Child Friendly Cities and Land Use Planning: Implications for children’s health

The environment surrounding us sends strong messages about how to behave and what to perceive. Planners and decision-makers play a key role in constructing these messages, and therefore help determine how people view and interact with the world. As a result, the living environment and its associated messages can greatly influence the physical, social and mental health of all residents. Since children are just learning about the world, their living environment will profoundly influence almost all aspects of their lives. This puts a great deal of responsibility on the shoulders of planners, who need to balance a number of different issues in urban design to make places more child-friendly. Four major issues that are critical to the creation and maintenance of a child-friendly community are: safety, greenspace, access and integration. The benefits of child-friendly community design range from the promotion of healthier lifestyles, to improving the quality of social interactions to the long-term sustainability of natural spaces. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) program Child Friendly Cities promotes childfriendly community design and inclusive decision-making. Waterloo, Ontario, a mid-sized Canadian city, has many positive and community-oriented attributes, but could benefit greatly from incorporating child-friendly design procedures and participatory decision-making. L’environnement dans lequel on vit influence nos comportements et nos perceptions, par les messages qu’il nous transmet. Les planificateurs et les décideurs jouent un rôle capital dans la construction de ces messages qui, par conséquent, déterminent la manière dont les gens perçoivent le monde et comment ils y interagissent. C’est pourquoi l’environnement de vie et les messages qui y sont associés peuvent influer grandement sur la santé physique, sociale et mentale de tous les citoyens. Puisque les enfants apprennent tout juste à connaître le monde, leur environnement de vie aura une incidence profonde sur la plupart des aspects de leur vie. Cela met une lourde responsabilité sur les épaules des planificateurs, qui doivent équilibrer bon nombre d’enjeux différents en matière de design d’environnement pour rendre les espaces de vie plus conviviaux pour les enfants. Les quatre enCatherine McAllister is a PhD student in the