Shaping Urbanization For Children

This publication calls all urban stakeholders to invest in child-responsive urban planning, recognizing that cities are not only drivers of prosperity, but also of inequity. Through 10 Children’s Rights and Urban Planning principles, the handbook presents concepts, evidence, tools and promising practices to create thriving and equitable cities where children live in healthy, safe, inclusive, green and prosperous communities. By focusing on children, it provides guidance on the central role that urban planning should play in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, from a global perspective to a local context.

Recognizing the potential research with and about young people can have in decision making on multiple levels of policy and service provision, this book provides a key foundation for considering the influence of urban environments on young people, and vice versa.

Engaging Children and Young People in Planning places planners’ skills for engagement with children and young people centre stage by discussing several projects delivered or supported by planning students to young people in the Northeast of England. Urban or town and country planning is a largely unfamiliar concept to children and young people. Moreover, in England, the environment in which young people live, play and go to school is shaped by a local planning process which lacks their input. This book explores the nature of the gap between that planning process and the voice of the younger members of the community, as well as the barriers that impede this engagement. It highlights why an engagement process is beneficial for those young people, for the wider community and for the planning process itself. At a time when our relationship with and impact on, the environment is being re-examined, this book challenges the planning professional to identify, develop and reflect upon the engagement skills that will help to transform planning into a more inclusive practice. It will be of use to scholars and practitioners in urban planning, community planning, engagement and children’s rights, whilst supporting their academic and professional development pathways.

The Routledge Handbook of Designing Public Spaces for Young People is a thorough and practical resource for all who wish to influence policy and design decisions in order to increase young people’s access to and use of public spaces, as well as their role in design and decision-making processes. The ability of youth to freely enjoy public spaces, and to develop a sense of belonging and attachment to these environments, is critical for their physical, social, cognitive, and emotional development. Young people represent a vital citizen group with legitimate rights to occupy and shape their public environments, yet they are often driven out of public places by adult users, restrictive bylaws, or hostile designs. It is also important that children and youth have the opportunity to genuinely participate in the planning of public spaces, and to have their needs considered in the design of the public realm. This book provides both evidence and tools to help effectively advocate for more youth-inclusive public environments, as well as integrate youth directly into both research and design processes related to the public realm. It is essential reading for researchers, design and planning professionals, community leaders, and youth advocates.

What type of cities do we want our children to grow up in? Car-dominated, noisy, polluted and devoid of nature? Or walkable, welcoming, and green? As the climate crisis and urbanisation escalate, cities urgently need to become more inclusive and sustainable. This book reveals how seeing cities through the eyes of children strengthens the case for planning and transportation policies that work for people of all ages, and for the planet. It shows how urban designers and city planners can incorporate child friendly insights and ideas into their masterplans, public spaces and streetscapes. Healthier children mean happier families, stronger communities, greener neighbourhoods, and an economy focused on the long-term. Make cities better for everyone.

This open access book builds a framework that holds together numerous open issues in territorial planning: from the understanding of territorial, landscape, environmental and climatic dynamics to the analysis of local vulnerabilities, to the use of modern survey techniques to support planning. What is the role of urban and regional planning in achieving the sustainable development goals of our communities considering the major issues posed by the COVID-19 pandemic in urban planning? And how do these medium- and long-term objectives interact with the needs that the emergency has given rise to? Post Un-Lock—from territorial vulnerabilities to local resilience—aims to provide the reader with a useful key to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as a catalyst for a restart based on the concepts of sustainability and resilience. In fact, the COVID-19 experience evidences the need to propose a planning system able to integrate multiple scales according to an interdisciplinary approach focused on in-depth knowledge of the territorial risks and vulnerabilities. Besides, with the contribution of the new technologies, it is able to rethink spaces on a neighbourhood scale, conceived as a "local resilience unit" that ensures the population high standards of safety, liveability, and accessibility to proximity services. In this view, planning is increasingly concerned about social aspects and the well-being of communities, supported by indicators and evaluation tools. With the proposal of the concept of local resilience unit, Post Un-Lock takes a step forward towards the definition of a new paradigm of local planning and a topic for urban regeneration.