The Social Sustainable City: How to Involve Children in Designing and Planning for Urban Childhoods?

Abstract

In many countries, cities are expected to stimulate compact city development by the government, while at the same time develop healthier and more social sustainable cities. In Norway, national policy and planning regulation aim at stimulating a development that ensures active urban childhoods. In order to ensure this, the Planning and Building Act ensure particular participation rights for children and youth in the planning process. In this article, we will present how these rights are understood and implemented in practice. Then we will discuss how local government can enable children to participate in a meaningful way and where their input actually contributes to the plans and urban design being developed. This last discussion will be elaborated by studying a case about the Children Track Methodology. ; This study has been conducted in a research project evaluating the Norwegian Planning and Building Act, financed by the DEMOSREG-programme in the Norwegian Research Council. In addition, it has been financed by an extra funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Local Government and Modernization. ; publishedVersion