Tim Gill on Building Child Friendly Cities

A city that is good for children, is good for everyone. A concept
that has begun to gain more traction as cities look to new
urbanism principles to apply to their respective cities. It’s one
Tim Gill, author of Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning
and Design Can Save Cities, has been championing since the
nineties. Based in the UK, he has laid a foundation for a career
in research on the topic and was the former director of Play
England, a children’s play council.


In Tim’s book, he asks questions like “what type of cities do we
want our children to grow up in? Car-dominated, noisy, polluted,
and devoid of nature? Or walkable, welcoming, and green?” He
emphasizes that “as the climate crisis and urbanisation escalate,
cities urgently need to become more inclusive and sustainable”.
His book helps us “look at cities through the eyes of children
while strengthening the case for planning and transportation
policies that work for people of all ages, and for the planet”.


When reviewing Tim’s book ahead of this episode, we found
ourselves projecting my own childhoods onto much of what he
shared in his work—an experience I think anyone might share upon
reading. He invites us to look at cities through the eyes of our
inner child, and revisit childhood memories of play. 


Tim’s book, Urban Playground: How Child-Friendly Planning and
Design Can Save Cities, was published this year by the Royal
Institute of British Architects.


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Design and the City, is a podcast produced by reSITE about the
ways we can use design to make cities more livable and lovable.
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This episode was directed and produced by myself, Alexandra
Siebenthal with the support of Martin Barry, Radka Ondrackova,
Nikkolas Zellers, and Alexander White, as well as Nano Energies
and the Czech Ministry of Culture. It was recorded in the reSITE
office in Prague and edited by LittleBig Studio.