A good morning
SG beach
UP EARLY and saw a gaggle of volunteers bringing kids around Pasir Ris and eating at the Downtown East foodcourt (where I had terrible kway chap). I love the Americans for their public-spiritedness.
Also reading ST. I like the interview with Dr Crowhurst Lennard, on a child-friendly liveable city. SG is “not thinking small enough. Child-sized, to be precise, because cities must first be liveable for kids before they can be liveable for all”.
Child-friendly cities thrive because everyone needs fundamentally the same things, like an accessible environment and rich social life. By focusing on meeting the needs of children — one of the most vulnerable and physically weakest groups in the community — the city can get its basics right.
But that does not mean ever more kiddie rides, cartoon murals or playgrounds. “The ideal play area for children is the city itself,” says Dr Crowhurst Lennard, 65, the founder of the International Making Cities Liveable Council, which is based in Portland, Oregon.
Generally, it is a bad idea to relegate children to just children’s facilities because they learn best when able to freely mingle with and observe adults in an everyday setting. And catering to children is not that hard.
“On a simple level, it is a matter of walkability. Children have to be able to get around safely on their own as early as possible and explore their environment.
“That means it has to be safe not only from traffic, but also a good socially safe environment where there are familiar adults along the way who recognise them and speak to them — people of different ages,” she said.
So, buildings, roads, parks and street furniture should be designed to inspire imagination, invite exploration and serve multiple uses…”All kinds of public art should be meaningful and understandable to children. They should tell children about the history and traditions of the city. And they should be able to be played on.”…
Malls are increasingly becoming meeting spots and teenage hang-outs as they are being planned around transport nodes, but Dr Crowhurst Lennard says they are “not ideal” as a public space given the restrictions on what can occur there. Instead, an open, flexible public space does better at engaging young minds. “It can be used as a market in the morning, for festivals in the afternoon and on a quiet (evening), just for sitting out and relating to people…It can be used for a school performance or some kind of local community festival.”