Children are the losers of current urban planning. Today’s cities are typically highly built-up and urban which results in fewer green spaces and areas where children can play.
“Today, a lot of town planning is conducted from the standpoint of what is most economically beneficial, rather than what is best for people. Children are never considered economically beneficial which makes it increasingly difficult to create favourable environments for children and young people,” says Lena Jungmark, landscape architect at SLU, and coordinator at thinktank Movium.
Movium is a meeting place for all those working to improve outdoor spaces in cities. As part of SLU Alnarp, Jungmark coordinates a government initiative designed to compile and disseminate knowledge about outdoor spaces for children and young people.
“There is a slow and gradual process whereby park spaces, courtyards and playgrounds are disappearing. Space for children is diminishing everywhere and it’s difficult to get a comprehensive image of what’s happening,” she says.
This is happening despite research clearly suggesting that outdoor play is critical for children’s physical and mental health.
Earlier this year, together with the National Board of Housing, Building and Planning, the Public Health Agency of Sweden and ArkDes, Movium hosted a conference entitled “Will there be room for children in the cities of the future?”, during which several perspectives related to this highly problematic issue were discussed, Jungmark says.
“Everyone’s worried about this issue, but there’s nobody wholly devoted to it.”
In her role as coordinator at Movium, Jungmark acts as a resource for all child researchers at SLU, and as a contact for other universities and colleges that conduct research and training in the field. Cooperation with municipalities and government agencies is also important.
Together with the National Board of Housing, Movium has contributed to an exhibition called LEK! (PLAY!) at the Form/Design Center in Malmö. The exhibition is intended to make a contribution to the debate about how cities should be planned to provide space for children and young people to be able to play.
“The LEK! exhibition is all about what I do. With its help, we can increase public awareness about the importance of play, and at the same time show what the research is telling us. Visitors get a cultural-historical background while at the same time following how ideas related to children’s play areas have changed over time,” Jungmark says.
“Even if today we find ourselves in a period where children’s play environments are not prioritized, this doesn’t necessarily have to be the case. There have been times when children’s play has been important in town planning, for example during the 1960s and 70s.”
Reasons for optimism about improved planning can be found in the decision to introduce the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into Swedish law in 2020.
“To date, the rights of children have not made a major impact in town planning. The Convention can promote better environments for children, but it will probably require court cases along the way.”
Ecosystem services can also act as a driver, she says.
“If we bring in the child perspective to ecosystem services, we can create more cost effective opportunities for play. This in turn makes children part of economic activity created around ecosystem services.”
The Lek exhibition at Form/Design Center in Malmö runs until November 3rd. It is the first exhibition specifically about how design can promote play in cities. It features a building game based on Hedmanska Gården, an historic courtyard in Malmö, which first came out at the same location in 1976.
Interviewed by Magnus Trogen Pahlén.