“The public realm is wonderfully diverse. It covers public buildings and open spaces, the streets of our neighbourhoods, which transmit so many signals about the health of a community.”

Rt Hon Tessa Jowell MP in a speech to Demos, April 2005

"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."

 Enrique Peñalosa, former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia

*Seen and Heard - Reclaiming the public realm with children and young people will be launched on Wednesday 14th October at 9am at The Young Vic, 66 The Cut. Register here*

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The public realm encompasses the physical, cultural and social environment. Children and young people are important users of the public realm for play, informal recreation and for moving from place to place. A healthy public realm benefits children, offering them positive experiences and welcoming them as valued citizens. Moreover it is particularly important to them as they have little economic power, and hence fewer alternatives for their free-time activities than adults. However, children’s access to the public realm is currently heavily restricted – as much by physical barriers as by adult attitudes and anxieties. While heavy investment in play provision is currently set to deliver physical improvements, there is a need to address the wider social, cultural and political context in which the children’s public realm is being shaped.

The project is commissioned by Play England, a five-year project to support and develop children’s play across the English regions, funded by the Big Lottery Fund. We aim to explore the position of children in the present-day public realm by asking questions such as:

• What is the relative impact of specific circumstances on children’s use of the public realm including; traffic, negative adult attitudes, personal safety and environmental quality?

• How is their role as stakeholders currently being considered across different policy fields, such as the planning system?

• Is play ‘just’ a children’s issue, or are there ways in which it can affect mainstream urban policies as well?

• If children are indeed some kind of ‘indicator species’ then what consequences has this for the way we plan our cities?

• What is the existing evidence of the wider social impact of investment in play spaces and facilities?

The project runs from September 2006 to Summer 2007 and will involve expert interviews, a series of case studies of a variety of different types of practice. In Spring 2007 there will be a pilot in which Demos will work together with children, policymakers and experienced play pioneers in the field to test our interim findings in the field

For more information contact Joost Beunderman

joost.beunderman@demos.co.uk  / 020 7367 6317