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Introduction
book: change and improvements in this area are happening at a glacial pace. Why is this? The chapters that discuss political and social contexts surrounding children’s participation in the design and planning of cities reveal some unique and some commonly held attitudes that influence children’s environmental outcomes. For example, there is a decreasing proportion of children in some urban populations brought about by falling birthrates in some countries. In research findings and media reporting, there is evidence of resentment from people who do not have children. A typical economic argument is: why should people without children have to pay subsidies, through their taxes, for childcare and education of other people’s children (Mannion 2007)? This, coupled with the aging populations in many countries, threatens children’s social acknowledgment. It is not unrealistic to suggest that the interests of children and young people will face an increasingly difficult task to remain on political, social and environmental agendas. Interpreting the ‘specialness’ of children and childhood across all social domains will require increasing diligence from adults in positions of power as there are fewer children to make the case for themselves. While our contributors come from countries that have been working in the area of child-sensitive design and planning for some time, we believe the issues discussed in this book are relevant to cities and people around the world. Interesting questions for us are: in those countries that have adopted the child friendly/participation agenda of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, 1989), how embedded in planning and design processes are these agendas? If they are not embedded, why not? What inhibits their progress? More than a simple spot check, this book aims to reflect the practice and progress of organizations and individuals who have embraced these philosophies and approaches, and have been practicing them for years. We want to bring to light how these practices have evolved and what has been learned along the way and to see how they have advanced, 25 years on. In research carried out over the past two decades, there is growing acknowledgment that children’s interactions and relationships with the built environment are changing. The conclusions point to two sets of drivers: changes in social attitudes about children and childhood, and changes in environmental opportunity and experience. These two realities, coupled with children’s continued lack of opportunity to participate in community development processes, mean that children are literally losing ground in all urban contexts in the developed world. Research from the health sector confirms that children are leading more sedentary lives than any generation before them. Childhood is increasingly spent indoors in private spaces, which fundamentally changes children’s relationship with their neighbors and their neighborhoods. From research on child and youth across several disciplines, it is clear that these changes in environmental experience are partly the result of increasingly risk-averse western societies, which is reflected in risk-averse approaches to parenting. Broader social attitudes also reveal that communities frequently have a polarized view of their young people as either ‘angels’ or ‘devils’, and this also greatly impacts the way they are regarded, and included in the community and in community development projects—or not. Since the introduction of the UNCRC in 1989, much has been heard in relation to acknowledging children’s voices and children’s rights to be part of community decisionmaking processes. The UNCRC has been used for many years as the framework to define how to go about meeting children’s needs in urban environments (Bartlett et al. 1999; Chawla 2002b; Malone 2001). As Malone (2001) discussed, these global