Who Is a City for? Reflections on Children’s Narrative- and Design-Led Explorations

Abstract

Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, believes that ‘Children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people’ (Peñalosa E, Ives S: The politics of happiness. Land and people, Spring, 2002, n.p.). The concept of a child-friendly city is grounded in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which mandates active participation of children in civic life and promotes local systems of governance committed to children’s rights (UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Building child-friendly cities: a framework for action. UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence, 2004). Framed by the broader discussion on children’s engagement, this chapter will examine A City for Whoo, an event delivered as part of the Children’s Come Out Festival in Adelaide, Australia. A City for Whoo is an urban walking tour and subsequent workshop conducted with classes of children visiting the festival to explore what the city is—places as destinations and places as connectors between places. Then a subsequent thematic is explored considering critical questions: Who are these places for? Who makes the image/experience of the city? Who experiences the city and makes it their own? The methodology of the trail and subsequent workshop mirror some of the processes that create the city, giving children the opportunity to experience what goes into city making.