How are children faring in our cities?  That’s a question which a three-year Kids in the City study funded by the Health Research Council is seeking to answer. 

Researchers from SHORE (Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation), Whariki Research Centre (Massey University), AUT and Auckland University have been working with children and their parents in six different Auckland neighbourhoods to find out what they think of their urban environments and how safe they feel, how children move around their neighbourhoods, where they play, and how physically active they are.

Auckland’s present population of 1.4 million is expected to reach two million in the next 30 years, and a strategy of urban intensification is in place to contain urban sprawl.  How can this be achieved without compromising the well-being of resident children by further diminishing their opportunities for physical activity and independent mobility?  Children need to be able to move safely around their neighbourhoods and have appropriate outdoor places to play.  Planning practice in Aotearoa/New Zealand has generally confined children’s use of public spaces to child-specific facilities such as playgrounds, sports fields and libraries; and it has largely excluded children from the planning process.  One of the aims of this study is to contribute children’s experience and voice to the urban planning process and to help ensure that the well-being of children is to the fore in urban planning.

A hundred and sixty 9-11-year-old children were enlisted in Kids in the City through local primary schools as collaborating ‘young researchers’ and parents/caregivers were recruited through their children.  For one week the children wore accelerometers (which measured their physical activity levels) and GPS units (to track where they went in their neighbourhood and beyond), and kept travel diaries detailing their destinations and activities, how they got to them and who they went with.  Parents took part in a telephone survey and focus group interviews.

The children also took specially trained interviewers from local secondary schools on ‘go-along’ neighbourhood walking interviews, showing them places they often went to and liked to play and talked about other places they would like to go if they were allowed and what they liked/disliked about their neighbourhood.  The children were in charge, and they enjoyed it.  Said one, when told by the interviewer it was ‘totally up to her’ where they went:

“Hey I have never been in charge before, because I am like the youngest of my family!”

The children took photographs of their neighbourhoods as they walked and talked. These interviews and photographs, along with their accelerometer, GPS and travel diary data and the parents’ data, are now being analysed to show us how children engage with their neighbourhoods, alone and with others, as well as their experiences and aspirations for their local environments.  The schools have been enthusiastic participants in the research and some of the children’s accelerometer data is already being used in their classrooms in statistics classes.

Our thanks to Penelope Carroll (Massey University) for providing this article.

If you'd like to know more about this study, contact Penelope Carroll ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) or Karen Witten ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ).