside less than they want to, and the amounto time they spend outside is declining. A survey o 1000 children

in Leicester ound that 94 per cent o children wanted to spendmore time out o the house.52 Research also ound that 67 per cento children aged between 8 and 10 and 24 per cent o 1114-year-olds never go the park or shops alone.53 In another survey, 44 percent o parents reported that their children never or hardly everplay outside the home without adult supervision.54

A wealth o statistics indicate how closely the retreat rompublic space correlates with adults ears or the saety o children.A Barnardos study highlighted the result o such ears: 60 percent o parents polled reported being very worried when theirchildren were playing out. Stranger danger was reported tobe the biggest worry (66 per cent), ollowed by danger romtra c (60 per cent). Most respondents thought that theirneighbourhood was unsae or children, with 31 per cent rating itvery unsae and 39 per cent airly unsae.55 Recently the ChildrensSociety ound that some 43 per cent o 1148 adults surveyed saidthat children should not be allowed out alone with riends untilthey were 14 years old.56

Not only do children go outside less, but once they are outsideoen they are not allowed to do what theyd like. In one nationalstudy 45 per cent o 500 children interviewed said that they werenot allowed to play with water, 36 per cent were not allowed to climbtrees, 27 per cent were not allowed to play on climbing equipment,and 23 per cent were not allowed to ride bikes or use skateboards. 57


In No Particular Place to Go, Ken Worpole highlights thatin the UK, two-thirds o 911-year-olds are dissatised with thequality o outdoor play acilities where they live. For 1516-year-olds this rose to 81 per cent, higher than any other Europeancountry.47 While there are numerous pockets o excellent spacesand creatively designed playgrounds used heavily by children, itneeds to be recognised that childrens lived experience o theirneighbourhood oen alls ar short o that o their counterpartsaround the world.

Additionally, childrens experiences o the public realmare not equal across the UK. As in Fleetwood, children living insome o the most economically deprived areas are particularlyvulnerable to a poverty o experience in the built environment.Hence they sufer rom double deprivation: an unequaldistribution o both private wealth and public outdoor resources.One recent study ound that deprived areas tend to have a muchworse public environment than more a uent neighbourhoods with more litter, requent y-tipping problems and worsemaintenance o green space.48 Moreover, they are oen moredensely populated than average, with a heavier dependence onand use o what public space is available, making them moresusceptible to environmental wear and tear.49 Tese spaces canalso be more dangerous. Research has shown that children in the10 per cent most deprived wards in England are more than threetimes as likely to be pedestrian casualties compared with those inthe least deprived 10 per cent.50

Te retreat from public space

As children and their parents become disillusioned withthe quality and saety o the public realm, they retreat rom it.Te overall trends in Britain point towards less outdoor play,an increasing reliance on private transport, increased parentalanxiety and less reedom or children and young people.

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Consequences for children

In spring 2007 a Unice report on childrens wellbeing indeveloped countries provoked a national debate about whetherthe UK was ailing its children. It made or stark reading. TeUK ranked bottom o the table, below 21 other industrialisedcountries. Approximately 80 per cent o young people considertheir health to be good or excellent in every OECD countryexcept the UK. Over 20 per cent in the UK rate their wellbeing asonly air or poor, more than any other o the OECD countries. 58

Although there are many reasons or physical and mentalhealth problems, they are connected to the retreat rom the publicrealm. In 2001, research published in the British Medical Journalconcluded that the main solution to the growing childhoodobesity epidemic was to turn of the V and promote playing. . . .Opportunities or spontaneous play may be the only requirementthat young children need to increase their physical activity.59

Te obesity crisis is now one o the most publicised threatsto the nations health. Te statistics on young people and obesityare especially startling: 20 per cent o 4-year-olds are overweight,while 8.5 per cent o 6-year-olds and 15 per cent o 15-year-olds are obese.60 Te government suggests that schools shouldtimetable at least two hours per week to be spent on physicalactivity. However, this in itsel is not enough to meet the totalrecommended levels o 3060 minutes o activity per day howthey spend the rest o their time matters just as much. Moreover,the evidence indicates that adult patterns o exercise are setearly on in lie, meaning that the statistics on childrens healthare a particular cause or concern when it comes to the uture othe nations health. Te direct nancial cost o inactivity to theNHS is around 1 billion annually, with an additional cost to theeconomy estimated at around 2.3 to 2.6 billion; with currenttrends such gures are likely to rise urther.61

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think will most improve their area, ahead even o health andeducation.65 In a MORI survey 45 per cent o respondentsthought anti-social behaviour orders (ASBOs) were a good wayo dealing with teenagers who are responsible or anti-socialbehaviour.66

David Lloyd George once said that the right to play is achilds rst claim on the community. Play is natures training orlie. No community can inringe on that right without doing deepand enduring harm to the minds and bodies o its citizens.67 As

the evidence stacks up that the UK is ailing to uphold this rightand the impacts are elt on children and communities, thereis an urgent need to understand the systematic, cultural andinstitutional actors which have led to this situation. Only thencan a diferent way orward be mapped out. Te second part othis pamphlet picks up this challenge.


In extreme cases what is known as play deprivation mayoccur. Tis was described by Bob Hughes in 2003 as the result oa chronic lack o sensory interaction with the world: a orm osensory deprivation.62 A lack o interaction with the wider worldhas proound implications or mental health, particularly or themost vulnerable children. Early studies in this area ound thatirrespective o demography, a child deprived o play experiencesis more likely to become highly violent and anti-social.63

Many o the responses to ill-health o young people and

children have tended to ocus either on the elimination o bads,such as limiting advertising to children and restricting the saleso atty oods. Alternatively they ocus on dealing with the suracesymptoms o the problem. Tere have, or example, been manyschemes to increase the number o children walking to school.But these can place excessive emphasis on changing the behaviouro young people when it might be as important to recognise thelimitations placed on them by their immediate environment. Forexample, walking bus schemes will collect groups o childrento walk to school together and with adult guidance, but suchschemes are unlikely to address the reasons why children wouldhave stopped walking alone in the rst place.

Public worries

Britains anti-social behaviour anxiety is one clear symptomo the dysunctional relationship between young people andpublic space. Although orders can be made against any personwho has acted in an anti-social manner, nearly hal have beenmade against people under 18.64

Tis orms part o a wider trend whereby many o theactivities o young people are deemed to be deviant or evencriminal. In local satisaction surveys, taking action on youngpeople now regularly tops the poll in terms o what people

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Part wo

Spaces, storiesand shapingplaces


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03. Pressures on ourbuilt environment

Te rst part o this pamphlet set out what can be gainedrom a healthy public realm or children and how what iscurrently on ofer alls ar short o that promise. Part wo seeksto understand why such a dysunctional relationship betweenchildren and places has developed. Tree issues are important:

Pressures on our built environment

Densication, the continued dominance o cars and

assumptions about the unctions o places determine the look andeel o the built environment. Tis chapter will argue that thesepressures have an oen overlooked negative impact on childrenand young people.

Attitudes towards children

oo oen public discourses about children ocus exclusivelyon them, rather than acknowledging the central role adultattitudes play. Tis chapter investigates the tension betweenthe earorchildren and the ear ochildren and young people,arguing that both narratives limit childrens access to and use othe public realm.

Professional practices

Beore change can happen in the way the public realm isdesigned, delivered and managed, we need to understand thebarriers rom the perspect ive o the wide number o proessionsinvolved in making places. Te di culties o collaboration andengaging with children meaningully, coupled with the pressuresspecic to particular proessionals, mean that creative, playulplace-making is still a proound challenge or many.


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Te built environment and young people

Te experiences in Bristol chime with the broader story ourban regeneration.

In 2003, Stuart Lipton, ormer chairman o CABE, arguedthat we are the ourth wealthiest nation in the world, and yetwe have chosen or a long time to dress ourselves in rags. As asociety we seem now to accept the poverty o our streets andspaces.68 Tat has not gone unnoticed. Indeed, as Steven Johnson

observes: Tere are ew ideas more widely received these daysthan the premise that traditional urban environments thekind with bustling ootpaths, public squares, distinctive localavour, elaborate street culture, and a diverse intermingling opeople have become an endangered species.69 In response tosuch a discourse o loss, the importance o improving publicspace has caught policy-makers attention. Urban regeneration ishigh on the agenda across many parts o the country includinghousing estates, in town centres, in parks. Oen, it is matched bysignicant investment rom both the public and private sector.

But the question remains whether this increased investmentin places is beneting children. Across the six case studiesundertaken by Demos and Fundamental Architectural Inclusionas part o this research there was this powerul common story:the renewed ocus on place-making and regeneration does notnecessarily benet children and young people. As one participantin the Demos place-shapers orum told us, childrens problemsare subsumed by the bigger public realm challenge.

Tis chapter will talk o the consequences o that biggerpublic realm challenge and how it relates to young people. Tecase studies suggest three main issues that negatively afectchildren:

Te quantity o public space that children can readily access isdiminishing.

03. Pressures on our built environment

Te redevelopment o the Upper Horeld estate, to thenorth o Bristol, can be considered a success. Concrete cancer wasdiscovered in the housing stock there in the late 1980s, orcingthe council to redevelop the entire 600-house estate. Facing tightnancial constraints and an increasingly sceptical community,the council ormulated a novel housing association scheme aimedat overcoming the chronic lack o external public unding. Teland was handed over to the newly ormed Bristol CommunityHousing Foundation (BCHF). BCHF sold hal the land to aprivate developer and used the proceeds to pay or the renewal o

social housing while allowing the developer to build housing orthe private sales market.

Te result is a new community o 900 new-build units (over1000 when completed), around hal o which are private and halsocial rented. Its innovative genesis and management securedthe scheme top prize at the Guardian Public Services Awards inDecember 2006.

But it is telling that even here, at this point o triumph, thestory or children and young people is less upliing. Althoughthere is a creative street design that aims to avour childrensreedom to play on the street, the children arent able to use thespace in the way they want to. As one o them, im, put it: One ous could be the next England player but we wont know becausewe cant practice. Teres nowhere to play ootball.

wo announcementson the noticeboard o theBCHF o ce communicatesthe predicament o thelives o young people inthe neighbourhood: oneannounces evening activitiesorganised by the BCHF; theother is a police dispersalorder.

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creating separate playgrounds. However,while the physical design permitted play, thecultural and social attitudes o adult residentsin practice prevented the streets being usedor play. As such, the efective amount oplayable space in the estate has declineddramatically.

Te density o new-build residentialdevelopments is on the rise across the UK

not just because o cost considerations.It has become a hallmark o the urbanrenaissance agenda and new housebuildingdrive as presented in the SustainableCommunities plan.73 Densities or newresidential developments have increased

rom 25 dwellings per hectare in 1997 to 40 dwellings per hectarein 2005.74

Te density agenda has an environmental rationale: buildingin higher densities preserves open land and enables increasedprovision o local services and public transport, hence reducingthe need to use a car. Higher densities are also highly protableor housebuilders. Te Land Registry gures rom April 2007show that house prices rose 9.1 per cent between 2006 and 2007,75continuing a long-term upward trend. One survey ound that theprice o land rose by around 800 per cent in the 20 years to 2003.76It is in this climate that developers have been keen to jump on thedensity bandwagon en masse.

Density in itsel is not the problem; high-density housingcan contain excellent places or children. However, all too oenit leads directly to loss o green space. Te National PlayingFields Association ound in 2005 that as many as our out o tenschool and community playing elds in England have been lostsince 199277 sold of to make way or housing to pay or schoolrebuilding or other urban development.


Te quality o public space design, delivery and managementrestricts childrens reedom and use o space.Te current dominance o a user hierarchy either explicit orimplicit in spaces and places marginalises children vis--visother uses and users.

No space to go

With the UK embarking on a massive national

housebuilding programme, the dynamics and pressures onsocial relations in the estate o Upper Horeld are revealing.As a high-density, low-rise, mixed-income housing estate, theestate is representative o many o the UKs new residentialneighbourhoods. How children are here has resonance andlearning possibilities or other new communities like it.

A community development worker or the Upper HoreldCommunity rust, a local residents association, begins to explainthe problem: Te density o the new estate was a key concernrom the start. Tere used to be a little green space called thetip; it was used by the primary school . . . that land was lost. . . now there is just concrete, or the schoolyard, and in theneighbourhood.70

At the centre o the story o Upper Horeld are thedi culties the council had in nding money to und theregeneration. o make the project viable, density had to increaseby a actor o 1.5 and there was no room to negotiate. OonaGoldsworthy, BCHF chie executive, explains: Te margins werereally tight. Wed had years o ailing to make the project happen.In the end, we had to just get this built.71 Although there werediferent design options, this density was a given.

Coincident with these economic and planning pressureswas an approach to the layout based on Home Zone principles,72designed to make the streets themselves playable, instead o

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Tis loss o playable space is particularly problematic inareas with a relatively high number o children. June Barnes,chie executive o East Tames Group Housing Association,sees the same problem: Hyper-dense housing is an issue. oooen these places are internally overcrowded, are built withoutbalconies, and open spaces are limited in such projects plus, theopen spaces that are there, are oen exclusive.78 She emphasisesthereore that, contrary to the current trend or denser anddenser projects, a greater diversity o types o new developmentshould be encouraged, including building in lower densities. For

the same reason, a study by the London chapter o the NationalHousing Federation recommends working towards maximumchild densities per estate to ensure residents quality o lie.79

Te quality deficit

Developers will make big profits on anything with four walls and aroof at the moment, because of the state of the UK housing market.

Participant, Demos place-shapers orum

Making space or children is not just an issue o quantiyingavailable space; young peoples problems are equally linkedto the quality o spaces. As one study put it, the worse a localenvironment looks, the less able children are to play reely.80Teoretically accessible space becomes unusable i it isunattractive or eels unsae. In that context, green space managersare being orced into trade-ofs between quantity and quality.For example in Bolton one green space manager advocatedthe selling of o open space, and even playgrounds: Tere aremany without any play value. Tey are in the wrong place, badlymaintained, dangerous. I we sold them of and got the money,we could actually increase the quality o places or young oneshere.81 Experience elsewhere, however, reveals how di cult it isto ring-ence money rom selling of green space or public realmimprovements, with monies tending to be recycled into generallocal authority spending.

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Play space as aerthought

But the quality problem is not just the result o lack omaintenance. An additional problem is the poor quality o muchnew urban development. An example rom new housebuildingmakes this clear: in 2006 the Commission or Architecture andthe Built Environment (CABE) published evaluations o newhousing schemes across the country. Te research ound thatonly 18 per cent o newbuild earned a design rating o good orvery good, with the vast majority being assessed as average (ie

mediocre 53 per cent) or, in the case o 29 per cent, so poorthat they should never have been given planning permission.86In particular the research ound that schemes requently had apoorly structured layout, leading to a poor quality streetscape,a lack o distinction between public and private realms, and adevelopment that was di cult to navigate, with . . . dominantroads and poorly integrated car parking, and public open spacewas oen poorly designed or maintained.

Within such low-quality developments, play space is oneo the rst elements to sufer. Playgrounds, or example, are anaerthought in the urban development process, included onlyto satisy planning conditions. As one local authority o cerrevealed:

When developers build out a scheme,they have to stick their equipmentshed somewhere, usually close tothe main road for access. Whenthey are all done, that bit of leftoverland becomes the playground often in the worst possible position.Tats why we are not enthusiasticabout developers doing their ownplaygrounds on site because theyare useless.87


Te unding issue

In the early 1990s, Heywood Park in Bolton was a agshipplay environment. With the needs o disabled children inmind, a sensory garden was created in one part o the park:a groundbreaking example o an inclusive play garden, withull disabled access and innovative play equipment. Despite itsrelatively small size and location in an otherwise unremarkableBolton neighbourhood, with low-rise houses mixed with oldcotton mills and newer industrial estates, amilies would come to

Heywood Park rom miles away and rom surrounding towns.

Aer the rst ew years, however, the park went into decline.Fieen years later, only the sturdy German-made responsivesoundscape remains o the original garden. Te owerbeds areempty and there are signs o recent res. With its deserted paths,the ormer play garden has the eel o a disused, unwelcomingspace. A new playground has been built next to it, attached toa council-run play centre but, as detailed below, this too isexperiencing problems.

Much o this is down to the lack o ongoing unding ormaintenance, as the manager responsible or Heywood Park said:Lots o it comes down to money. We still ace year on year cuts.82Tat story resonates across Britain. Despite their importance tothe quality o lie and vitality o our communities, the last decadeshave seen dramatic cuts in expenditure on parks and publicspaces, which are now estimated to be in the region, cumulatively,o 1.3 billion.83 Investment in urban parks and open spacesdropped rom 44 per cent o local authority spending in 1976/77to 31 per cent by 1998/99. An audit by the Policy Studies Instituterevealed that ewer than one in ve o all parks is in goodcondition.84 Only recently has the nationwide decline in undingbegun to be reversed, but it is acknowledged that this reversal isnot yet su cient to make up or the structural and accumulatedneglect o the past.85

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the trend towards designated, targeted playgrounds or a narrowage range is problematic. As Peter Lipman, rom the sustainabletransport charity Sustrans, says: Te ocus on playgrounds is anadmission o deeat you have to look at the entire streetscape,the sort o spaces that everyone uses.89 im Gill, ormer directoro the Childrens Play Council, calls this playable space spacethat acilitates play, rather than prescribing any particular use, asa springy chicken does.

Tis is the central challenge o children and the public

realm: to what extent is the public realm as a whole playable? Tereality across the case studies or this research showed that spaceis ragmented and segregated, with small spaces that are suitableor children but large areas in between where they cannot go.For example, Heywood Park sits in a chaotic network o poorlymaintained public spaces. Te roads that surround the park onthree sides efectively orm a border, dominating the local space.Across rom the park sits a housing estate, at the corner o whichlies a small playground, nestled in a patch o land beside theroad. It sits embarrassed in the shadow o the larger park, andrepresents the typical piece o playground without any actualplay value. A ew metres away there is a school, with high wallsdemarcating its boundaries.

Even the park itsel is highly segregated. A bowling greencaters to the elderly but excludes the young; a newly built all-weather ootball pitch is dominated by older teenagers. Te newchildrens playground and play centre dominates the middle othe park, bearing little relation to the ormer sensory gardendescribed above. Nevertheless, interviews with young peoplein the park ound that or younger children the park providesa welcoming and engaging play space, and the play area is welllooked aer. Although the aesthetics o the park its abandonedcorners and the ailed play garden might suggest a less thanideal space, the park still provides a place that answers many othe needs o younger children.


Boredom rules

Tere is a more general problem with playgrounds: theyare oen not what children want. In the case studies childrenspoke about wanting to play ootball, and to play outside. Rarelydid they speak about wanting more playgrounds as such. Yet asthe rest o the public realm has declined over several decadesthere has been an increasing emphasis on such enclaves oplay provision. With tiny budgets or maintenance, the moststraightorward easily serviced play equipment oen seems

preerable. Equally, heavy pressure to minimise risks and liabilityin the public realm contributes to a sense o there being a serieso standardised play areas: saety suracing and metal rameequipment has become the standard. As CABE ound in its studyLiving with risk: promoting better public space design, pressuresto minimise liability in the public realm have created a cultureo playing it sae with standardised spaces lacking in creativity.88Tese saety-rst spaces ofer little excitement and challenge othe kind that children need.

Tis might not be too disconcerting i the only outcomeor children was boredom. However, play acilities oen ofer solittle stimulation that children may be tempted to go elsewhere, toplaces that are more dangerous or them.

Fragmentation or integration?

Tyler Above a certain age, Id say above like 11, 12, you dontwant play facilities, you want literally open space andsome seats.

Jamie Yeah, no one in our school would think play a game youjust want to sit down.

Te standard playground ofer also gives little to olderchildren. Even though in principle, it is possible and oennecessary to design specic play spaces or diferent age groups,

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domain, between school and housing estate and park, is in acta set o unconnected patches o land, some in a good state, someutterly unwelcoming.

At the bottom of the hierarchy

Tere is a third issue that cuts across both the quantity andquality o public spaces: the question o what they are actually

or. Despite the very real problems o unding and development

pressure in Bristol and Bolton we ound that children (outside theplaces designed especially or them) are at the bottom o a userhierarchy o public space that seems to be unconsciously assumedacross Britain. Over the past decades, two other uses o the publicrealm have been consistently privileged above play: cars andcommerce.

Te continued dominance of cars

Tere is no doubt that the greatest single factor affecting childrenspersonal autonomy in the twentieth century. . . has been the loss ofthe street. . . to the car.

Play, participation and potential90

Tey should ask us what should happen to this place. Because if itwas an adults park it would be a car park; they love car parks.

Katie, Bristol

Katie is articulating whatwe all know: adults love cars andhaving places to put them. Carsare more visible in the publicrealm than children there arenow around 33 million cars inBritain91 compared with around11 million dependent children.92


Meanwhile, young people are less requent users o the park,and were nostalgic or a time when they had enjoyed coming tothe park, a time when they had elt the park was still theirs. Teyelt they had lost ownership over the place, and that they neededtraditional youth acilities in the park such as a shelter, both orpractical reasons (somewhere to spend time that was dry andcomortable) and or symbolic reasons (to give them a legitimacyto be in the park). Te main problem they identiy is ear. Atnight the park is unsae because o ghts, drugs and drinking.Tis view is echoed by the youth workers who complain about the

lack o provision in the area. While the council play centre is verywell unded or the younger children, there is hardly any moneyor the youth work in the same area, contributing to the nothingto do, nowhere to go situation so typical o youth experience oplaces across Britain.

Tis park can be seen as a microcosm o a problem visibleacross the broader public realm: segregated space is matchedby segregated ages and segregated ser vices. Te councils playservice, the youth ser vice, the parks maintenance service andthe road maintenance contractors all take care o some part othe public realm and its activities, but together this does notconstitute a positive play ofer to children and young people, orindeed to adults.

Te area around Heywood Park is also alling short oyoung peoples needs. Some o the young people report that theyavoid the park and other public spaces in the neighbourhoodsaltogether, retreating into their homes or riends places. It wasstriking that, or such a large area, the alternatives to hangingaround Heywood were limited i not non-existent, making thedominance o the park by problem youngsters particularlysignicant and damaging. Te streetscape o much o thesurrounding area is in strikingly bad shape. Large amounts oderelict space were visible alongside small playgrounds or patcheso grass. Te roads punctuate these spaces ormidably. As a result,what could be one coherent green space and young persons

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Te local environment now has fewer attractions and its amenity hasbeen lowered: vehicle fumes increasingly pollute the air and traffi cnoise makes conversation diffi cult. Children, much more reliant ongetting about on foot or. . . on a bicycle, are exposed to more danger.98

In this context, streets serve primarily as routes ortransportation rather than sites o social interaction. Teexperiences o those in Upper Horeld suggest that ormalchanges to streets, emphasising shared usage, will not aloneinterrupt the dominance o the car. Tere is the urther problem

o this narrower conception o streets. Even where good-qualitypublic space or parks do exist, children are oen orbidden romwalking to them because o parental ears o busy roads. Forthis reason, the ocus needs to be on networks o streets and theoverall ecology o spaces and places and how they connect.

But the dominance o the car is not the only use o the publicrealm that is sidelining children. Although they are the primaryactor in residential streets, children and young people also loseout against the imperatives o commerce. Tis is particularlyvisible in town centres. Here, Britains regeneration efort is ailingto create spaces where children and young people are part othe story.

Sidelining the young

Te centres o She eld and Maidstone are environmentsthat have di culty accommodating young people. Tese are towncentres in which all sides agree that young people are doing littlewrong. But such is the nature o the space that there is largelynothing or them to do there beyond shopping. Compoundingthe problem is the act that where there are places to spend non-shopping time young people are oen not welcome in them.

Te desire and the need to court private investment as thespringboard or regeneration coincides with density pressures,


Both children and adults considered tra c to be one othe main actors that stop children and young people playingor spending time in the streets or areas near their homes, withnearly one in our children and one in three adults listing it asone o their top three barriers to street play.93 Across all the casestudies children and young people voiced their resentment at thedominance o cars.

In Upper Horelds attempts to counter the dominance othe car were designed in to the redevelopment. As we saw, in

order to make up or a lack o play space, a core ambition wasto improve the space between houses streets. Upper Horeldhas been designed as a Home Zone,94 a novel approach to streetlayout design that encourages cars and pedestrians to share thesame surace, obliging cars to give priority to children. Whereasit does not solve all problems (as one playworker put it, sharedspace does not work i it just means more kids on less space95),it is one o the more successul aspects o the estate. Te UpperHoreld Community rust worker says that there are visiblymore children playing on the stre

seen and heard demos_s&h_pamphlet

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