A city for children? Activism is taking back the streets

Urban development and social norms regarding children have meant that city streets are no longer suitable places for children and young people. Gill Valentine has explained that this change has been fueled by our division of children into two categories: “angels” and “demons”.

It describes how, on the one hand, children are considered to be too young, vulnerable and innocent to wander and play in urban spaces due to traffic, “stranger danger” and other risks. On the other hand, teenagers are considered a public menace and should not be allowed to roam the streets with their bikes, skateboards, and presumably bad intentions.

Subsequent studies have continued to explain how this type of representation has led to the exclusion of children from public spaces in the complex web of urban governance, public life and child rearing. Children’s autonomous movement and play in cities has steadily declined in recent decades. At the same time, children and young people are increasingly sequestered in houses, cars or institutional spaces for education and play controlled by adults.

Closing the streets to children is bad policy

Many experts and interest groups have expressed concern about this and have explained why closing the streets to children is bad policy. Children’s physical activity levels are alarmingly low, and limiting their sense of security and autonomy also harms their mental and social well-being. These trends are endangering the health of an entire generation and compromising their ability to sustain societies and economies with high dependency rates.

At the same time, as scholars of childhood often point out, children are not merely “investments in the future” or “adults of tomorrow.” They are also people with current rights to citizenship, participation and autonomy in their living environment.

Old and new moves for a child-friendly city

However, there are many examples in modern history of how people have resisted the exclusion of children from the streets. One of the most notable was the Stop de Kindermoord (“Let’s stop the murder of children”) movement in the Netherlands in the early 1970s. Its aim was to stop the deaths of children in traffic accidents, which at the time had reached the highest level in Europe.

The movement organized demonstrations, pressured policy makers to pass legal and planning measures, and created safe spaces through direct action and tactical planning. With success: Child safety rose up the public agenda, and activists continued to play a significant role in trafficking policy for more than a decade. However, over time they were marginalized and the danger of traffic was reestablished as a “natural” part of urban childhood.

Half a century after the Stop Kindermoord movement, we are witnessing another wave of activism that is sweeping the entire planet, but especially Europe. Old and new strategies are used, but the message is similar: systemic change is sought, not road safety awareness campaigns.

Promoting safety vests, helmets and making children aware of the presence of cars are not ways to stop traffic violence, but to maintain it, as they place the responsibility on individual children and parents. Instead, activists mobilize entire communities and use local demonstrations and experiments to give people concrete experiences of how cities could be different.

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Kidical Mass is an ever-growing urban protest of parents, educators and children, organizing bike rallies in cities both small and large. In 2022 it brought together more than 90,000 children, young people and families over two weekends in more than 400 locations across Europe.

The organizers claim that the Kidical Mass is an experiment that allows people to see the spaces of the city in a different light and turn these experiences into political demands.

The political effect of the movement could be seen recently in Germany, where the Conference of Transport Ministers supported a reform of the national road traffic law based on a petition delivered by Kidical Mass activists in 2022.

BiciBús is another movement in expansion. The goal is simple: provide children with a guided group to cycle to school with a predefined route at a certain time. They usually work once a week, with the aim of developing the habit of cycling in families and entire communities. Cycling in a group is not only a safe way to get around, but also fun, and a way to demonstrate in favor of child-friendly cities.

The idea is not new, but in the last two years the number of bicibuses It has grown rapidly, especially in Europe, thanks to social networks.

School and playground streets are also an important factor in the new civic activity. Local advocacy groups (see for example Playing Out in the UK) are mobilizing local schools and communities to create these safe, inclusive and open urban spaces. It is often a matter of opening certain sections to children by limiting road traffic. In some places, collaboration with policy makers and urban planners has led to permanent changes.

The promoters of the campaign affirm that, in the long term, school streets and leisure streets should be connected to each other to create extensive, safe and inclusive mobility networks.

How to advance?

In many respects, the current civic movements for child-friendly cities continue the work of their predecessors. By reclaiming urban spaces, introducing citizen-led experiments, and mobilizing large numbers of people, they offer opportunities to see and think about alternative futures. What they want – but it is only beginning – is to have a direct impact on more institutional processes, initiatives and frameworks.

Even so, in a relatively short time they have left their mark. While physical infrastructure can take time to change, the way communities use it can change much faster. The growing concern for the well-being of children, coupled with the need for an urgent transition towards sustainable urban transport, gives the movements a new impetus.

Whether or not we are witnessing a major paradigm shift, it seems that in some respects the activists have already won. With the bicycle buses, the demonstrations and the quiet streets, they not only demand a better tomorrow, but they are already living it.

Jonne Silonsaari, Doctoral Researcher in Urban Planning, University of Amsterdam; Gemma Simón i Mas, PhD student, Autonomous University of Barcelona; Jordi Honey-Rosés, Urban planning, Autonomous University of Barcelonaand Marco te Brömmelstroet, Professor in Urban Mobility Futures, University of Amsterdam

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original.