Easy as Child’s Play? Co-designing a Network-Based Metric for Children’s Access to Play Space

R.F.L. Teeuwen*, A. Psyllidis

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Conference proceedings/Edited volumeConference contributionScientificpeer-review

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Abstract

Accessible outdoor spaces for unsupervised play are important for children’s health. However, parents impose constraints based on their perception of safety, which can have a significant impact on which play spaces are actually accessible to children. Such constraints are not taken into account by widely adopted accessibility indicators that use generic radial buffers or travel distances. We introduce a child’s play accessibility metric, which measures the ease with which children can reach outdoor play spaces without supervision. We developed this metric through an iterative co-design process with experts on the built environment and children’s health, leveraging open data. Our metric considers traffic, natural barriers to children, and a range of playable spaces. It can be used by planners and policymakers to enable large-scale assessments of play space accessibility, identify associated equity issues, and benchmark progress toward healthier environments for all ages.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 18th International Conference on Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management (CUPUM 2023)
EditorsS. Sangiambut
Number of pages16
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023
EventThe 18th International Conference on Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management (CUPUM) - Montreal, Canada
Duration: 20 Jun 202322 Jun 2023

Conference

ConferenceThe 18th International Conference on Computational Urban Planning and Urban Management (CUPUM)
Country/TerritoryCanada
CityMontreal
Period20/06/2322/06/23

Keywords

  • Accessibility
  • Play space
  • Children
  • Co-Design
  • OpenStreetMap

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