Researcher(s):
Raiven Greenberg
ENVS course(s): 220, 330 Initiated: September 2015 Completed: May 2016 Go to project site
|
In this project I examine the consideration of children in the realm of urban planning and to what extent their needs are being addressed. As evidenced by key literature, children are often forgotten in planning and therefore suffer the consequences, often in the form of mental health issues, and issues of safety and general wellbeing. Issues such as crowding, noise pollution, degrading building quality, poor infrastructure, and lack of green spaces have been found to negatively affect children in urban centers as well. In this study I examine the role that children play in cities, but also analyze what I consider to be a precursor to this- the creation of one’s sense of place.
In this study I look at formation of sense of place in New South Wales, Australia. The area has several large urban centers, Sydney being the most prominent, but surrounding cities are undergoing rapid development as well, providing the perfect lens in which to view how changes in the built environment affect children, and also how children are being taken into account in planning. By completing an extensive review of the literature and undertaking a content analysis of Australian children's literature, I find that children are receiving contradictory messages about how they should relate to both their natural and built environments, and that these messages could be particularly difficult for children growing up in urban centers to cope with and make sense of.
Children will undoubtedly be living in congested built environments more and more as populations migrate more toward cities, so it is important to take into account the needs of children in both the physical infrastructure and social structures of urban environments, because while resilient and adaptive, their needs and desires vary greatly from those of adults.