CITIES AREN’T BUILT FOR KIDS – Consumers Association Penang

Can you walk with your children – without gripping their hands and anxiously eyeing traffic – and feel comfortable and relaxed? If you can’t, then something isn’t right with the design. With so many busy roads and highways around, parents today have massively restricted children’s freedom to protect their kids’ safety.

Good child-friendly urban planning and design shape cities so that children are active and visible in the daily life of urban streets, parks, squares and other public spaces. It involves initiatives that take children’s views and experiences seriously, and that aim to expand their opportunities to play and get around their neighbourhood and the wider city through built environment interventions, says Tim Gill, a Built Environment expert for the UK Design Council, in a 2019 report, “Building Cities Fit for Children”.

Cities aren’t built for kids, but they could be. If we build cities for kids, we build cities for everyone (Jay Stenge in “Strong Towns”).