Translator: Ekaterina Shipatova
Reviewer: Riaki Poništ Our society routinely makes decisions without consulting
a quarter of the population. We are making choices about land use,
energy production, and natural resources without the ideas and the experiences
of the full community. The car, an inanimate object,
has more say of our public policy than this group of citizens. Can you guess which group
I'm talking about? It's children! I work in urban design, and not surprisingly,
most cities are designed by adults, urban planners, architects,
developers, politicians, and occasionally, a few loud citizens. Rarely do you consider the voices
of a group of four-year-olds, barely tall enough to reach
the podium at city council chambers. But today I'm going to ask you this: What would happen if we asked
children to design our cities? (Laughter) Back in 2009, I was introduced
to a small group of people, who wanted to start a child-friendly
city initiative in Boulder, Colorado. I come from a family
of civil rights advocates, and I had spent my career
until that point working with low-income
children and families. But I had never heard of a child-friendly
city initiative before! So, I figured its purpose
would be to address some of the frustrations I had encountered
as the parent of a young child. Perhaps, we would advocate
for more changing tables in restaurants or create indoor play spaces
for those cold and rainy days. In other words, make the city
more hospitable to children and families. It wasn't until after I committed to this project
that I realized I had it all wrong. We wouldn't be designing
better cities for children; children would be designing
better cities for themselves and for the rest of us too. Now, I bet you are skeptical
about this idea, and honestly, I was, too. I mean, there must be a reason
the voting age is 18. (Laughter) How could children possibly
understand complex ideas, such as the affordable housing crisis or how to develop
a transportation masterplan. And even if they had ideas,
wouldn't they be childish or unreasonable? Do our cities really need
a park made out of candy? (Laughter) Or a bridge with water
cannons that fire water onto unsuspecting kayakers below? (Laughter) Well, these concerns sound legitimate, I realized that not including
children in city planning was a bigger design problem. After all, shouldn't we include
end users in the design process? If we are building a park
to be largely used by kids, then kids should have a say
in the park's design! So with all of this in mind we formed a program
called "Growing Up Boulder," and my job is to work
with children ages 0 through 18 to come up with innovative
city design solutions. How do we do this, you might ask. Let me give you a real example. In 2012, the city of Boulder
decided to redesign a large downtown park
known as The Civic Area. This space is bounded
by a farmers market on one end, Boulder Public Library on the other end, and by Boulder Creek,
which runs through the middle. The space needed a new design to better handle the creek's
inevitable flash floods, restore a sense of safety to the area, and support an expanded farmers market. So from 2012 through 2014, we engaged more than
200 young people in the process, ranging from pre-school
through high-school students. First, we visited children
in their classrooms and presented the project: what it was, why their ideas mattered and what would happen
with their recommendations. Before we could influence them, we asked children to record their ideas
based on their own lived experiences. Then we asked children
to go on a field trip with us to document what they liked
and didn't like about the space using photography. Through green picture frames students highlighted
what they liked about the space such as college students
tubing down the creek. (Laughter) Then they flipped those frames over and used the red side to highlight
things they didn't like, such as trash. Our sixth-grade students
studied the Civic Area by researching sites with similar
challenges from around the world. Then we invited the kids to combine their original ideas
with their new inspiration to synthesize solutions
to improve the space. Each class invited adult planners,
city council and community members into the classroom to share
and discuss their recommendations. Boulder senior urban planner
stepped over blocks and stuffed animals to explore pre-school students' full-size
classroom recreation of the Civic Area. Adult planners marveled
at the students' ideas as they shared a park constructed
out of a jelly bracelet - it was supposed
to be an ice-skating rink - and then public ark constructed
from animal-shaped plastic beads. And while this may seem ridiculous, it isn't so different from the models
that architects create. Now, fast-forward four years,
and I am pleased to report that many of the children's ideas
are being implemented in the Civic Area. For example, there will be improved
access to Boulder Creek so kids can play safely in the water. Lighting in previously dark underpasses, so high-school students can walk home
safely after school at night. And separated biking and walking pads, so speeding bikers won't hit
young people as they stroll by the Creek. My daughter and I even skated on a new, child-requested
ice-skating rink last winter. Were all of the kids' ideas
implemented at the Civic Area? Of course not! Democracy is a messy process. But just as a reasonable
and well-informed adult does not expect all
of her ideas to be utilized, neither does a nine-year-old. We've now been using
this process for eight years, and along the way we found
some incredible benefits to designing cities with children. First of all, kids think
differently from adults, and that's a good thing. Adults think about constraints: How much time will a project take? How much money will it cost? And how dangerous will it be? In other words, are we going to get sued? (Laughter) It's not that these
constraints aren't real, but if we kill off ideas
from the beginning, it limits our creativity
and dampens the design process. Kids, on the other hand,
think about possibilities. For kids, the sky is the limit, literally. When we worked with middle-school students
to design teen-friendly parks, they drew pictures
of skydiving, hang gliding, (Laughter) and jumping from jet trampolines
into giant foam pits. (Laughter) Some of these sound far-fetched, but the commonalities among the activities
revealed an important story. Our adolescents wanted
thrill-seeking opportunities, which makes perfect sense,
given their developmental stage in life. So our task as connectors
between inspiration and reality was to point them towards activities and equipment that actually
could be installed in a park. This is exactly what parks
in Australia have done with their extensive zip-lines
and their 30-foot tall climbing towers. When kids dream up a space, they almost always include fun,
play and movement in their designs. Now, this is not what adults prioritize. But research shows
that fun, play and movement are exactly what adults need
to stay healthy, too! Who wouldn't enjoy a tree-house
containing a little lending library and comfortable
beanbag chairs for reading? Or what about a public art display that sprays paint onto a canvas
each time you walk up the steps? In addition to fun and play,
children value beauty in their designs. When tasked with designing
dense affordable housing, kids rejected the blocks
of identical beige condominiums that so many developers favour, and instead put
bright colors on everything, from housing to play equipment. They placed flowers
between biking and walking pads and placed benches along the creek, so kids could hang out with their friends
and enjoy the tranquility of the water, which leads me to nature. Children have a biological need
to connect with nature, and this shows up in their designs. They want nature right in their backyards,
not four blocks away. So they designed communities that incorporate water,
fruit trees, flowers and animals into their common spaces on sight. This is logical, because five-year-olds today
are rarely allowed to walk four blocks to access a park by themselves. And nature in one's immediate
environment benefits everyone since it has been shown to have
restorative effects for all ages. It may come as a surprise,
but we even take into consideration the desires of our littlest citizens,
babies and toddlers. From toddlers we learned that the joy of walking comes
from what you discover along the way. When they evaluated the walkability
of Boulder's 19th Street corridor, toddlers spent long stretches exploring leaves in a ditch
and sparkles in the side-walk. They reminded us to slow down and design a path where the journey
is as important as the destination. In addition to trees and plants, kids almost always include
animals in their designs. Insects, birds and small mammals figure prominently
into children's pictures. Whether it's because
they're closer to the ground and can see the grasshoppers
better than we can, or simply because they have a greater
sense of empathy for other beings, children almost always include
non-human species in their ideal worlds. Accross the board, children
are inclusive in their city-planning. They design for everyone, from their grandmother in a wheelchair to the homeless woman
they see sleeping in the park. Children design for living creatures, not for cars, egos or corporations. The last and, perhaps, most
compelling discovery we made is that a city friendly to children
is a city friendly to all. Bogota, Columbia Mayor
Enrique Peñalosa observed 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. Think about it. Kids can't just hop in a car
and drive to the store, and most kids can't afford
an expensive lunch at a nearby cafe. So if we build cities
that take into consideration their needs for alternative
forms of transportation and for cheaper food venues, we meet the needs of many
other populations, too. The more frequent
and more affordable bus service, so desired by our youth, also supports the elderly,
who wish to live independently after they can no longer drive cars. Teens' recommendations for smooth, protected walking
and skateboarding paths also support the person in a wheelchair,
or the parent pushing a new stroller. So to me, all of this has revealed
something important, an important blind spot. If we aren't including
children in our planning, who also aren't we including? Are we listening to people of color,
immigrants, the elderly and people with disabilities
or with reduced incomes? What innovative design solutions
are we overlooking? Because we aren't hearing
the voices of the full community. We can't possibly know the needs and wants
of other people without asking. That goes for kids and for everyone else. So adults, let's stop thinking
of our children as future citizens, and instead start valuing them
for the citizens they are today. Because our children
are designing the cities that will make us happier and healthier, cities filled with nature, play, movement,
social connection and beauty. Children are designing the cities
we all want to live in. Thank you. (Applause)
