Epsilon Open Archive

Abstract

Introduction:
The work of green space managers – local authority department staff, external contractors, or caretakers employed by institutions or companies – can be expected to have a great effect on child-friendliness by affecting mainly physical, but also socio-environmental determinants. The Scandinavian countries have a history of being world- leading in work to improve the child-friendliness of environments, with much awareness of this issue during the early and mid-twentieth century. Children’s levels of independent mobility are generally high, but diminishing, probably due to urban densification and increased car traffic (Bj ö rklid and Gummesson, 2013 ). The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child has been ratified and promoted, but less attention has been given to later international movements, and planning in Scandinavia has been criticised for not taking a child-friendly direction (Björklid and Nordström, 2007 ), with a focus on densification, urban character and new public management solutions. Much of the literature on child-friendly environments focuses on participatory approaches to development of the physical environment (Alarasi et al., 2016 ; Cushing, 2016 ). Children’s participation in planning can be highly valuable, but is not the only way to approach child-friendly environments, since these also depend on other practices, as well as on basic physical and social environmental factors. These can be developed both with and without children’s direct participation. In this chapter, we examine the specific role of green space management in developing child-friendly environments, focusing on children’s perspectives. We argue the importance of green space management to children, and suggest how managers can understand and strive towards child-friendliness in their approach to management of the urban environment. We argue that this work has huge potential, which is yet to be fully acknowledged and realised.