1st Edition

Children Living in Sustainable Built Environments New Urbanisms, New Citizens

    230 Pages 20 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    230 Pages 20 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Urban living has dramatically changed over the past generation, refashioning children’s relationships with the towns and cities in which they live, and the modes of living within them. Focusing on the global shift in urban planning towards sustainable urbanism - from master planned ‘sustainable communities’, to the green retrofitting of existing urban environments - Children Living in Sustainable Built Environments offers a critical analysis of the challenges, tensions and opportunities for children and young people living in these environments.

    Drawing upon original data, Children Living in Sustainable Built Environments demonstrates how the needs, interests and participation of children and young people often remain inferior to the design, planning and local politics of new urban communities. Considering children from their crucial role as residents engaging and contributing to the vitalities of their community, to their role as consumers using and understanding sustainable design features, the book critically discusses the prospects of future inclusion of children and young people as a social group in sustainable urbanism.

    Truly interdisciplinary, Children Living in Sustainable Built Environments forms an original theoretical and empirical contribution to the understanding of the everyday lives of children and young people and will appeal to academics and students in the fields of education, childhood studies, sociology, anthropology, human geography and urban studies, as well as policy-makers, architects, urban planners and other professionals working on sustainable urban designs.

    Introduction: New Urbanisms, New Citizens  Chapter 1: Towards the interdisciplinary study of children and sustainable urbanism  Chapter 2: Sustainable urbanisms in policy and practice  Chapter 3: Living with sustainable urban technologies  Chapter 4: Sustainable mobilities  Chapter 5: Constituting Communities: welcoming, belonging, excluding  Chapter 6: Vital Politics: children and young people’s participation in public space and local decision-making  Chapter 7: Making space for vitality in sustainable urbanisms: childhood and play  Chapter 8: Conclusion: towards a theory of children and sustainable urban vitalities

    Biography

    Pia Christensen is Professor of Anthropology and Childhood Studies, University of Leeds, UK.

    Sophie Hadfield-Hill is Lecturer of Human Geography, University of Birmingham, UK.

    John Horton is Associate Professor of Human Geography, University of Northampton, UK.

    Peter Kraftl is Professor of Human Geography, University of Birmingham, UK.