How to Design Cities for Children

There’s a device called the Mosquito that emits an annoying sound at a very high frequency—so high that only young people can hear it. It’s marketed by its manufacturers as a means of discouraging kids from loitering in streets and other public spaces. (Shopkeepers have blasted Barry Manilow, to similar effect.) The UK’s first children’s commissioner, Sir Al Aynsley-Green, called it “an ultrasonic weapon designed to stop kids gathering,” and cited its use as proof that the nation’s attitude toward its youngest residents was fundamentally wrong. “This country is one of the most child unfriendly countries in the world,” he said in 2010.

What if, instead of devising ways to deter kids from using public space, cities were built to encourage it? That’s a question that city officials, planners, and NGOs are thinking about. Designing cities with young people in mind—particularly outdoor spaces that encourage safe movement and social interaction—stands to be an issue of growing concern globally. By 2050 around 70 percent of people will be urbanites, and the majority of them will be under 18. Today, over a billion children are growing up in cities.