Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge India selects its latest cities
Agartala, Bengaluru and Coimbatore are among a group of Indian cities selected for the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge cohort, a three-year initiative aimed at supporting early childhood-friendly neighbourhoods under the government’s Smart Cities Mission.Read more
Sustainable cities after COVID-19: are Barcelona-style green zones the answer?
The lockdowns and restrictions introduced to control the spread of COVID-19 have resulted in huge changes to urban life. Previously bustling city centres remain empty, shunned in favour of suburban or rural areas where social...Read more
Forest-based children’s play yards can quickly boost their immune systems
Replacing gravel and stones in children’s outdoor play areas with ‘a mini forest’ can significantly help to boost youngsters’ immune systems.Read more
Re-imagining Baltimore as a ‘city for children’
Imagine, for a moment, what an ideal Baltimore City would look like. Who would it be for? What qualities would it have? With so many deep-set, interconnected challenges in our city it is hard to...Read more
The first participative design for sustainable public schools in Ecuador
A truly collaborative process is the only way to describe the Nueva Escuela project in Ecuador, which has seen school pupils and their community play a central role in the design of a sustainable school....Read more
Young children are intuitive urban planners – we would all benefit from living in their ‘care-full’ cities
In an age of climate crisis, unaffordable housing and increasing disparities of wealth, the livability and functionality of our cities are more important than ever. And yet, important voices are missing from urban planning debates...Read more
Paris halves street parking and moves towards more child-friendly spaces
Paris is set to remove half of its 140,000 on-street car parking spaces as it aims to make the city greener and more people & child-friendly. Authorities in the French capital want to remove some 70,000...Read more
Children’s views should be taken into account when designing urban space
Children see the world in a different way to adults, but urban planning policies rarely take this into account. By focusing on adult needs and views, children are often planned out of our public spaces...Read more
Children’s feedback helps create ‘Pocket Park’ in Brazilian city
The Brazilian city of Recife has inaugurated its Arari Ferreira ‘pocket park’ thanks to the work of the Bernard van Leer FoundationRead more
India launches family-friendly cities initiative
The Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge, designed to focus on shaping cities for young children and their families, has been launched in India.Read more
Without sustainable cities, global development goals will fail
Cities have been the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic, with little discrimination between more and less developed urban environments.Read more
How air pollution, green space and the ‘built environment’ may shape a child’s body mass index
Exposure to higher air pollution levels and greater population density during the early months of life may be associated with an increase in children’s body mass index (BMI).Read more
Hackney asks: how can we become a ‘child-friendly borough’?
One of London’s most densely-populated boroughs is asking residents how it can best incorporate a set of child-friendly principles into its future development.Read more
How ‘school streets’ could create safer, healthier cities
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, communities living in cities need cleaner air to breathe and outdoor public space to be social yet physically distanced.Read more