Creating child friendly neighbourhood: A case study of Bhopal

Abstract

‘Child Friendly Cities’ is a concept for making cities friendly for all children especially in UN member countries that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child through municipal action. This idea is particularly important for improving the quality of life children who are most affected by changes brought about by globalization and rapid urbanization in the developing nations of the global South. The increasing isolation and segregation of children in Indian cities and suburbs is of special significance. This has meant a loss of freedom for children to explore their neighborhood and city as they get older, their exclusion from varied contacts with variety of neighbourhoods, and their consequent inability to learn from personal experience and observation. The purpose of this study is to measure the differences in child-friendliness between neighborhoods with different type of land use by developing a framework that can be used by planning departments and other local authorities. There is no theoretical understanding of a construct such as child friendliness as a planning layer that could guide planning and design of child friendly neighbourhood in cities. After a review of various guidelines and international/national case studies (interdisciplinary literature) followed by focus group discussions held in each type of neighbourhood, a new five dimensional construct based on children’s behaviour with their built environment is proposed underpinning a child’s perspective for a child friendly neighbourhood. The five parameters have been further assessed using different sub parameters. An in-depth analytic study has been conducted in four neighborhoods (Residential and Mixed Use area) in Bhopal, India, with children in their middle-childhood (5 – 14 Years) to validate and elaborate this conceptual framework. To aid in the refining of assessing method, qualitative and quantitative analysis has been undertaken along with calculation the weights of each parameter using Analytic Hierarchy Process. The findings of this study suggests that a Mixed Use area is the most child friendly type of neighborhood and slum being the least. Further, problem in one type of neighbourhood have been tried to be addressed. A generic typology of child friendly neighbourhood in Indian context is proposed for the generic problems identified and categorized using the set of five parameters and their sub-parameters. This provides a tangible framework for child friendly neighbourhood strategies both for the creation of child friendly places, as well as for evaluation of environments specifically created for children.